The Gift of the Stranger


Book Description

A pioneering look at the implications of Christian faith for foreign language education. It has become clear in recent years that reflection on foreign language education involves more than questioning which methods work best. This new volume carries current discussions of the value-laden nature of foreign language teaching into new territory by exploring its spiritual and moral dimensions. David Smith and Barbara Carvill show how the Christian faith sheds light on the history, aims, content, and methods of foreign language education. They also propose a new approach to the field based on the Christian understanding of hospitality.




Learning from the Stranger


Book Description

Cultural differences increasingly impact our everyday lives. Virtually none of us today interact exclusively with people who look, talk, and behave like we do. David Smith here offers an excellent guide to living and learning in our culturally interconnected world. / Learning from the Stranger clearly explains what "culture" is, discusses how cultural difference affects our perceptions and behavior, and explores how Jesus' call to love our neighbor involves learning from cultural strangers. Built around three chapter-length readings of extended biblical passages (from Genesis, Luke, and Acts), the book skillfully weaves together theological and practical concerns, and Smith’s engaging, readable text is peppered with stories from his own extensive firsthand experience. / Many thoughtful readers will resonate with this insightful book as it encourages the virtues of humility and hospitality in our personal interactions — and shows how learning from strangers, not just imparting our own ideas to them, is an integral part of Christian discipleship.




A Stranger's Gift


Book Description

True Stories of Faith in Unexpected Places In this very personal, welcoming book, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tom Hallman, Jr., shares his journey of faith from indifferent agnostic to growing believer. Faith, Hallman tells us, is looking in the mirror in the morning and wondering why. It’s about doubt and hope. It’s catching a glimpse of a beacon piercing the fog of life and walking toward it, never knowing if you’re headed in the right direction, but pressing onward. You’ll meet ordinary people and be drawn into conversations that ask probing, almost intrusive questions—conversations that linger in your mind and resonate with your heart—from the ache of a mother who watched her baby die after only twenty days of struggling for life to the peaceful strength of a man working with those whose present situations mirror his past. Within these pages, you’ll find real and honest accounts of everyday people whose discoveries of faith will inspire and comfort you on your own journey. *** The security lock thumped open, and I stepped into Level 3, a neonatal unit where I had been drawn to a drama played out minute by minute. As I stood above two cribs along a back wall, I wondered less about doctors, nurses, and medicine and more about God. Two babies had been born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Both had been placed on a heart-lung bypass machine to let their organs rest. One boy had no name. His mother was a crack addict. After giving birth, she abandoned her baby and never returned to the hospital. In the adjacent crib lay Jonah Van Arnam. His parents were active members of a church and visited their son daily to pray for him and the nurses and doctors. One afternoon, a nurse pulled me aside and told me a miracle was taking place: the crack addict’s baby was getting better. But . . . Jonah was dying. Why had God abandoned this couple and their son? Where was this so-called loving God? —from chapter 6




The Stranger


Book Description

A local woman is killed in a tragic car crash, but it isn’t a clear-cut drunk driving case. The victim’s blood contains high alcohol levels, but she rarely drank a drop. Meanwhile, a reality TV show begins shooting in the town, and as cameras shadow the stars’ every move, tempers start to flare. When a drunken party ends with an unpopular contestant’s murder, all eyes turn to the cast and crew. Could there be a murderer among them? The ratings spike as the country tunes into a real-life murder mystery. Detective Patrik Hedstrom finds himself increasingly unable to focus on the strange circumstances of the first case, but what if that holds the key to a series of other unsolved cases across Sweden? Under the unforgiving media spotlight, Patrik tackles his toughest investigation yet.




Welcoming the Stranger


Book Description

World Relief staffers Matthew Soerens and Jenny Yang move beyond the rhetoric to offer a Christian response to immigration. With careful historical understanding and thoughtful policy analysis, they debunk myths about immigration, show the limits of the current immigration system, and offer concrete ways for you to welcome and minister to your immigrant neighbors.




A Stranger's Gift


Book Description

A hurricane has devastated Sarasota, Florida. Enter Hester Detlef, a dedicated field director for the Mennonite Disaster Service. Having refused to evacuate at the onset of the hurricane, former Amish man John Hafner is homeless, jobless, faithless, and badly injured. Will his limited patience for a Mennonite do-gooder keep him from accepting the help he so desperately needs?




The Stranger


Book Description

The Russian author’s international-bestselling series begins with this “well-written, well-paced grown-up fantasy with a strong dose of reality” (Kirkus Reviews). Fandomania.com’s #1 Book of 2009 To put it bluntly, Max Frei is a loser. He spends his day sleeping and at night he smokes, eats, and loafs around because he can’t catch a wink. But then he gets lucky. Through his dreams, he begins to contact a parallel world where magic is a daily practice—and, strangely, Max seems to fit right in. Once a social outcast, he’s now known in this new world of Echo as the “unequalled Sir Max.” He’s a member of the Department of Absolute Order, formed by a species of enchanted secret agents; his job is to solve cases involving illegal magic. And he’s about to embark on a journey down the winding paths of this strange and unhinged universe. “Fans of Jasper Fforde and Susanna Clark will happily jump into Frei’s world.” —USA Today “If Harry Potter smoked cigarettes and took a certain matter-of-fact pleasure in administering tough justice, he might like Max Frei, the protagonist of this fantasy novel.” —Kirkus Reviews




Welcoming the Stranger


Book Description

This book is an astute rethinking of theology and pastoral ministry that overcomes sentimental notions of hospitality.




Love the Stranger


Book Description

Poetry. Top Debut Collection of 2015, Poets and Writers. "This is a book of great beauty and of terrible suspicion regarding that beauty. This is a poet of intensifying linguistic gift and of terrible suspicion regarding that gift. Is there, yet, an Auto-Voyeuristic school of poetry? If not, then Jay Deshpande's troubling and gorgeous LOVE THE STRANGER 'watch yourself grow muscle in your failures / and hate it' could be the founding document." Josh Bell "Deshpande tracks those moments when we become strange to ourselves, when indecision and failure wrench us open. He writes with a kind of glowing, dreamlike clarity about desire, distraction, regret the ways we rush past ourselves, the ways we hurt each other. This book is full of searching and light." Joanna Klink "Elegant, dreamy, and hauntingly charismatic, Deshpande's poems captivate the way the recordings of their patron saint Chet Baker do, insisting time after time that exceptional artistry can spin even radical loneliness and excruciating sensitivity into music that radiates and affirms. Provoking 'a hunger become so animal' then tranquilizing it with 'orchestrated moonlight, ' LOVE THE STRANGER is a book, a shady neighborhood, and a mood that readers will return to again and again." Timothy Donnelly"




The Stranger Times


Book Description

'Wonderfully dark, extremely funny' proclaimed ADAM KAY, author of the No.1 bestselling This is Going to Hurt 'A filmic romp with great characters, a jet-propelled plot, and a winning premise' said the GUARDIAN JASON MANFORD thinks it's 'Hilarious. You'll never look at Manchester the same way again.' The Chronicles of St Mary's series author JODI TAYLOR declared 'I loved this . . . great premise - great story - great characters . . . hugely enjoyable.' And THE TIMES called it 'ripping entertainment from start to finish.' There are dark forces at work in our world (and in Manchester in particular), so thank God The Stranger Times is on hand to report them . . . A weekly newspaper dedicated to the weird and the wonderful (but mostly the weird), it is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable. At least that's their pitch. The reality is rather less auspicious. Their editor is a drunken, foul-tempered and foul-mouthed husk of a man who thinks little of the publication he edits. His staff are a ragtag group of misfits. And as for the assistant editor . . . well, that job is a revolving door - and it has just revolved to reveal Hannah Willis, who's got problems of her own. When tragedy strikes in her first week on the job The Stranger Times is forced to do some serious investigating. What they discover leads to a shocking realisation: some of the stories they'd previously dismissed as nonsense are in fact terrifyingly real. Soon they come face-to-face with darker forces than they could ever have imagined. The Stranger Times is the first novel from C.K. McDonnell, the pen name of Caimh McDonnell. It combines his distinctive dark wit with his love of the weird and wonderful to deliver a joyous celebration of how truth really can be stranger than fiction. Readers love The Stranger Times: ***** 'A delight from start to finish - laugh out loud funny yet with plenty of thrills.' ***** 'Full of wit and humour, and knows how to keep the reader hooked.' ***** 'You'll soon fall in love . . . fans of Pratchett, Gaiman, Aaronovich will be blown away.'