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Incredible Turnout at Barnes and Noble Signing

Thank you to everyone who turned out for the Grace in the Middle book signing, held at Barnes and Noble in Greenville, South Carolina last weekend. Author Wendy Duke was joined by her daughter Savannah to share her heart behind the book and to sign copies for dozens of people who turned out to meet the pair. In an effort to offer support to other families facing similar struggles at Shriners Hospital, Wendy encouraged shoppers to ‘buy one, give one.’ Readers would keep a copy of the book and also purchase another for a family who may find encouragement in the Duke Family’s story by reading a donated copy of Grace in the Middle. “Many, many thanks for the support and generosity from those who came and those who called in to donate,” Wendy wrote on Facebook. “The store sold out of books, and FIFTY BOOKS were donated to families at Shriners Hospital. Fifty families we’ll be able to encourage. I’m entirely overwhelmed.”

If you’d like your own copy of Grace in the Middle, CLICK HERE.

Blog Tour: Grace in the Middle

Starting today and running through August 29, Ambassador International is hosting a blog tour of Wendy Duke’s new non-fiction book, Grace in the Middle: An Imperfect Journey to God’s Perfect Plan. Be sure to check back in throughout the week to see the reviews and inspiring thoughts some of our bloggers have written about this exciting new publication.

What is Grace in the Middle?

Synopsis: “You are beautiful, little girl of mine,” Wendy Duke whispered over her newborn daughter. It was a still moment amidst the turmoil of birth defects and a life-threatening illness. Grace in the Middle is a memoir recounting one young couple’s struggle to hold on to an unraveling faith during the greatest crisis of their lives. Heartbreaking, triumphant, and funny in just the right places, this inspiring story is an authentic reflection on battling and overcoming physical illness and disability, resisting the dark doubts that plague us in the midst of tragedy, and trusting the faithfulness of God through the deep twists and turns of life.

We’ve asked some of our bloggers to read and review Duke’s story. Their posts will range from a basic review to a discussion about something about the Dukes’ imperfect journey that inspired them.

Perhaps you’ll recognize some of the names on our list!

SUNDAY, AUGUST 23

Crystal Green from tidbitsofexperience.com

MONDAY, AUGUST 24

Dwayne Morris of MorrisMatters.com

Donna Friend from RevelationsontheRun.com

Abby Banks from Wyatt’s fight Against TM

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25

Heather Duncan from heatherduncanwrites.com

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26

Megan Taylor from hopintomyworld.blogspot.com

Haley Marshall

Spencer Cummins from spencerdeancummins.blogspot.com

Jenny Farmer from chocolatenchildren.com

Brenda McGraw from askgodtoday.com

THURSDAY, AUGUST 27

Claresa Smith from Claresa.net

Holly Mthethwa from RuggedandRedeemed.com

FRIDAY, AUGUST 28

Doretta Mills from lifeontheedge-doretta.blogspot.com

Stephanie Wright from stephsscraphappenings.blogspot.com

Leeanne Burda from prayingthroughlife.com

Hope Griffin from HopeNGriffin.com

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29

Angie Fehl from epicfehlreader.booklikes.com

Joni Lynn

Lori Krausen from strengthofitall.com

Michelle Kelly from byquietwaters.com

Courtney Szollosy from ournotsoengineeredlife.blogspot.com

Holly Zegalia from ilikeitfrantic.net

AND OTHERS

Nina Slone

Erica Sandwall from A Disabled Mom’s Life

Dana Perkins

Jennifer Morrissette from desertjuniper.blogspot.com

Bernadette Callahan

Ramona Vincent

Deb Wolf

Lorane Rhoden

Love into the Light: Audio Book Now Available

Ambassador International is excited to announce that Peter Hubbard’s book Love into the Light: The Gospel, The Homosexual and the Church is now available on audio book at your favorite audio book retailers.

Amazon: BUY NOW

Audible: BUY NOW

iTunes: BUY NOW

Want to know more? Here is a synopsis of Love into the Light:

Synopsis: Homosexuality is one of the most controversial moral issues of our day. Headlines teem with stories of athletes’“coming out,” politicians changing positions and courts handing down same-sex marriage rulings. Sadly the church has often been afraid to talk about homosexuality. Many Christians feel confused and divided between the call to love and the call for truth. And many who struggle with unwanted same-sex attraction feel alone and alienated by the church. The time is ripe for God’s people to think and speak about same-sex attraction in a way that is both biblical and beneficial. We must reject our fears and misunderstandings and see ourselves together in need of the grace of Jesus. Love Into Light is designed to move the church toward that end. Written from the heart of a pastor with a love for people and a sensitivity to our culture, Love Into Light is your next step toward becoming more faithfully and helpfully engaged with people in your families, in your church and in your neighborhood.

Prayer: More than Just Words Before Dinner

Former Atheist Seeks to Invigorate Prayer Lives of Christians

For immediate release: “Prayer changes things.” We’ve all heard it before, but sometimes prayer can feel overwhelming. We don’t always know exactly what we should say, and many of us feel insecure in our prayer lives. Author William Ray offers a solution to our anxieties. In Answered Prayer: The Jesus Plan (Ambassador International; July 2015; $12.99, paperback), Ray walks through the most famous prayer in Scripture to encourage and revitalize readers in their own prayer lives.

Ray uses personal anecdotes as a testimony to the miraculous power of prayer. “As a former atheist who had an experience with God through a simple, heart-felt prayer, I understandably have been fascinated by prayer ever since,” writes Ray. Readers are continually reminded of how prayer can and will dramatically draw one closer to the Lord.

The Lord’s Prayer, or as Ray calls it—the Model Prayer— is central to Answered Prayer. Ray dissects each phrase of the prayer as outlined in the book of Matthew and reveals how it applies to a twenty-first century Christian’s prayer life. Ray reminds readers that God wouldn’t have given His children a prayer that didn’t work. Therefore, we can confidently base our personal prayer lives off of this Model Prayer.

Answered Prayer also addresses many of the contemporary issues people have with prayer, such as the misunderstanding of what prayer is and means. Readers will discover:

How to have a relationship with God through prayer
Understanding God’s four answers to prayer (No, Slow, Grow and Go)
Using prayer as a form of worship
Why specific prayers are more powerful

Each chapter contains study sections for readers to “Dig Deeper” into the truths of Answered Prayer. Ray utilizes external Bible verses to reinforce his main points about each phrase of the Model Prayer. In addition, each chapter includes a series of questions to help readers assess and further shape their own prayer life.

About the Author: William Ray served as a pastor for nearly 25 years, mostly in the Phoenix area. He holds the Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and an English degree from Grand Canyon University. William is the author of Bible Study for Beginners, the science fiction series The White Hole Universe Chronicles, and the light-hearted reference book The 100 Most Entertaining Predictions about the 21st Century (co-authored with his wife, Lynette). William also provides a sermon illustration service for pastors at illustrationsforsermons.com. William and Lynette have been married for more than 30 years and have two lovely daughters and one beautiful granddaughter.

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Learning to Trust God When Life Spirals Out of Control

New novel follows life of a hopeful college student navigating turmoil and tragedy

For immediate release: Samantha Jordan planned on enjoying her senior year at Brenton College. With her stepmom, Bay Harris, soon to add another precious addition to her family of four, the future is looking bright and exciting. However, when tragedy strikes the midst of her family, Sam must come to terms with her relationship with God and reevaluate her life. In From Driftwood to Sapphire (Ambassador International; August 2015; $14.99), Sam is forced to uncover shocking secrets that completely disrupt her quiet mountaintop life. The question is, will these new changes be accepted?

rom Driftwood to Sapphire is author Kathy M. Howard’s second novel, the anticipated follow up to her 2014 book From Dishes to Snow. “From Driftwood to Sapphire brings Samantha Jordan’s point of view into light. She is the daughter of Wren Jordan, the main character’s love interest in From Dishes to Snow,” explains Howard. “Samantha grew up without a mother, until her father married Bay Harris – a mother without her children as a result of a tragic accident. All of the lives are interconnected in some way or another, with God and View Top Mountain as commonalities.”

Sam’s journey may start out with a tragic loss, but it will also end up with a surprising addition. With the discovery of a long-lost mother and a potential half-sister, Sam’s plan for a quiet senior year is about to take an unexpected turn. “It’s easier to trust God with our lives when things are going well, when we are happy and healthy,” says Howard. “But, when life spirals out of our control, trusting Him is much more difficult. We want answers and reasons for why situations occur. We want the easy way out or to press rewind and change our life’s direction.”

Howard says the book is a very clear example Proverbs 3:5-6, which tells us to trust God and to not lean on our own understanding of a situation. “We need to trust Him whether we understand the whys or not,” she says. “That is a lot easier said than done, but if we will stop trying to fight Him, stop trying to swim upstream against the current, He will see us through, having a greater faith and a more peaceful spirit.”

About the Author: Kathy M. Howard makes her home in Blackshear, Georgia, with her husband and two daughters. She has been involved in education since 1998 as an elementary school teacher, a private school principal, and presently, as a homeschooling mom. Driftwood to Sapphire is her second novel.

To connect with the author or request a review copy of From Driftwood to Sapphire please contact publicist Alison Storm at media@emeraldhouse.com.

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Pastor Encourages Christians to Live Bold, Daring, Courageous Lives of Faith

New Book Challenges Christians to Live Uncareful Lives

For immediate release: Whether you realize it or not, you’ve been called to be a go-with-Jesus disciple. Your life has an intricate and extraordianry plan, and the only thing standing in the way is you. Jim Albright’s Uncareful Lives: Walking Where Feet May Fail (Ambassador International; July 2015; $12.99, paperback) is a rallying cry for Christians to boldly step out in their faith to live “uncarefully” for the Lord.

In Uncareful Lives, author Jim Albright exhorts Christians to step out of their comfort zones in obedience to Jesus Christ. After spending two decades in corporate business as a CPA, Albright answered God’s call to preach. “Sadly, unlike what we see on the pages of Scripture, many who call themselves Christians today forgo nothing, venture nothing, risk nothing, and sacrifice nothing,” writes Albright.

Uncareful Lives is a contemporary walkthrough of some of the fundamentals of the Christian faith. Albright begins with a description of who God is and works from this truth to encourage readers to live boldly in their faith. He uses the story of Peter walking on water to meet Jesus as a metaphor for our own need to meet Jesus despite the ever-present obstacles. Riddled with Scripture and quotes from some of Christianity’s most influential writers, Albright’s book can be a first step out onto the water of a radical life of truly walking with Christ.

Albright warns that the uncareful life is not necessarily a comfortable life or an easy one, though it is by far the most thrilling. He cautions the Christian who follows God’s call that we may have to make hard, costly, and risky decisions, but, because our God is God, we can trust His sovereignty in the uncareful-ness. “I wrote this book with the specific intent of lovingly destroying your present way of life if you call yourself a Christian but have not truly given yourself away to Jesus Christ.” Uncareful Lives emphatically reminds readers to perform “exploits of faith” for the glory of God.

About the Author: At the age of 42, Jim left a 20-year business career to answer God’s call to preach. Since early 2004, he and his wife, Karen, have lived in Milan, Italy, where Jim is the pastor of the International Church of Milan, a non-denominational, Bible-believing, and Bible-teaching church ministering to internationals from every corner of the globe.

Child with One Leg Beats the Odds and Kicks Cancer, Too

Miracle Daughter Challenges Parents’ Faith in New Book

For immediate release: After years of trying to get pregnant, Wendy and Scott Duke were finally going to have their first child. But when a dangerous pre-natal diagnosis followed by an even more lethal disease after their daughter’s birth threatened to immediately take their newborn away, the Dukes turned to their only hope: God. In Grace in the Middle (Ambassador International; July 2015; $13.99, paperback) Duke encourages readers through the amazing story of her young daughter’s victory over some of life’s most perilous afflictions.

Wendy and Scott Duke were your typical young married couple who had met in Fellowship of Christian Athletes while in college. But when it came time to grow their family, things became anything but typical. After three miscarriages, the Dukes were hesitant when Wendy conceived a third time. Just when they thought God had given them the green light at an early doctor’s appointment, their excitement was shattered by a simple sentence: “Baby only has one leg.”

Anxious, frustrated, and scared, Wendy and Scott braced themselves for the unknown. In Grace in the Middle, Wendy recounts how her faith was rattled throughout the pregnancy. “I had never had to flesh out this flimsy faith I’d claimed,” Duke writes. “It had no meat, no muscles, no substance. I just kept asking, ‘What kind of God would let this happen?’” Her book reveals exactly what kind of God He is. When little Savannah was born, the Dukes breathed a sigh of relief; they believed the worst had passed. But another battle was rearing its menacing head: cancer. Wendy writes about her anger toward God after this new development, “I turned to look at Scott, and I screamed as loud as I could—choking on every word—‘WHERE…IS…GOD?!’

Grace in the Middle details the physical, emotional, and spiritual struggles Wendy and Scott faced during the pregnancy and the treatments for their daughter Savannah’s cancer. Duke reminds us that God was always there for her even when she might not have felt His presence. She continually emphasizes the importance of having the love and support of family and a church, highlighting the richness in spiritual growth that takes place through such difficult trials. The first few years of Savannah’s life were difficult—there’s no denying that. But, as Duke is attentive to remind, God is stronger and more powerful than any curveballs thrown at a believer. Grace in the Middle even includes a chapter written by Savannah, who is now almost 15 and living a normal, busy, teenage life.

About the Author: Wendy Duke lives in South Carolina with her husband and two children. She works with her husband in international sports development, using their backgrounds in coaching and telling their story throughout the world. When she’s not traveling, she is a Bible teacher, speaker, blogger, sports junkie, and middle school chauffeur. Grace in the Middle is Wendy’s first book. She writes on her blog at www.wendyduke.net.

To connect with the author or request a review copy of Grace in the Middle, please contact publicist Alison Storm at media@emeraldhouse.com.

New Children’s Book Champions Creativity and Imagination

Author edifies childhood creativity to educate and delight readers

For immediate release: Children are some of the most imaginative and creative individuals; their imaginations seem to be limitless. Creative Christopher (Ambassador International; July 2015; $14.99, hardcover) is the story of one boy who exercises his creative muscles when he gets snowbound at his grandparents’ house. In her latest book, author Kate Hanscom emboldens children to tap into their creative potentials while educating them on some of the more creative features of language.

Creative Christopher takes readers through Christopher’s day when he is trapped inside without many of his toys. Christopher, along with his Papa and Nana, spend the day imagining themselves in different scenarios by using everyday objects around the house. The trio enjoys exploring and playing in all different parts of the world without ever leaving the warmth and safety of Nana and Papa’s house thanks to Christopher’s imagination.

The book also includes a resource page to help teach children about synonyms, referencing sentences that appear in the story. In addition, Hanscom includes pages to inspire the creative minds of her readers, challenging them to get creative with just a limited supply of everyday materials.

Hanscom is also the author of Literal Lily and Fickle Fiona, two stories that educate young readers on language and decision making, respectively. In her third book, Hanscom draws from her own family and experiences to help foster a creative spirit in children while entertaining them with Christopher’s fun adventures.

About the Author: Kate Hanscom grew up in Utica, New York. A graduate of Stonehill College, she currently lives in Auburn, Massachusetts, with her husband Chris and family.

Since the publication of her first book, Literal Lily, Kate has found such joy and fulfillment in sharing her stories with those who will learn from and be delighted by them most: children! In her third book, Creative Christopher, she hopes to share not only her love of words but also the fun of imagination! She hopes that when readers meet Christopher, they are encouraged to dream, explore, and have a ball with the ideas that pop into their heads!

About the Illustrator: Lynda Hanscom is originally from Long Island, New York. She holds a BFA from St. John’s University and an MAT from the Rhode Island School of Design. As an art teacher, she guided hundreds of budding student artists from kindergarten through high school to be creative through drawing, painting, and sculpting.

In this, her fourth book, Lynda is happy to lend her own son’s face and name to Creative Christopher! Also the illustrator for Tough Tommy (a children’s bereavement book), Literal Lily, and Fickle Fiona, Lynda lives in Northern Connecticut with her loving and supportive husband, Doug.

To connect with the author or request a review copy of Creative Christopher please contact publicist Alison Storm at media@emeraldhouse.com

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Grace in the Middle Graphics

Members of our Grace in the Middle Blog Tour: Want a little something extra to help this special post “pop” on your page the week of August 23-August 29? We’ve put together some graphics for your use! Feel free to pull from any of the following to enhance your writing and help promote Wendy Duke’s incredible story. Don’t forget to link back to Ambassador International, as well! Once your post is live fill out this short form and we’ll help promote: https://ambassador-international.com/submit-book-review/. We’re eagerly anticipating all of your wonderful posts!