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JOHN SMED is the founding director of Prayer Current, an organization that helps leaders make multiplying disciples through prayer and evangelism. Since 2000 John and his team have developed prayer training materials and conferences for church planters, pastors, and network teams in North America, Cuba, India, China, and Russia. His book 7 Days of Prayer with Jesus has been translated into ten languages. His conviction for prayer was born out of thirty years of experience in church planting and urban mission.John and his wife Caron have 5 children, 11 grandchildren, and live in Lake Country, British Columbia, Canada.
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JOSHUA SHERIF was born in Egypt to a Muslim family and immigrated to the United States, where he later came to faith in Jesus. For the past decade, he has planted and pastored in Albany Park, Chicago, IL, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the country. His congregation represents more than thirty nationalities, speaking twenty languages. Josh has enjoyed his years equipping and coaching other missionaries and pastors around the world. His story was featured in Love Costs Everything, a documentary produced by CIY and Voice of the Martyrs, concerning Christian persecution.
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JAMES H. THOMAS (1890–1973) was a Bible teacher, pastor, and John Bunyan scholar. Born in Maury City, Tennessee, Thomas graduated from Oklahoma Baptist University and earned a ThD from Central Baptist Seminary, Kansas City. After discovering the Phillips New Testament in Modern English, Thomas wanted to take a similar approach with an updated version of John Bunyan’s most famous book. The resulting work, Pilgrim’s Progress in Today’s English, is the bestselling modern version of Bunyan’s classic.
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DEBORAH ALCOCK (1835-1913) is best known as the author of historical fiction on religious themes. She was born in Ireland, where her father, the Venerable John Alcock, became Archdeacon of Waterford. She lived with her father, writing a memoir of him on his death, and stayed unmarried for her entire life. Her work The Spanish Brothers, published in 1870, was set in the 16th century and was a tale of Protestant martyrdom. Other works include The Czar (1882), set during the French invasion of Russia; Archie's Chances (1886); and Prisoners of Hope (1894). A biography of her life, The Author of Spanish Brothers, was written by Elisabeth Boyd Bayley.
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FAITH COXE BAILEY (1924–1972) was a writer and pastor’s wife who lived in Syracuse, New York. Born in Hackensack, New Jersey, she graduated from the Simmons College school of publications in Boston, studied writing at Boston University, and took courses at Andover Newton Seminary. During her long writing career she worked as a commercial copywriter, wrote for many magazines, and developed Sunday school curriculum. She also wrote for Moody Radio’s Stories of Great Christians and Moody Monthly magazine. She died of ovarian cancer at 48.
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BRENDA CANNON was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1890. After teaching school for seven years in that city, she attended the Women’s Missionary Union Training School in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1919 she went to North Carolina to serve as secretary of a small mission school, which developed into a home for homeless children and continued to serve the young mountaineers of the area as a school. Except for two years spent as a field worker and young people’s leader in Oklahoma, Cannon remained in North Carolina, teaching school and doing community work. So when she wrote of mountaineers, she wrote understandingly of friends and neighbors. She died in North Carolina in 1965.
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WILLIAM BELL DAWSON was born in 1854. While today he is known for his books, he spent most of his life working as a surveyor and engineer. In 1893, he started working for the Canadian Department of Marine and Fisheries where he supervised a major tidal survey for over twenty years. This project produced what are called tide tables which gave important information about the tides in all of the main Canadian harbors. In 1924, he stopped work in Canada and began writing about creation science and evolution. He is best known for his books Forethought in Creation (1925), Evolution Contrasted with Scripture Truth (1926), and The Bible Confirmed by Science (1932).
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CINDY EASLEY was born in Houston, Texas. She graduated from Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas with a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Social Rehabilitation. Author of What's Submission Got to Do with It?, Cindy is a nationally known speaker with the Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference. Cindy and her husband, Michael, former President of Moody Bible Institute and Teaching Pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Nashville, Tennessee, have three daughters and one son.
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GORDON HOLMES FRASER was born in Quebec, Canada. He moved to Detroit, Michigan, at the age of ten, and came to a personal knowledge of Christ when he was seventeen years of age. After majoring in business administration, he spent several years in executive and sales work. The call then came to enter full-time Christian work. His mentor in spiritual things was the late Dr. H.A. Ironside. Under private tutorship he studied Chinese while engaged for five years in Christian work in Chinese communities such as are found in Oakland and Sacramento, California. His entry into full-time missionary work under the American Sunday School Union was in 1932. He is the founder of the Southwestern School of Missions in Flagstaff, Arizona.
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KAY FRIEDERICHSEN was born in China to missionary parents in the early 1900s. She and her husband, Paul, served three terms as missionaries in the Philippines and were imprisoned in Japanese concentration camps during the World War II. Following her family’s return to the United States, she conducted Bible classes and presented chalk-talk messages in churches throughout America. Kay is the author of God’s Relief for Burdens, God’s Way Made Easy, and God’s Word Made Plain. She co-authored Like Them That Dream with her husband. Kay is now home with her Lord.
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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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W. PHILLIP KELLER (1920-1997) was born in East Africa and always loved the wildlife and the outdoors. Having spent many years in agriculture research, land management and ranch development in British Columbia, he later pursued careers in conservation, wildlife photography, and journalism. His experiences as a shepherd equipped him with the insights that are the basis for A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. His other titles include A Layman Looks at the Lord’s Prayer, Splendor from the Sea, Lessons from a Sheepdog, and A Gardener Looks at the Fruits of the Spirit.
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JASMINE MULLEN is a writer and singer from Nashville, TN, and she was born to musical parents. Her mom is singer Nicole C. (Mullen) and her dad is a songwriter named David Mullen. She credits her love of words to their influence. Most of the time, Jasmine is writing songs or touring with her band, The New Respects, which she created with Zandy Mowry and Darius Fitzgerald. When she’s not creating music, she’s usually writing a story or daydreaming one up. Her hobbies include eating too much pizza, playing with her nieces and nephews, and laughing till she cries with her dearest and closest people.
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CAROLYN NYSTROM received her BA and MA from Wheaton College and is the author of more than 80 books, about half of which are written for children. She co-authored Guard Us, Guide Us: Divine Leading in Life's Decisions and Praying: Finding Our Way through Duty to Delight with theologian J.I. Packer, and Before I Was Born (God’s Design for Sex) with Sandra Speidel. Carolyn lives in the Chicago area with her husband and they have four grown children.
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EMMA MOODY POWELL was born in Northfield, Massachusetts on December 16, 1895. She was the daughter of A.P. Fitt (who was an author and the personal secretary of D.L. Moody) and Emma Moody Fitt (D.L. Moody’s only daughter). She grew up in Massachusetts, and at the age of twenty-one she married Edward Merriam Powell. Emma Moody Powell is best known for the biography she wrote on the life of her grandmother Emma Charlotte Revell, the wife of D.L. Moody.
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RUTH PAXSON (1889-1949) was Bible teacher, missionary, and author. Born in Manchester, Iowa, she graduated from the State University of Iowa and then attended Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute. She served as YWCA secretary for Iowa and eventually traveled as secretary for the Student Volunteer Movement. In 1911, Ruth sailed for the mission field in China, sponsored by the YWCA. Health concerns forced her to leave China soon thereafter and she then taught Bible in Europe and the United States until her death. She is author of several books, including Life on the Highest Plane and Caleb the Overcomer.
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