Olivia Spencer wants to be a mother more than anything else, but years of infertility have left her soul wounded and her marriage strained. Allison Campbell is a young, single woman who discovers that a moment of excitement has led to an unplanned pregnancy and an overwhelming heartache. As the lives of these two women touch, you'll see that deep love can pave the way for sacrifice.

A woman unable to have a baby yearns to have children, and an unwed mother chooses to put her baby up for adoption.

This book provides the synthesis and integration of the intellectual and experiential thinking around organisational leadership and development, focusing on three organisations as case studies: Plan International, Mater Foundation, and Oxfam, with the aim of informing For-Purpose, Not-For-Profit organisations about fundraising leadership. Working with the case study organisations, the authors observed a repeated set of six Fundraisers’ Dilemmas. Wanting to solve these dilemmas for Fundraising Executives and Teams was the genesis of this book. The book's premise is to point out that fundraising requires more than just coming up with the next “ice-bucket challenge” or having yet another gala ball, and that it requires the combination of the right fundraising activities coupled with the right organisational approach. The book provides, maybe for the first time, a real-world implementation for leaders of organisations in the For-Purpose and For-Profit worlds to create more engaged, collaborative and effective teams, which break down silos and deliver greater outcomes and impact for their organisations’ missions. The book combines inductive business research with deductive academic research to present and explain best practices in fundraising, with a focus on the concepts of Emotional Fundraising, Life Time Value, and the Donor Pyramid.

Economic collapse, poverty, disease, natural disasters, the constant threat of community unrest and international terrorism--a quick look at any newspaper is enough to cause almost anyone to feel trapped and desperate. Yet the recent election also revealed a growing search for hope spreading through society. In the timely Hope in the Age of Anxiety, Anthony Scioli and Henry Biller illuminate the nature of hope and offer a multitude of techniques designed to improve the lives of individuals, and bring more light into the world. In this fascinating and humane book, Scioli and Biller reveal the ways in which human beings acquire and make use of hope. Hope in the Age of Anxiety is meant to be a definitive guide. The evolutionary, biological, and cultural roots of hope are covered along with the seven kinds of hope found in the world's religions. Just as vital, the book provides many personal tools for addressing the major challenges of the human condition: fear, loss, illness, and death. Some of the key areas illuminated in Hope in the Age of Anxiety: How do you build and sustain hope in trying times? How can hope help you to achieve your life goals? How can hope improve your relationships with others? How can hope aid your recovery from trauma or illness? How does hope relate to spirituality? Hope in the Age of Anxiety identifies the skills needed to cultivate hope, and offers suggestions for using these capacities to realize your life goals, support health and healing, strengthen relationships, enhance spirituality, and inoculate yourself against the despair that engulfs many individuals.

This book, written decades into the HIV epidemic, reflects critically on the idea that the socially excluded populations often focused on in HIV research are in fact difficult to access and reach. The author broadly applies the concept ‘hard to reach’ to characterize populations that researchers find difficult to engage with. Social factors that produce marginalization and ultimately result in people choosing not to engage in research are not captured by the concept of ‘hard to reach’. Limited attention has focused on how researchers can address the social factors that result in decisions to not engage in research. Disrupting the ways in which people are conceptualized as ‘hard to reach’ so as to refocus on transforming social systems and personal values, beliefs and approaches is understudied. This book uses case examples based on HIV research with Indigenous youth, internally displaced women, LGBTQ communities in the Global North and Global South, and persons at the intersection of these identities, to identify successful approaches to working with marginalized and often vulnerable communities and groups. The chapters signal the need for attention to five key social factors when developing successful approaches: context and storytelling; cultural humility; critical hope; imagination and possibility; and love, intimate inquiry, and the beloved community, if nations, individuals and communities are to address the epidemic in a sustainable and impactful way.

While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs? In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know®. They begin, by defining "drugs," examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue. Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them . . . —John 17:18 God sent Christ at Christmas. In turn, Christ sends us into the world to be his hands and feet, head and heart. Dynamic pastor Jorge Acevedo leads us on a 5-week Advent journey to discover how, where, and why we are sent. Joining him on the journey are four young clergy including Jacob Armstrong, Rachel Billups, Justin LaRosa, and Lanecia Rouse, who challenge us through story, art, and Bible study.

It’s certainly easy to understand why mediocrity seems to be the new norm in our country. After all, take a look around. As you read this we find ourselves burdened with immense national debt, polarized political parties, sky high unemployment, and increasing levels of hunger, homelessness, and hopelessness. All while our discontent with leaders across all segments of society leaves us scratching our heads and searching our hearts to understand, “how did we end up here?” The more important question, of course, is where do we go from here? And, as importantly, what role will you play? This is where I have some good news to offer. Mediocre Me reminds us the solution to the current mess we're in is already present—“invisible” in plain sight. It’s not found in another government program nor can it be dictated merely by expert opinions. Rather, the answer to our individual and collective challenges is found in the inspiring example of those citizen-leaders in our midst who are hard at work trying to move things solidly forward in their spheres of influence. And, best of all, they are waiting for more of us to join them. Sound frightening? Challenging? Too difficult to pull off, you say? Think again.

A loving holiday romance that includes recipes made by the characters. When you fall at just the right moment. Greyson is the new hot firefighter in the small-town. He thought his life was perfect until the day the cutest klutz he has ever met fell at his feet. Now he wants more… no, he wants her. Annie is always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Actually, she’s usually the guest in the back row no one ever notices. That was true until her struggle with staying vertical changes that… She is finding it hard to believe the man with the most delicious beard is interested in her. Get ready to fall in love with this sweet Christmas story which is perfectly complimented with a slice of decadent hot chocolate peppermint cheesecake.