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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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RUTHIE DELK'S passion is to help women embrace the Gospel in such a way that it captures their hearts and not just their minds. She enjoys teaching, watching movies, drinking sweet tea, riding her bike and eating any assortment of cheap chocolate. Ruthie grew up in Europe as a missionary kid and met her husband David while at Furman University, where she graduated with a degree in Special Education. She and David have been married for 24 years and live in Orlando, Florida where he is President of Man in the Mirror. They have three children.
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JAMES FORD, JR. (Moody Bible Institute, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) has been the Senior Pastor at Christ Bible Church (formerly South Shore Baptist Church), located on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, since 1982. He serves on several boards, including the Alumni Board of Moody Bible Institute, is President of Impact Ministries, and provides the messages for Impact Ministries’ radio broadcast, Treasured Truth for Troubling Times. Pastor Ford is a contributor to the book Heart for the City and is the author of When A Man Loves A Woman and Seven Reasons Why God Created Marriage. He and his wife, Leslie, have three children and six grandchildren, and live in Chicago, Illinois.
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RUBEN ARCHER TORREY (1856-1928), educated at Yale University and Divinity School, was renowned as an educator, a pastor, a world evangelist and an author. He pastored Moody Memorial Church in Chicago, was the superintendent of Moody Bible Institute for nineteen years, and served as the dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles from 1911 to 1924, when he retired to embark upon full time evangelistic campaigns around the world. Mr. Torrey wrote more than forty books including How to Pray and How to Promote and Conduct a Successful Revival. Mr. Torrey was married to Clara and together they had five children.
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GEORGE MUELLER (1805-1898), evangelist and philanthropist in England, was a man of prayer and strong faith who depended wholly on God for his temporal and spiritual needs. During his time serving as pastor at a church in Bristol, England, his famous work with the orphans began when two young children were thrown upon the church's care. Mueller resolved never to tell anyone what his needs were. He told them to God and confidently expected them to be met. Over his life, he handled more than $8 million, although his own worldly possessions were valued at about $800 at his death. He is author of the book Answers to Prayer.
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ANDREW MURRAY (1828-1917) was a church leader, evangelist, and missionary statesman. As a young man, Murray wanted to be a minister, but it was a career choice rather than an act of faith. Not until he had finished his general studies and begun his theological training in the Netherlands, did he experience a conversion of heart. Sixty years of ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, more than 200 books and tracts on Christian spirituality and ministry, extensive social work, and the founding of educational institutions were some of the outward signs of the inward grace that Murray experienced by continually casting himself on Christ. A few of his books include The True Vine, Absolute Surrender, The School of Obedience, Waiting on God, and The Prayer Life.
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WILLIAM OCHAN LEVI is the founder of Operation Nehemiah Missions International, an organization dedicated to rebuilding the minds, bodies, and spirits of the Sudanese people. He is active in Christian education and humanitarian service in South Sudan and the Ugandan refugee camps. Mr. Levi, a Messianic believer from an African Hebrew tribal group, is a native of Sudan and grew up as a refugee. Following persecution, arrest, and torture, his miraculous escape from jihad forces ultimately led to life in the United States. He has written a book on his story entitled The Bible or the Axe: One Man's Dramatic Escape from Persecution in the Sudan. He is a frequent guest on Christian radio and has told his story nationwide, even testifying before representatives of the United States government regarding human rights abuses in the Sudan. Mr. Levi lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Hannah, and their six children.
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RALPH EARLE (1908-1995; B.A., Eastern Nazarene College; M.A., Boston University; B.D., Gordon Divinity School; D.D., Eastern Nazarene College) was Distinguished Professor of New Testament Emeritus at the Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri, where he first began teaching in 1945. While holding pastorates in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, and Everett, Massachusetts, from 1933 to 1945, he was a professor of biblical literature at Eastern Nazarene College, Wollaston, Massachusetts. He later served on the fifteen-man Committee on Bible Translation, the governing body for the New International Version of the Bible. Ralph is the author of several books including Mark (from the Everyman’s Bible Commentary series), Word Meanings in the New Testament, How We Got Our Bible, Exploring the New Testament, and Story of the New Testament. He is now at home with his Lord.
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HENRY DRUMMOND was born in Stirling, Scotland on August 17, 1851. As a young man he attended Edinburgh University where he particularly enjoyed the natural sciences. However, driven by a desire to preach the Gospel, he entered the Free Church of Scotland, where, before taking his own pastorate, he worked with D.L. Moody on his evangelistic efforts. In 1877 he became a teacher of natural science at the Free Church College. He spent six years lecturing and writing until, in 1883, he received an opportunity to conduct a geological survey in southern Africa. Upon his return a year later, he found himself to be rather famous in his homeland. Later on he would write of his work in Africa and participate in a similar work in Australia. He continued to write and lecture in England and the United States until his death on March 11, 1897.
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ARTHUR MORGAN DERHAM was born in Hertfordshire, England in 1915. He was converted when he was fourteen. After some time as a business man and four years serving with the Metropolitan Police Force, he entered the Strict Baptist Bible Institute in Brockley, London, in 1938. Derham took the pastorate of the West Ham Baptist Tabernacle in west London, and it was there that the weight of Hitler’s blitz fell in 1940. The area bore attacks throughout the war, and within a few weeks eighty percent of the congregation disappeared because of damage to their homes. The church services were continued underground until 1944. After the war he began writing in addition to part-time pastoral work in other churches in England. He was also married and the father of a son and a daughter. During his life he authored one book and two small publications published in London as well as contributed to a number of magazines and papers.
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DAVID THOMPSON was born in the U.S. but grew up in Cambodia where his parents worked for 16 years. When he was 14 he and his father tried unsuccessfully to save a Cambodian man who was seriously injured when a truck and a bus collided. God used the incident to plant in David's young heart a desire to become a doctor and help people who had limited access to healthcare. David graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1973 with a M.D. degree and eventually completed five years of residency in general surgery in southern California. In 1977 he and his wife Rebecca moved to Gabon, Africa and for the next 34 years built a 150-bed full-service hospital to provide medical services to Gabon's least served provinces. In 1966, Dr. Thompson helped establish the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS), an organization that trains African surgeons at Christian hospitals throughout the continent. Since 2014, Dr. Thompson has been working as a volunteer to train Egyptian surgeons at Harpur Memorial Hospital.
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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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REVEREND WILLIAM DYER was born in England in 1632. During his earlier ministry he was a pastor with the Church of England at Chesham and Cholesbury. He and many other pastors were known as “Puritans” because of their desire to purify and reform the state church. However, in 1662, Dyer and over two thousand other Puritans pastors were ejected from their parishes because of a lack of compliance to the new policies of the church. In the year following his dismissal from the church he wrote two of his most enduring books, A Cabinet of Jewels and Christ’s Famous Titles. In his later life he worked alongside the Quakers because of their zeal for Christ and passion for souls. He was buried among them in Southwark, England in April of 1696. From his writings he is seen to have been a man of great character, earnest to win men to the Lord, and eager to build up the saints in the love and confidence of Christ.
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JOSH MCDOWELL As a young man, Josh McDowell considered himself an agnostic. He truly believed that Christianity was worthless. However, when challenged to intellectually examine the claims of Christianity, Josh discovered compelling, overwhelming evidence for the reliability of the Christian faith. In 1961 Josh joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ International. Not long after, he started the Josh McDowell Ministry to reach young people worldwide with the truth and love of Jesus.
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C. DONALD COLE served as a host and commentator on Moody Radio’s Open Line for 26 years before retiring in 2008. He previously served on the faculty at Emmaus Bible College and as a missionary in Angola with his wife, Naomi. Pastor Cole is the author of a number of books, including How to Know You’re Saved and All You Need to Believe: The Apostle’s Creed. Pastor and Mrs. Cole live in Carol Stream, Illinois.
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HANS FINZEL (D.Miss., Fuller School of World Missions; Th. M., Dallas Theological Seminary) is the president of HDLeaders. He served for 20 years as president of WorldVenture (formerly CBInternational). He and his wife, Donna, spent ten years as missionaries in Eastern Europe, working with WorldVenture to train pastors behind the Iron Curtain. Hans is the author of ten books, including Change is Like a Slinky, Launch Your Encore, The Power of Passion in Leadership, Unlocking the Scriptures, and his bestseller The Top Ten Mistakes Leaders Make. He co-authored The Top Ten Ways to Love Your Wife with his wife. He is the host of the Leadership Podcast, The Leadership Answer Man and is a widely sought-after speaker as an expert in leadership development, change management and international studies. The Finzels make their home in Highlands Ranch, Colorado and have four children.
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