Author News Archives - Ambassador International

Archive for the ‘Author News’ Category

New YouVersion Plan: Turning Ashes Into Beauty by Anne Farnum

As part of Ambassador International’s mission to “magnify the Lord Jesus Christ and promote His gospel through the written word,” we are a partner with YouVersion to help people make the Bible a part of their everyday lives. Author Anne Farnum has just released her third Bible plan with YouVersion titled “Turning Ashes Into Beauty.”

Life is messy! Sometimes we need to own the messiness; sometimes, it is just part of living in a sinful world. God takes the struggles and hardships of this world and redeems them. We need to know this truth that God is faithfully at work as we encounter our world. Join Anne Farnum over the next five days and discover what to do with the ashes you hold.

Click HERE or search for “Ambassador International” in your YouVersion app and find this plan, along with all our others, to get started!

In Memory: H. Robert Wilson, Ph.D.

We are not always made aware of major life events in our authors’ lives, but today we were notified by family that on May 27, 2023, Dr. H. Robert Wilson passed away after a three-week battle with pancreatic and liver cancer. While we know he is rejoicing at having met his Creator he loved so dearly, we also know his family is grieving at their loss here on earth. Please be in prayer for his family as they grieve.

Dr. H. Robert Wilson was trained in biology with a PhD degree in Zoology (parasitology, anatomy and physiology), which he followed with a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Pathology. He had an active research career spanning three decades, much of that time in the pharmaceutical industry involved in the exciting task of finding, evaluating, and testing possible new medications against certain infectious diseases and cancer, which he and his colleagues hoped might ultimately benefit patients.

Though becoming a Christian in 1974, he still accepted evolution as real because “I educationally grew up with it, just accepting it, and never critically questioning whether it actually was real or not. It somehow just was, and as to what Scripture revealed? I believed God created, surely, but—I did not even attempt to reconcile Scripture’s truth with the science I knew at that time. God forgive me.”

Reading a sentence in Lee Strobel’s “The Case for a Creator,” Dr. Wilson found himself stunned, and “the more I looked into what evolution taught in accepted textbooks and standard reference materials, the more I found that it was not the science, not the truth, and not the fact it claimed to be.”

As a result, Dr. Wilson authored Nullifying God: Evolution’s End Game, A Scientist’s Challenge, a wonderful apologetic book written for Christians and other readers who are not familiar with science. Dr. Wilson hoped to provide a resource to help Christians be able to clearly see, point-by-point, the outright (and likely unintentional) deception that evolution is in presenting itself as accepted fact and to also understand how its staunch advocates and activists—although certainly not all of evolution supporters—are using evolution to attempt to nullify God in our lives.

Not only did Dr. Wilson provide this resource for Christians, but he was active in the social media sphere {especially on Twitter!} using his brilliant mind and science knowledge to speak the truth regarding Creation.

He will certainly be missed, and his family and friends are in our thoughts and prayers. Please keep them in yours as well.

To view the official obituary, please visit HERE.

Carol Award Semi-Finalist: Addy of the Door Islands!

The Carol Award Semi-Finalists were announced this week, and we’re thrilled that Addy of the Door Islands by Judy DuCharme has been listed as a semi-finalist in the young adult category!

Addy of the Door Islands is the story of Addy, a little girl who arrived on an orphan train with her sister, desperate for a home, love, and acceptance. Lainey and her husband Clifford find themselves on the verge of parenthood—both adoptive and biological—and find that their adventures on Door Island are only beginning.

Learn more about this long-awaited sequel to Lainey of the Door Islands HERE and add it to your Goodreads HERE.

Selah Award Winner!

We are thrilled to announce that When Legends Rise by Daphne Self was awarded first place in Speculative Fiction in the Selah Awards! While we are always proud of our authors, winning first place in the prestigious Selah Awards shows the hard work and dedication put into a book.

Congratulations, Daphne!

#Throwback Thursday: Biblical Leadership: Becoming a Different Kind of Leader by Ken Collier and Matt Williams

As we reminisce on the over forty years that God has blessed Ambassador International to remain in business, we are highlighting a different #backlistbook each week in a series called #ThrowbackThursday.

This week’s featured book is Biblical Leadership: Becoming a Different Kind of Leader by Ken Collier and Matt Williams which was published by Ambassador International on April 1, 2004.

Biblical Leadership is written by two long time Christian leaders who have had years of practicing Biblically based servant leadership. At age eleven, Ken Collier accepted Christ as his Savior at a Christian camp in Alabama. In the years to follow, the Lord continued to use camp ministries to mold his life in service for the Lord. After receiving a degree at Bob Jones University, Ken joined the full-time staff of The WILDS in North Carolina, where he now serves as the camp director. In addition to his camp responsibilities, he is a deacon in his local church where he teaches the adult Sunday School class. He and his wife, Mardi, have three sons and one daughter.

Matt Williams is Associate Pastor of Tri-City Ministries in Independence, Missouri where he has served for thirty-two years. He is also Executive Director of the Mid-America Association of Christian Schools and the Missouri Association of Christian Schools. He has spoken at numerous churches, conventions, and the American Association of Christian Schools Student Leadership Conferences across the nation. He is the author of How to Be a Team Player and Enjoy It. Pastor Williams and his wife, Donna, have been married for thirty-three years and have five children.

There are many different types of leaders—leaders in the business world, in government, in the home, and in the local church, but sadly, many times leadership has been completely contrary to what the Bible teaches.

Many leaders are focused on what they can get from their positions of authority rather than on what they can give to the works in which they are involved. While some view it as a tool for popularity and power, leadership is a privilege. Leadership requires responsibility.

Biblical Leadership teaches biblical leaders how to be people of integrity and humility—leaders who are willing to be different.

Biblical Leadership will open up your understanding to a complete new look at Biblical leadership, and for a limited time, you can grab this ebook for 1.99! Don’t miss out!

You can add Biblical Leadership to your Goodreads HERE and you can learn more and find purchase links HERE. This book is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook!

Meet Jennifer Bosma

Learn more about your favorite Ambassador authors with our “5 Things” series. Jennifer Bosma is the author of the adorable children’s books I Know the Plans and The Baby Garden. Check out Jennifer’s five fast facts below…

I applied to be a contestant for the TV show “Survivor.”
I have walked with lions in Zimbabwe at a lion rehabilitation center.
I swam in a shark cage while observing over twenty sharks swimming around the cage.
I have appeared in Andy Grammer’s “Honey I’m Good” Music Video.
I have finished 3 marathons.

Jennifer Bosma has an enthusiasm for life, seeking joy in each day. Knowing the importance of spoken Scripture, she loves sharing God’s Word and His promises for abundant life with children and their parents. Jennifer taught elementary school for twenty-three years, touching the hearts of over five hundred students. Her first published children’s book, The Baby Garden, explains God’s plan for every child, planned or unplanned.

When Jennifer’s children were small, early on, she learned the importance of speaking Scripture to them. There were a few Scriptures that she spoke over them every day. Her goal behind I Know the Plans is to incorporate these powerful Scriptures from the point of view of Jesus as promises to each child. The rhyming text captures the attention of children as the Scripture is introduced. Her prayer is that both parents and children will make these Scriptures a part of their everyday lives as biblical promises for them.

I Know the Plans by Jennifer Bosma

Jennifer currently works in a discipleship ministry for ladies facing an unplanned pregnancy and has a very active blog to mentor young women. She and her husband of thirty-three years love spending time with their three grown daughters, a son-in-law, and two granddaughters. They enjoy traveling and being in the great outdoors, marveling at God’s beautiful creation.

You can find Jennifer on her website, Goodreads, and Bookbub! Learn more about Jennifer and her adorable children’s books here!

#Throwback Thursday: The Wild-Bird Child by Derick Bingham

Today we’re highlighting the book The Wild-Bird Child: A Life of Amy Carmichael by Derick Bingham, first published by Ambassador International in 2004, and re-released with a new cover in 2019.

Amy, a Christian missionary, social reformer and writer of thirty-five books, once described herself as a ‘Wild-bird child and in no wise tame’: her life proved her observation to be hauntingly accurate.

For this biography, the first by anyone from her home County, Derick Bingham carefully researched Amy Carmichael’s original letters now placed by the Dohnavur Fellowship and Miss Margaret Wilkinson in the Northern Ireland Public Records Office.

During the time of the Raj in India, Amy Carmichael discovered a custom of the time in which children were ‘married to gods’ and so introduced to a life of prostitution. With a mixture of courage and heartbreak, she began to uncover the facts, sometimes under disguise, for the government. After independence, the Indian government courageously prohibited the practice by law. Against difficult circumstances, Amy and her colleagues provided a safe home for these children against awesomely difficult circumstances at Dohnavur in South India.

Until her death in 1951, she devoted fifty years of her life to rescuing babies and children from dangerous backgrounds in India.

As Bingham tried to uncover the heart and conscience of this extraordinarily self-effacing legend, he is on record as saying that it proved to be one of the greatest spiritual experiences of his life, and in this biography, readers will find spiritual gold. She was brilliant, personable and passionate, and she is arguably the most gifted of all Irish woman writers of Christian literature.

You can add The Wild-Bird Child to your Goodreads HERE and you can learn more and find purchase links HERE. This book is available in paperback, ebook, and audio!

Five Things about J.D. Rempel

Learn more about your favorite Ambassador authors with our “5 Things” series. J.D. Rempel is the author of the middle grade series, The NorCal Girls, with book two Melanie at Camp Redwoods releasing on April 20th! Check out J.D.’s five fast facts below…

1. I am an Anglophile.

2. I have a turtle named Applesauce.

3. I wanted to be an archaeologist when I grew up . . . I still do.

4. I love Christian alternative rock and eighties music.

5. My favorite painting is The Maids of Honor/Las Meninas by Diego Velazquez. I have a copy of the painting in my library.

J.D’s books in The NorCal Girls series are clean, family-friendly reads that encourage young girls to have a relationship with God and also model positive friendships. Her latest book, Melanie at Camp Redwoods, explores the meaning of friendship through memorable adventures at camp. And more importantly, she weaves into the story how God pursues a relationship with us to become His children.

You can find J.D. on her website, Goodreads, and Bookbub! Learn more and pre-order J.D.’s newest novel, Melanie at Camp Redwoods, here!

Five Things about J.M. MacLeod of “The Siege of Logon’s Bridge”

Learn more about your favorite Ambassador authors with our “5 Things” series. J.M. MacLeod is the author of Tolkien-esque fantasy series, The Saga of the Singing Sword Brigade, with book four The Siege of Logon’s Bridge releasing on March 7th! Check out John’s five fast facts below…

Being at least half-Scottish heritage, I’ve always had a fascination for sword and crossbow stories. The novels of Kidnapped and Rob Roy and Treasure Island often took over my imagination and filled my playtime hours in the mountain woodlands of eastern Pennsylvania as I grew up. The Sunday School and Church my family attended taught us songs like “I’m in the Lord’s Army” and “Onward Christian Soldiers” likening the adventure of soul-winning to fighting against the Devil and his kingdom and rescuing people from a horrible fate.

As a teen, I learned to play guitar, thanks to the Ventures and The Beatles. When I volunteered working with Youth for Christ I met a fellow believer who played keyboard; together we formed The Owl of Light, a Christian folk/rock band, explaining in our testimony that like owls, we were creatures of darkness but came to the light. Actually, we chose the name because we had a big, old stuffed owl that we took along on our gigs.

I met my soul mate, Beverly, in college and married her asap. Immediately after we went from Pennsylvania to Indiana where I had a Summertime ministry/job running a Christian coffeehouse called “The Sign of the Fish” where we tried to introduce counter-culture teens to the Gospel. After returning to PA we were attracted to a local Bible Study group calling themselves “The Move of God” that seemed to take teachings of Scripture to a new level of revelation. Through a series of supernatural events we wound up on one of the Move’s communal farms to await the End Times and the Return of Christ. The revelations and supernatural phenomena soon became weird and quite a few of the leaders of the group became abusive to many of the “non-elite.” We left not only the farm but The Move as well.

We started raising children, four in number, all born in the 1970’s spaced about 2 years apart. I became a commercial school bus driver and did odd jobs during the summer months to support the family. The lay-over hours between bus runs is when I started to write about our journey through deception in The Move and what we learned from that bitter experience. I also was enchanted with Tolkien’s writings, reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings several times, enjoying them again and again as if I was visiting old friends. Then I began to wonder if I could ever write a Christian fantasy like C. S. Lewis but following more the genre of Tolkien. Thus began The Saga of the Singing Sword Brigade.

While learning the craft of writing (as I still am) in addition to school bus driving, I worked as a reporter/photographer on two New England newspapers, manager of a school bus company in New England, truck driver in Tennessee and am currently retired but still driving for LYFT— until royalties come rolling in.

Our four children and their spouses have produced for Beverly and I fifteen grandchildren who, in my unbiased opinion, are the smartest, most good-looking, best-natured and obedient children ever born.

You can find John on his website, Goodreads, and Bookbub! Learn more and order John’s newest novel, The Siege of Logon’s Bridge, here!

Ambassador International Books

Get Published

About Ambassador