Journey to Marta’s Faith


Book Description

When the Rodrigos are forced to abandon their church and parsonage in Arizona in 1952, the family makes a decision to move to California’s San Joaquin Valley, where fieldwork is plentiful and a rental waits for them. Seventeen-year-old Marta Rodrigo is worried. They’re low on traveling money, the old station wagon is on its last leg, and they don’t know whether the rental will still be available to them. Worse, they are leaving behind Grandmother, who fell during a stroke, and her brother Phil, who is at war in Korea. Marta’s faith is under attack as her fifteen-year-old brother, Julian, has made her life miserable. She sees their Arizona home as their point of contact with God, their cypress trees and terrain serving as her hope. Leaving that normalcy behind, Marta believes life will never be the same; depression leaves her questioning her faith. But when the Rodrigos arrive in Somerville, California, they meet a young man named Henry Barnes who provides Marta with a new hope for the future and helps her reconnect with her trust in a heavenly God who was always faithful and just. Set in the mid-twentieth century, this novel follows a young woman dealing with challenges to her faith when her family moves from Arizona to California.




Journey to Marta's Faith


Book Description

When the Rodrigos are forced to abandon their church and parsonage in Arizona in 1952, the family makes a decision to move to California's San Joaquin Valley, where fieldwork is plentiful and a rental waits for them. Seventeen-year-old Marta Rodrigo is worried. They're low on traveling money, the old station wagon is on its last leg, and they don't know whether the rental will still be available to them. Worse, they are leaving behind Grandmother, who fell during a stroke, and her brother Phil, who is at war in Korea. Marta's faith is under attack as her fifteen-year-old brother, Julian, has made her life miserable. She sees their Arizona home as their point of contact with God, their cypress trees and terrain serving as her hope. Leaving that normalcy behind, Marta believes life will never be the same; depression leaves her questioning her faith. But when the Rodrigos arrive in Somerville, California, they meet a young man named Henry Barnes who provides Marta with a new hope for the future and helps her reconnect with her trust in a heavenly God who was always faithful and just. Set in the mid-twentieth century, this novel follows a young woman dealing with challenges to her faith when her family moves from Arizona to California.




Her Mother's Hope


Book Description

In this first of an epic family saga by Francine Rivers, mother and daughter relationships are challenged, setting their family on a course full of heartache.




Keeping Your Faith Through SoCrates's Journey


Book Description

Many of us believe in miracles, signs, and divine intervention. We are often both knowingly and unknowingly manifesting. Sometimes we get premonitions from our dreams which allows us to have deep connections with the universe. It's comforting for me to know that when I ask God for something in prayer along with a sign to assure me that my prayer will indeed be granted, God always sends me my sign. I also know that in my own life, all of the events that have happened and those still yet to come are being divinely orchestrated to lovingly guide me to where I am supposed to be and when I'm supposed to be there. If you look back at some of the events that have occurred in your life and connect them via "dots" from when the events started, you will see how each event allowed for the next event and how that event in turn allowed for the following event and so on. If you follow along in this manner, you will see why each dot was significantly important for the conclusion of the situation or event to take place as God and the universe intended. These concluding dots now allow for a new series of dots to begin so as God and the universe can once again lead you to the next conclusion. I call this concept "connecting the dots." Let me be clear about something: I believe that there are no coincidences in life, and everything happens to us for a reason. Although we all have free will to make the choices that we make every day, the destination we reach has already been lovingly predetermined by God. Whenever we do anything for the glory of God and which praises him, we will always achieve success, doors will be opened, and we will be blessed with everything good that God, our Father, wants and intends for us to have. God, our Father, wants all of his children to be happy, healthy, and enjoy an abundant life. These are the reasons that he made us in his image. We are all God's children, and he is our Father. Signs are all around us. They are not mere random occurrences that one could relate to any particular event. We only have to open our eyes, mind, heart, and soul to see that this is, in fact, the case. If we open ourselves in this way, it's easy to believe that these signs are real and meant for us. They are there to guide us along on our journey throughout our lives. It is sincerely my deepest desire that as you read the true to life stories of the many miracles granted to SoCrates and our family that you will be filled with hope and joy and be blessed with countless miracles just as we were. You only need to have faith in God and trust in him as I have learned to do. Ask and it shall be granted. Hope Isabella Lenkersdorf Smith




Straying from the Straight Path


Book Description

If piety, faith, and conviction constitute one side of the religious coin, then imperfection, uncertainty, and ambivalence constitute the other. Yet, scholars tend to separate these two domains and place experiences of inadequacy in everyday religious life – such as a wavering commitment, religious negligence or weakness in faith – outside the domain of religion ‘proper.’ Straying from the Straight Path breaks with this tendency by examining how self-perceived failure is, in many cases, part and parcel of religious practice and experience. Responding to the need for comparative approaches in the face of the largely separated fields of the anthropology of Islam and Christianity, this volume gives full attention to moral failure as a constitutive and potentially energizing force in the religious lives of both Muslims and Christians in different parts of the world.




Tchitchikoff's Journeys


Book Description




Traveling Between the Worlds


Book Description

For anyone who’s ever had the desire to look at the world through the eyes of our indigenous ancestors, here is a unique opportunity. Traveling between the Worlds is a treasure trove of insight and exploration into the ancient spiritual wisdom of such diverse cultures as Ireland, Africa, and the Americas. The keeper of this wisdom is the shaman--a man or woman who can, at will, enter into altered states of consciousness in order to acquire extrasensory knowledge and healing power. In this important book, Hillary S. Webb invites us to eavesdrop on her conversations with some of today’s most influential teachers and writers of shamanism. While the conversations cover a variety of topics pertaining to the shaman’s path and practice, this book explores how we in the modern world can use these ancient teachings to help ourselves, each other, and the world around us. Included in this book are conversations with:Renowned author and environmentalist John Perkins, who brings corporate executives to the Amazon to teach them the value of merging business and eco-philosophy.Rabbi Gershon Winkler, who uses the beliefs and techniques of the Jewish shamanic tradition to bring Israelis and Palestinians together on common, and more peaceful, ground--their indigenous roots.“Renegade” shaman Ken Eagle Feather of the Toltec tradition, who explains how modern technology can help us evolve into the next level of perception.Peruvian shaman Oscar Miro-Quesada, whose ideas on life and death may alter your view of reality itself. And that is just the beginning.







The Life of Irony and the Ethics of Belief


Book Description

Wisdo concludes that the fragility of religious belief is due to the unavoidable irony intrinsic to the religious life.




Coming of Age in the Afro-Latin American Novel


Book Description

Explores the dimensions of the coming-of-age novel in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and Brazil, focusing on works by eight major Afro-Latin American writers