The gripping and inspiring story of two extraordinary women--from their imprisonment by the Taliban to their rescue by U.S. Special Forces. When Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer arrived in Afghanistan, they had come to help bring a better life and a little hope to some of the poorest and most oppressed people in the world. Within a few months, their lives were thrown into chaos as they became pawns in historic international events. They were arrested by the ruling Taliban government for teaching about Christianity to the people with whom they worked. In the middle of their trial, the events of September 11, 2001, led to the international war on terrorism, with the Taliban a primary target. While many feared Curry and Mercer could not survive in the midst of war, Americans nonetheless prayed for their safe return, and in November their prayers were answered. In Prisoners of Hope, Dayna Curry and Heather Mercer tell the story of their work in Afghanistan, their love for the people they served, their arrest, trial, and imprisonment by the Taliban, and their rescue by U.S. Special Forces. The heart of the book will discuss how two middle-class American women decided to leave the comforts of home in exchange for the opportunity to serve the disadvantaged, and how their faith motivated them and sustained them through the events that followed. Their story is a magnificent narrative of ordinary women caught in extraordinary circumstances as a result of their commitment to serve the poorest and most oppressed women and children in the world. This book will be inspiring to those who seek a purpose greater than themselves.

The eminent cultural historian H. Stuart Hughes examines the works of Italo Svevo, Alberto Moravia, Carlo Levi, Primo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg, and Giorgio Bassani--six Italian prose writers of Jewish or part-Jewish origin--and gracefully shows how these writers combine in various measures their ancestral Jewish heritage with recent experiences of antisemitic persecution.

God doesn't bless us to raise our standard of living. God blesses us to raise our standard of giving, and that's where true joy is found. The New York Times bestselling author of Chase the Lion challenges us not to settle for half of what God offers when it comes to blessings—we are BLESSED to BLESS. His discovery started with a simple experiment. Whenever Batterson received a blessing, he would give a similar blessing away. If someone paid him a compliment or gave him a gift or went out of their way to help him, he would return the favor by doing something similar for someone else. We flip the blessing by blessing others in the way God has blessed us. That’s how the blessing becomes a double blessing. It turns giving into a game—one we can’t win because God will always outgive us! It’s an ancient truth found within the Abrahamic covenant: “I will bless you . . . and you will be a blessing.” In other words, we are blessed to bless. The first blessing is receiving, but it doesn’t end there. The second blessing is giving it away! That’s the double blessing. And that’s where double joy is found. In a day and age where the idea of blessing has been reduced to a hashtag (#blessed), Batterson challenges readers to pursue true, God-glorifying blessing and experience an exponential impact by participating in the double blessing. Don’t settle for half of what God offers. Discover how you can both get it and give it . . . in Double Blessing.

President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society was breathtaking in its scope and dramatic in its impact. Over the course of his time in office, Johnson passed over one thousand pieces of legislation designed to address an extraordinary array of social issues. Poverty and racial injustice were foremost among them, but the Great Society included legislation on issues ranging from health care to immigration to education and environmental protection. But while the Great Society was undeniably ambitious, it was by no means perfect. In Prisoners of Hope, prize-winning historian Randall B. Woods presents the first comprehensive history of the Great Society, exploring both the breathtaking possibilities of visionary politics, as well as its limits. Soon after becoming president, Johnson achieved major legislative victories with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But he wasn't prepared for the substantial backlash that ensued. Community Action Programs were painted as dangerously subversive, at worst a forum for minority criminals and at best a conduit through which the federal government and the inner city poor could bypass the existing power structure. Affirmative action was rife with controversy, and the War on Poverty was denounced by conservatives as the cause of civil disorder and disregard for the law. As opposition, first from white conservatives, but then also some liberals and African Americans, mounted, Johnson was forced to make a number of devastating concessions in order to secure the future of the Great Society. Even as many Americans benefited, millions were left disappointed, from suburban whites to the new anti-war left to African Americans. The Johnson administration's efforts to draw on aspects of the Great Society to build a viable society in South Vietnam ultimately failed, and as the war in Vietnam descended into quagmire, the president's credibility plummeted even further. A cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of even well-intentioned policy, Prisoners of Hope offers a nuanced portrait of America's most ambitious--and controversial--domestic policy agenda since the New Deal.

Author asserts that the hopes of loved ones are kept alive by those who would exploit their sorrow.

Quit playing it safe and start running toward the roar! Now available for the first time in a convenient paperback edition and featuring a brand new group discussion guide. When the image of a man-eating beast travels through the optic nerve and into the visual cortex, the brain sends the body a simple but urgent message: run away! That’s what normal people do, but not lion chasers. Rather than seeing a five-hundred-pound problem, they see an opportunity for God to show up and show His power. Chase the Lion is more than a catch phrase; it’s a radically different approach to life. It’s only when we stop fearing failure that we can fully seize opportunity by the mane. With grit and gusto, New York Times best-selling author Mark Batterson delivers a bold message to everyone with a big dream. This is a wake-up call to stop living as if the purpose of life was to simply arrive safely at death. Our dreams should scare us. They should be so big that without God they would be impossible to achieve. Quit running away from what you’re afraid of. Chase the lion! Change the world! What is your five-hundred-pound dream? In this highly anticipated sequel to his best-selling In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Mark Batterson invites lion chasers everywhere to chase dreams so impossible that victory demands we face our fears, defy the odds, and hold tight to God. These are the kind of dreams that will make you a bigger person and the world a better place. Based upon 2 Samuel 23, Chase the Lion tells the true story of an ancient warrior named Benaiah who chased a lion into a pit on a snowy day—and then killed it. For most people, that situation wouldn’t just be a problem…it would be the last problem they ever faced. For Benaiah, it was an opportunity to step into his destiny. After defeating the lion, he landed his dream job as King David’s bodyguard and eventually became commander-in-chief of Israel’s army under King Solomon. Written in a way that both challenges and encourages, this revolutionary book will help unleash the faith and courage you need to identify, chase, and catch the five-hundred-pound dreams in your life.

Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh knew they were putting their lives on the line. Islamic laws in Iran forbade them from sharing their Christian beliefs, but in three years, they’d covertly put New Testaments into the hands of twenty thousand of their countrymen and started two secret house churches. In 2009, they were finally arrested and held in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, a place where inmates are routinely tortured and executions are commonplace. In the face of ruthless interrogations, persecution, and a death sentence, Maryam and Marziyeh chose to take the radical—and dangerous—step of sharing their faith inside the very walls of the government stronghold that was meant to silence them. In Captive in Iran, two courageous Iranian women recount how God used their 259 days in Evin Prison to shine His light into one of the world’s darkest places, giving hope to those who had lost everything and showing love to those in despair.

A biography of the revered Indian leader explores his early career in South Africa, the forging of his political activism, his influence, triumphs, and failures in India, and the development of his philosophy of nonviolence

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Assigned to Hope Nation while recovering from injuries, Captain Nicholas Seafort is appointed liaison to the wealthy planters whose holdings are vital to the Earth-Hope Nation relationship. But he's soon a pawn in a dangerous game when the planters, who fear that Earth has abandoned them to an alien attack, rebel, declaring their independence.