“It was the year 2000. Farming had not been good for a few years, and my husband said to me, ‘Why don’t you take that little seven-acre patch up on the hill by the house and experiment with some specialty crops and see if we can make some money in that way?’ I looked into several different options, including herbs, lavender, and alfalfa. … That was the beginning of a twenty-one-year pumpkin career and my partnership with God. That first year, I planted one acre of pumpkins, which amounted to 400 hills with five seeds per hill.” So began a partnership between God and Cheryl Erickson. Cheryl provided the faith, the muscle, and the energy, and God provided the sun, rain, and many miracles. Planting, weeding, and harvesting were all done by hand—Cheryl’s hands—that first year. As time progressed, harvesttime became a community effort with as many as fifty or sixty people showing up to take a spot on the well-planned “assembly line” that began in the pumpkin field picking the pumpkins and ending with rows of bins full of clean pumpkins lined up in the shed, awaiting a trip to market. You’ll laugh and cry as you read of the trials and triumphs, the near-fatalities, and the miracles of protection that made up the fabric of the life of Cheryl Erickson. And you'll discover one of her greatest joys which made all of her hard work worth the effort. In a gentle way, Cheryl weaves in spiritual lessons learned throughout the years of growing and selling pumpkins—lessons the reader can internalize in their own life. “In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the talents. In this book, you will read the almost unbelievable miracles involved with Cheryl Erickson's pumpkin project.” --Jeffrey K. Wilson, Assistant to the President for Planned Giving, Adventist World Radio “Whether you are looking for a mission project yourself, or whether you simply enjoy reading the miraculous adventures of others, you will find this book an inspiration and a delight.” --Gwen Simmons. Writing Instructor “No matter what your personal Christian experience may be, in reading this book you will be amazed at how God answers prayers.” --Raymond Woolsey, pastor, missionary evangelist, editor

Pumpkins' Glow: 200+ Eerie Tales for Halloween offers a variegated mosaic of chills and thrills, drawn from a sweeping array of literary styles that span the gamut from gothic horror to supernatural mystery, featuring an illustrious lineup of authors whose works have captivated readers for generations. This anthology encapsulates the essence of Halloween through its exploration of themes such as the duality of human nature, the supernatural realm, and the thin veil between the living and the dead. Standout pieces in this collection delve into haunted landscapes, ghostly apparitions, and eerie legends, each story a testament to the power of the genre to both entertain and unsettle its audience. The diversity within this volume not only showcases the rich literary context of these tales but also highlights their perennial significance across cultures and epochs. The contributing authors and editors to Pumpkins' Glow: 200+ Eerie Tales for Halloween are a veritable who's who of literary giants, ranging from the masterful gothic horror of Mary Shelley to the macabre mysteries of Edgar Allan Poe, and the hauntingly philosophical tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Together, these voices represent a broad spectrum of historical, cultural, and literary movements, from the dark romanticism of the 19th century to the psychological horror and speculative fiction of the early 20th century. The anthology aligns these varied voices in a collective exploration of the darker aspects of human nature and the inexplicable elements of the supernatural world, enriching the readers understanding of Halloween's thematic landscape through a multifaceted lens. Pumpkins' Glow: 200+ Eerie Tales for Halloween is a must-read for aficionados of the horror and supernatural genre, offering an unparalleled opportunity to immerse oneself in the rich tapestry of Halloween storytelling. This collection serves not only as an educational journey through the evolution of horror literature but also as a source of endless fascination and insight, encouraging a deeper appreciation for the nuances of fear and the supernatural. Readers are invited to explore this comprehensive anthology, which promises to enlighten and entertain through its celebration of one of literatures most enduring genres.

Norman Austin has organized his analysis of classical Greek myths around Lacan's dichotomy between (ineffable) Being and the meanings imposed upon Being by culturally determined signifiers. The primary signifiers in myth (the gods), as projections of contradictory meanings, impel human consciousness in contradictory directions: toward heroic self-realization, on the one hand, and into the fear, guilt, and despair resulting from failure, on the other. The gods both reveal and occlude that which they signify--the signified; ultimately, Being itself. Austin includes one chapter on the father's ghost in Shakespeare's Hamlet, and another on Albert Camus's The Stranger, as examples of the power of mythical archetypes to reveal and occlude Being, even when the apparatus of gods has been excluded. Despite their pessimism, ancient myths also affirm that the paradoxes are not insoluble. Austin concludes by outlining the profile of the Universal Self intimated in myth, religion, and philosophy as the joint venture of the world realized in consciousness, consciousness realized in consciousness, and consciousness realized in the world.

Reading the Written Image is a study of the imagination as it is prompted by the verbal cues of literature. Since every literary image is also a mental image, a representation of an absent entity, Collins contends that imagination is a poiesis, a making-up, an act of play for both author and reader. The "willing suspension of disbelief," which Coleridge said "constitutes poetic faith," therefore empowers and directs the reader to construct an imagined world in which particular hypotheses are proposed and demonstrated. Although the imagination as a central concept in poetics emerges into critical debate only in the eighteenth century, it has been a crucial issue for over two millennia in religious, philosophical, and political discourse. The two recognized alternative methodologies in the study of literature, the poetic and the hermeneutic, are opposed on the issue of the written image: poets and readers feel free to imagine, while hermeneuts feel obliged to specify the meanings of images and, failing that, to minimize the importance of imagery. Recognizing this problem, Collins proposes that reading written texts be regarded as a performance, a unique kind of play that transposes what had once been an oral-dramatic situation onto an inner, imaginary stage. He applies models drawn from the psychology of play to support his theory that reader response is essentially a poietic response to a rule-governed set of ludic cues.

Christian Intervention in Anthropological Perspective Culture and Human Values explores the intricate relationship between culture and the values that shape human behavior and beliefs. Drawing from real-life encounters and ethnographic research, Jacob Loewen delves into the profound influence of culture on individuals and communities, examining how cultural values become the core of people's way of life. Through captivating anecdotes and insightful analysis, the book uncovers the significance of cultural universals in various societies. It highlights the crucial role of values as the hub around which cultures revolve, affecting every aspect of human existence. From the impact of money in missionaries' lives to the centrality of war for ancestral cultures, the Loewen demonstrates how values shape perceptions, actions, and even spirituality. Moreover, the book underscores the importance of cultural awareness for effective cross-cultural communication, particularly in the context of missionary work. It emphasizes the need for missionaries to comprehend and respect the values of the cultures they encounter, as well as the reciprocal learning that takes place in such interactions. By exploring these themes, Culture and Human Values offers valuable insights into the complexities of culture and its profound influence on human behavior, providing a compelling perspective on the intersection of culture, values, and communication.

Time - relentless, ever-present but intangible and the single element over which human beings have no absolute control - has long proved a puzzle. The author examines the phenomenon of time and asks such fascinating questions as how time impinges on people, to what extent our awareness of time is culturally conditioned, how societies deal with temporal problems and whether time can be considered a `resource' to be economized. More specifically, he provides a consistent and detailed analysis of theories put forward by a number of thinkers such as Durkheim, Evans-Pritchard, Lévi-Strauss, Geertz, Piaget, Husserl and Bourdieu. His discussion encompasses four main approaches in time research, namely developmental psychology, symbolic anthropology (covering the bulk of post-Durkheimian social anthropology) `economic' theories of time in social geography and, finally, phenomenological theories. The author concludes by presenting his own model of social/cognitive time, in the light of these critical discussions of the literature.

Volumes 7-77, 80-83 include 13th-83rd, 86th-89th annual report of the American Baptist missionary union.