Although the overarching theme of this blog is “Read. Write. Pray,” missions and mission trips take a prominent place here. The necessity of taking the gospel to the nations has become my heartbeat, and I’ve been blessed to serve overseas as well as to help send many of my family members on mission trips across the world. This blog has gone silent for a while in part due to the pre-publication work on a book I wrote that will release November 1. Out of the Dust: Story of an Unlikely Missionary is already available for pre-order. (If you live in my area and want to buy a copy, let me know.) This book shares the amazing memoir of Avis Goodhart, servant of Jesus Christ and missionary to Peru. Everyone has a story, but not every story needs to become a book. Avis’s challenging, inspiring story did. For the next few weeks, this blog will feature devotionals that include excerpts from our book. These provide both what I hope will be a thoughtful read and an intriguing sample of a book you’ll want to own. Avis and I donate all the proceeds from Out of the Dust to her nonprofit, Go Ye Ministries. I encourage you to sign up for her mailing list here. After we finish the devotional series (and about the time of the book release), I’ll share more about Avis and her passion for the least of these. But for now, let the devotions begin. Out of the Dust Devotionals By Avis Goodhart with Marti Pieper  All excerpts are taken from the book Out of the Dust by Avis Goodhart with Marti Pieper (ANEKO Press, 11/1/14).  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™  #1 Obstacle Course  Scripture Reading: While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-20) Thought: Following God requires faith (and persistence). Excerpt, Out of the Dust: When I set out at the age of fifty to make my first international mission trip, I met some obstacles even before I landed in Honduras: “I’m sorry,” the man at the ticket counter said when we attempted to check our unusual baggage. “You can’t travel with all these. You’ll have to choose what to...

I’m in the midst of catching up from conference teaching and meeting a deadline, so today’s post will be short. I just want to take time to announce the TWO winners of recent contests right here on Read. Write. Pray. The first, who wins a copy of my book with Dr. Walker Moore, Escape the Lie plus a bonus copy of Rite of Passage Parenting, is Karon Peterson. Congratulations to Karon! I think these will make great housewarming gifts for your new home. The second, who wins my review copy of All My Belongings by Cynthia Ruchti, is Erika. I know you’ll love this story, Erika! If you can both email me your mailing addresses through the link above, I’ll get the books out to you as soon as I can. Thank you for your comments. And for those of you who didn’t win, I’m sure I’ll offer another contest soon....

As promised, here’s my interview with sweet friend and award-winning author Cynthia Ruchti. She and I are serving together this week at the fabulous Write to Publish Conference held on the lovely campus of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. We both give a strong recommendation to this conference which has equipped so many. Now, let’s learn more about one of my favorite authors. Your tagline is “Stories of hope that glows in the dark.” How would you say All My Belongings fits this description? Hope often shows up best against a dark backdrop. That was certainly true for Becca in All My Belongings. Her parents detached emotionally from her before she was born and continued to live as if unaware they had a daughter. Her father’s actions brought shame and public attention to their family name. By her mid-twenties, Becca seemed to have lost everything, including her dignity and any sense of belonging. As the story progresses, she catches faint glimmers of hope that life could be different than how it started. But dark moments intruded. Her father’s reputation threatened, even from hundreds of miles away. But hope is tenacious. And it was all the more beautiful because of the way the light shone off of it in Becca’s greatest challenges. I love the hope that shines throughout her story. But they say novelists almost always write themselves into their main characters. How are you similar to and different from Becca, heroine of this most recent novel? My beginnings were dramatically different from Becca’s. I grew up knowing I was loved. . . except for that brief period in junior high when we all wonder if either we or our parents are aliens because of how “They just don’t get me.” My parents were respected in the community. I had to dig deep into imagination and the experiences of others I know whose childhoods held the kind of pain Becca’s did. Like Becca, though, I have deeply-rooted connections with the sea, even though I’ve lived landlocked most of my childhood and adult life. I got to vicariously live one of my dreams—returning to my birthplace of Oceanside, California, through Becca’s story. I understand her infatuation with it. Two more things we have in common: I love the beach as well, and our family lived in Oceanside for seven years. Now, I know you just won two Selah Awards, one for fiction (When the Morning Glory Blooms) and one for nonfiction (Ragged Hope). Which do you prefer to write? If I didn’t love both, I wouldn’t write both. My heart is the same whether writing fiction or nonfiction, and my nonfiction is strongly storytelling-based. Some topics lend themselves better to one format or...

Today, I want you to imagine with me. Imagine you’re a research scientist. After working for years,  you can hardly believe it. You’ve discovered a pharmaceutical formula that cures cancer in all its forms. You know it works because of all your study. But you also know it works because you’re a cancer survivor yourself. Things looked bleak for you until you participated in a test of this drug. And now, you’re cancer-free—and have been for some time. You have a problem, though. You have no way of taking the drug to market. You’re a researcher, not a doctor. You’ve exhausted your funds and can’t finish all the FDA and other approval needed. And you can’t even begin to package it attractively or get it into consumer’s hands. So what do you do? You get help, don’t you? You do whatever it takes to finish the process and get the drug out there where it could save lives. You don’t quit. You persevere. Dramatic, yes, but both Walker and I feel this way about his Orphan Heart message. It has touched both our lives in specific, personal ways. And although it took us several years and a team of people to take the book from initial ideas to preached message to published book, we didn’t give up. We couldn’t. As you read the book, you’ll find his story. Wounded by a father he loved but couldn’t seem to please, he became an orphan who tried to fix himself and others by doing everything right. And things grew worse, not better, until he understood the truth he shares with thousands across the country and around the world: I am my Father’s favorite child. In brief, the Orphan Heart is the lie Satan implants in our hearts, often through a wound or perceived wound from a parent or other authority figure, which says we don’t matter to God or to other people. Sometimes we respond in rebellion, like the prodigal son we read about in the New Testament. Sometimes we respond by trying our best to be perfect, like his elder brother. Either way, we lose, and we lose big. We may know Christ, but we don’t live the abundant life He promised because we’re stuck in the past and afraid of the future. Our everyday lives are filled with “if only” and “what if” instead of the fruit of the Spirit. The Orphan Heart keeps us living as those who have no father, no identity, no purpose, no direction, and no destiny. And no, it’s not cancer, but it’s not life, either. So when I heard and responded to the Orphan Heart message, I knew I had to help Walker share it. I’ve been in...

“How did you come to be involved with this book?” a friend asked. Escape the Lie: Journey to Freedom from the Orphan Heart released last week on the day I flew home from teaching at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference. I came home to two cases of the book resting on my office floor. And even though midnight had just passed, I had to hold one of the real-life copies in my hand before I went to bed. My writing partner, Dr. Walker Moore, and I agree that the path to publication has been a journey—a personal, spiritual one as well as a professional one. Escape the Lie is the third book on which we’ve collaborated (the other two are Rite of Passage Parenting: Four Essential Experiences to Equip Your Kids for Life and the award-winning Rite of Passage Parenting Workbook). We first connected when a friend recommended the student missions-sending organization he founded, Awe Star Ministries, as a great avenue for our two oldest daughters, then fifteen and sixteen. Since then, all five Pieper children have served multiple times with Awe Star, and I’ve also served with Awe Star teams in both Mexico and Panama. In 2005, because of our involvement with Awe Star, I was part of a group of thousands across the world who were praying for fifteen-year-old BJ Higgins, a committed follower of Christ who fell ill after serving for the second time with Awe Star in Peru. When I saw the potential for a book in his story, I wrote Walker and volunteered to help. The memoir that resulted, I Would Die for You, became a Young Adult bestseller and continues to draw people toward the God BJ served with such passion. But even before I had the opportunity to assist BJ’s parents in telling his story, I began editing Walker’s popular weekly column in the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger. Walker is a brilliant Bible teacher, but, like two of my daughters, he’s dyslexic. He doesn’t think of himself as a writer, but his combination of biblical wisdom, humor, and life-changing stories (many from his years of experience on the mission field) has a way of touching lives few writers can achieve. For his column, I have the privilege of making sure the words appear in the right order and the stories make sense. For his books, though, we have a different way of working. In fact, we wrote much of Rite of Passage Parenting before we ever met. At first, he sent me some of his old writing and workshop videos, asking me to turn them into something fresh.  He hated the result. And I hated that way of working. So since that time, I do the...

As promised, here’s my interview with author, speaker, and woman of encouragement Michelle Cox. Because of our shared publishing connections, I “knew” and prayed for Michelle for several years before meeting her in person when we roomed together this year as faculty at the Florida Christian Writers Conference. I hope you enjoy this Words with Friends interview with Michelle. And if you missed my review of her new novel with Rene Gutteridge, Just 18 Summers, check it out here. You’ve told me the fascinating story behind the start of the “Just 18 Summers” concept. Would you share it with our readers, please? My pastor dedicated a baby at church one Sunday morning, and as the parents turned to leave the platform, Rev. Sexton said, “Don’t forget you have just 18 summers. Go make some memories.” The poignancy of that slammed into me—particularly since my youngest son was getting married a few weeks later. I came up with the idea to do a gift book based on the thought, but God had much bigger plans. I’m now developing a complete brand based on the concept—and the release of my Just 18 Summers novel (co-authored with Rene Gutteridge) is an exciting component of that. You’re a mother of three and grandmother of six. How does Just 18 Summers relate to your own personal experience? My sons grew up way too fast—and now I think my grandbabies are growing up even faster. Seriously, I look back at those years with my boys and wonder how we got from the days when we brought them home from the hospital until now so quickly! We made a conscious effort to spend time with our sons and I’m so glad we did that . . . but I wish there’d been so much more. Six years have gone by since our youngest son got married and left home. I love my daughters-in-law and I’m crazy about my grandchildren, but there are still times when I miss my boys so much, days when I’d give a million dollars to walk down the hall one more time to tuck them into bed, to listen to bedtime prayers, and to hear the sounds of their laughter ringing through the house. I know this concept has now become a brand, with a dedicated website, screenplay, and now the novel. Please explain how this developed. Sometimes I feel like the poster child to prove God has a sense of humor, because it’s absolutely hysterical how all of this happened. After hearing my pastor say those words, I’d come up with the idea to do a gift book based on the concept. About that same time, my friend, Lori Marett, was starting the Gideon...