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CHRISTMAS CAROL KAUFMAN received her unique name in honor of her Christmas morning birth in 1901 in Elkhart, Indiana. She was raised in a Mennonite home and spent some time as a student at Goshen College. When she was 22, she married Norman Hostetler. However, tragedy struck when two months after their second anniversary, Norman was killed in an electrical accident. She worked in a sewing shop following the wake of her loss, but in 1928, her bishop recommended that she get away for a while and enroll as a Bible student at Hesston College. It was there that she met the man who would be her life partner—Nelson Kaufman. The two were married in 1929. Five years later they were commissioned by the Mennonite General Mission Board to start a mission church in Hannibal, Missouri. It was in their 22-year ministry in Missouri that she found the inspiration to write her many novels. In 1956, they returned to Elkhart where Kaufman wrote her last several books. She died in Elkhart on January 30, 1969.
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HANNAH WHITALL SMITH (1832-1911) was born in Philadelphia to a Quaker family. Her life expressed the joy that is found in complete surrender to the Lord. The secret to a happy life, according to Whitall Smith, is to trust implicitly in the promises of the Bible. Her goal was not to impress the scholar, but to elevate the simple man or woman who longed for a more consecrated way of living. Deeply practical, her writings deal directly with the day-to-day struggles of ordinary people. She is author of The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life and The God of All Comfort.
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SAMY TANAGHO has shared the Gospel with Muslims for over thirty years. He speaks on God's love towards sinners and how we can communicate the Gospel effectively to the people we meet, including Muslims. Samy's passion is to encourage every member of the body of Christ to be active in fulfilling the Great Commission. His wife, Hala, often joins him to share her story of imprisonment in Egypt for converting from Islam to Christianity. He ministers as an evangelist to Muslims through the Salvation Army with a radio program on more than ninety stations.
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CARRIE E. GRUHN was born Carrie E. Meyers on April 3, 1907 in Clarinda, Iowa. After completing high school, she attended Iowa State Teacher’s College for a year. She married a printer named Stanley Gruhn on May 18, 1929 at the age of twenty-two. Later the family moved to Ogle County, Illinois with their two boys. She is best known as the author of several books including An Unwanted Legacy (1953), Happy is the Man (1963), and The Lost City (1969).
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ARTHUR PERCY FITT was born in Limerick, Ireland on October 5, 1869. Although a European native, he spent much of his life in the United States. It was in Northfield, Massachusetts that he came in contact with D.L. Moody because of Moody’s educational involvement in the city. He eventually traveled with Moody serving as his personal secretary. Later he fell in love with Moody’s only daughter, Emma. The two were married in 1894. Their only child, Emma Moody Fitt, was born a year later. Later in life he was the managing editor of the Record of Christian Work Company based out of East Northfield, Massachusetts. He is well-known as the author of several books about D.L. Moody including Moody Still Lives and The Shorter Life of D.L. Moody. He died in East Northfield on May 5, 1947 at the age of 78.
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