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.




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




Her Mother's Hope


Book Description

The first in an epic two-book saga, this sweeping story explores the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters as each woman is forced to confront her faulty but well-meaning desire to help her daughter find her God-given place in the world. "Ambitious, strong-willed Marta Schneider leaves her home in rural Switzerland at the beginning of the 20th century. She's determined to flee her abusive father, loving but weak mother, and the constraints placed on women. Meeting interesting characters all along her journey, she works her way to Canada. There she buys a boardinghouse and meets her match in Niclas Waltert, a German engineer with a farmer's heart. Through Marta's sharp elbows and the sweat of Niclas's brow, the family eventually arrives at an increasingly comfortable life in California's Central Valley. The second half of the story is told from the point of view of constitutionally timid daughter Hildemara Rose."--Publishers Weekly.




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.




Core Christianity


Book Description

What beliefs are core to the Christian faith? This book is here to help you understand the reason for your hope as a Christian so that you can see it with fresh sight and invite others into the conversation. A lot of Christians take their story—the narratives that give rise to their beliefs—for granted. They pray, go to church, perhaps even read their Bible. But they might be stuck if a stranger asked them to explain what they believe and why they believe it. Author, pastor, and theologian Mike Horton unpacks the essential and basic beliefs that all Christians share in a way that is easy to understand and applicable to our lives today. And in a way that will make you excited to be a Christian! Core Christianity covers topics like: Jesus as both fully God and fully man. The doctrine of the Trinity. The goodness of God despite a broken world. The ways God speaks. The meaning of salvation. What is the Christian calling? Includes discussion questions for individual or group use. This introduction to the basic doctrines of Christianity is perfect for those who are new to the faith, as well as those who have an interest in deepening their understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.




Tchitchikoff's Journeys


Book Description




Capitalism and Disability


Book Description

Spread out over many years and many different publications, the late author and activist Marta Russell wrote a number of groundbreaking and insightful essays on the nature of disability and oppression under capitalism. In this volume, Russell’s various essays are brought together in one place in order to provide a useful and expansive resource to those interested in better understanding the ways in which the modern phenomenon of disability is shaped by capitalist economic and social relations. The essays range in analysis from the theoretical to the topical, including but not limited to: the emergence of disability as a “human category” rooted in the rise of industrial capitalism and the transformation of the conditions of work, family, and society corresponding thereto; a critique of the shortcomings of a purely “civil rights approach” to addressing the persistence of disability oppression in the economic sphere, with a particular focus on the legacy of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; an examination of the changing position of disabled people within the overall system of capitalist production utilizing the Marxist economic concepts of the reserve army of the unemployed, the labor theory of value, and the exploitation of wage-labor; the effects of neoliberal capitalist policies on the living conditions and social position of disabled people as it pertains to welfare, income assistance, health care, and other social security programs; imperialism and war as a factor in the further oppression and immiseration of disabled people within the United States and globally; and the need to build unity against the divisive tendencies which hide the common economic interest shared between disabled people and the often highly-exploited direct care workers who provide services to the former.







The Rise of Central American Film in the Twenty-First Century


Book Description

How an overlooked film industry became a cinematic force The first book in English dedicated to the study of Central American film, this volume explores the main trends, genres, and themes that define this emerging industry. The seven nations of the region have seen an unprecedented growth in film production during the twenty-first century with the creation of over 200 feature-length films compared with just one in the 1990s. This volume provides a needed overview of one of the least explored cinemas in the world. In these essays, various scholars of film and cultural studies from around the world provide insights into the continuities and discontinuities between twentieth- and twenty-first-century cinematic production on the Isthmus. They discuss how political, social, and environmental factors, along with new production modes and aesthetics, have led to a corpus of films that delve into issues of the past and present such as postwar memory, failed revolutions, trauma, migration, popular culture, minority populations, and gender disparities. From Salvadoran documentaries to Costa Rican comedies and Panamanian sports films, the movies analyzed here demonstrate the region’s flourishing film industry and the diversity of approaches found within it. The Rise of Central American Film in the Twenty-First Century pays homage to an overlooked cultural phenomenon and shows the importance of regional cinema studies. Contributors: Liz Harvey-Kattou | Daniela Granja Núñez | Carolina Sanabria | Juan Carlos Rodríguez | María Lourdes Cortés | Júlia González de Canales Carcereny | Arno Jacob Argueta | Tomás Arce Mairena | Dr. Mauricio Espinoza | Lilia García Torres | Dr. Jared List | Patricia Arroyo Calderón | Esteban E. Loustaunau | Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste | Juan Pablo Gómez Lacayo | Jennifer Carolina Gómez Menjívar A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.




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.