{"id":523,"date":"2015-02-19T16:49:37","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T16:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/faithsearch.org\/blogs\/rw\/?p=523"},"modified":"2015-11-20T14:38:02","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T14:38:02","slug":"more-good-news-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/ministry\/more-good-news-2\/","title":{"rendered":"More Good News!!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Surprised<\/a>

Surprised by Faith<\/em>, 3d edition<\/p><\/div>\n

Almost two years ago, I wrote about the joy I share when I hear\u2014either\u00a0directly or indirectly\u2014from people who have been impacted by our ministry and the resources we produce (see “Sharing in the Joy!<\/a>“, from March 1, 2013). I have recently been blessed again to hear some amazing accounts.<\/p>\n

One of them starts out like a love story, but you may not be “surprised” how it ends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The following excerpt is from a letter to Dr. Bierle, author of Surprised by Faith<\/em>, and president emeritus of FaithSearch<\/strong><\/em> International. My role as director of communications and publications includes editing and producing the books, both in English and Russian. So I was very excited to read this.<\/p>\n

\"Surprised<\/a>

Surprised by Faith<\/em> Russian edition<\/p><\/div>\n

I just finished reading your book Surprised by Faith<\/em> last night. I don’t really know where to begin, but…\u00a0to begin where it makes sense would be a bit over a year ago. I met a woman… who has very deep faith. In the faith department I was pretty much the opposite of her.<\/p>\n

I was brought up in a secular family…. The closest I got to religion while growing up was when my parents felt obligated to shuffle me to some aunt or uncle and attend their church….<\/p>\n

[I]t was difficult for me at first to understand how her deep faith might affect our relationship…. I was frankly very concerned that it might be a negative impact instead of something positive.<\/p>\n

Fortunately it seems God had something planned for me. Something was missing in my life. Partly it was love but there was something more to it than that.<\/p>\n

I am not one to do things blindly without thinking them through. Since I live in the Twin Cities I started my search locally for an Orthodox Church where I could learn more. I was informed there was an adult education class on Sundays before the service and to return if I was interested.<\/p>\n

It was in a recent class that I heard Oleg Vokresensky from FaithSearch<\/em><\/strong> speak about the introduction of religion classes in Russia. That really piqued my interest. I know how anti-religion Russia has been for many years. He presented part of the English version of the program that was made to teachers in Russia.<\/p>\n

Sort of on impulse I picked up Surprised by Faith<\/em> in both in Russian and English. I really didn’t realize at the time that the presentation he was giving entitled “Historic Foundations of the Christian Faith” was based on your book until I started actually reading it. I approached the book with a lot of skepticism as my background has been in hard sciences, engineering, and programming. My background seemed similar to your background in some ways and that really intrigued me.<\/p>\n

I read as though I was trying to quench a thirst I never knew I had. The more I read, the more I could identify with examples in the book…. By midnight I had finished the book and looked at all the appendices as well as the section asking for anyone who was impacted by the book to write you.<\/p>\n

The book has been a defining point in finding my faith. I would credit it as being the key piece that put me over the edge. So now I am embarking upon the first steps of my spiritual journey.<\/p>\n

While I still want to do some research in a few key areas to better understand the Bible and the people within it, I now have a strong belief in God, I truly feel my faith for the first time. If it wasn’t for [her] I might never have found it. Meeting her truly set events in motion that ultimately led me to your book. They say God works in mysterious ways and now I understand how that can be applied to my life.<\/p>\n

Thank you for writing your amazing book. It truly has had a profound effect on me. If your evidence is accurate as I believe it is, I can’t deny the significance of it. Blessedly I was open-minded enough to allow facts to speak for themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My role in all of this was only to get some things printed so our evangelists can bring them out into the public eye. And it is WONDERFUL to be a part of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost two years ago, I wrote about the joy I share when I hear\u2014either\u00a0directly or indirectly\u2014from people who have been impacted by our ministry and the resources we produce (see “Sharing in the Joy!“, from March 1, 2013). I have … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":641,"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions\/641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wattmans.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}