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COLIN SMITH serves as senior pastor of The Orchard with six campuses across Chicagoland. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Colin received his Bachelor of Arts in Theology and Master of Philosophy from the London School of Theology. Colin is the author of several books including The Ten Greatest Struggles of Your Life. He can be heard daily on the Open the Bible radio broadcast and at openthebible.org and openthebible.org.uk. Colin and his wife, Karen, have two sons and five granddaughters.
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BOB GRESH is the co-founder of True Girl (formerly Secret Keeper Girl) and Born to Be Brave, which provide live events for tweens and their parents in up to 100 cities per year, reaching over 400,000. A long-time marketing consultant, his passion is using his business experience to teach tweens and teens to live in confidence and Truth. His faith-based entrepreneurial ventures include Grace Prep High School, a new model of Christian education in Central Pennsylvania as well as the nationwide Christian touring ministries. He is the author of Who Moved The Goalpost: Seven Secrets to Sexual Integrity. He lives on a hobby farm in State College, Pennsylvania with his wife, Dannah, and over 20 animals.
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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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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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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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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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EDWARD MCKENDREE BOUNDS (1835-1913) was born in Missouri. He studied deeply in the Scriptures and was greatly inspired by the writings of John Wesley. At the age of 24, he felt called to be a preacher and became a Methodist Pastor around the time of the American Civil War. At the age of 58, and for the next nineteen years (until he went home to be with the Lord at age 77), he began to write books. It is said that he prayed daily, from 4 A.M. to 7 A.M., before he would begin work on his writings. Bounds is author of many books, including Purpose in Prayer, The Weapon of Prayer, and The Reality of Prayer.
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MAXINE MARSOLINI is a free-lance writer, author, poet, pastor’s wife and homemaker. Maxine, author of Raising Children in Blended Families: Helpful Insights, Expert Opinions, True Stories and Blended Families: Creating Harmony as You Build a New Home Life, writes from what she calls “wisdom born of pain” through the difficult soil of a blended home. She and her husband Charlie, reside in the state of Oregon where they serve in ministry together working with couples who are struggling with relationship and financial issues. Maxine and Charlie have seven children in their blended family.
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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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IRVINE ROBERTSON was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He graduated from Moody Bible Institute in 1938 and served as a missionary in India for eighteen years. He is a former faculty member of the Moody Bible Institute and former professor at MBI's evening school program in Boynton Beach, Florida. He is author of several books including What the Cults Believe and Transcendental Meditation and co-author of Comparing Christianity with the Cults and The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error. He is now at home with his Lord.
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HENRY ALLEN IRONSIDE (1876-1951) was born in Toronto, Canada to parents who were both active in the Plymouth Brethren. From an early age he showed a strong interest in evangelical Christianity and was active in the Salvation Army as a teenager before later joining the "Grant section" of the Plymouth Brethren. He was influential in popularizing dispensationalism among Protestants in North America. Despite his lack of formal education, his tremendous mental capacity, photographic memory and zeal for his beliefs caused him to be called "the Archbishop of Fundamentalism."
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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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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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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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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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