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Is where we introduce listeners to people who have found their way out of the dark shadows of life and back to light and those who lead others on their journey from darkness to light.

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PATTI’S BLOGS

The Over Fifty Writer (1^st and 3^rd Friday)

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Meet seasoned authors, learn about new books and find inspiration to help you along your journey. No matter how far you’ve come or where you are going, I’d be honored to travel with you. If you like what you see, please subscribe to avoid missing updates.

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Step Into the Light Blog Talk Radio Show

Latest Show

2024-04-25
Episode #256 - Featuring Suzanne Shera

Suzanne is the author of Lightlab, a book for kids to explore the nature of light with a Christian perspective, ideal for kids 8-12 years old. Suzanne is a Physics teacher at co-ops and Christian schools and a veteran homeschooler. Join us as Suzanne shares her fascination with light and compares facets of light with our relationship to Jesus as the Light of the World.

Recent Shows

2024-04-11
Episode #255 - Featuring Jenn Mosier

2024-03-28
Episode #254 - Featuring Gordon Saunders

2024-03-14
Episode #253 - Featuring Antony Barone Kolenc

2024-02-22
Episode #252 - Featuring Farrah Adkins

Recent Posts

AN INVESTMENT IN THE KINGDOM by KAREN FERGUSON
5/3/2024 12:50:00 AM BY Patti Shene

FEATURED BOOK: Guess Who Is in God’s Family

AUTHOR: Karen Ferguson

PUBLISHER: Ambassador International

GENRE: Children’s Picture Book

SERIES OR STAND ALONE: Second book in the seven part Questions for Kids picture book series

TARGET AGE: 5-10 years old.

IT IS MY PLEASURE TO WELCOM AUTHOR KAREN FERGUSON TO THE OVER 50 WRITER. KAREN OFFERS ENCOURAGEMENT FOR PURSUIT OF OUR WRITING JOURNEY.

AN INVESTMENT IN THE KINGDOM

Karen Ferguson

Investment in the Kingdom. I heard this phrase more than once. It was that still small voice I knew to be Holy Spirit. You see, I'd been praying for several weeks about whether I should sign a contract for my second children’s picture book. Not because I felt like God was calling me to something else, or because I didn’t want to write anymore. It wasn’t because I didn’t like working with my publisher or didn’t have fun on the first book launch. It was a blast! It was because I was dealing with some sizable writer’s disappointment, which is pretty common for those of us dreamers, chasing after big dreams.

The visions dreamers have of how things should look is often quite different from reality, and that can be disappointing. I didn’t have an inbox full of event invitations. I didn’t see my social media following increase exponentially; and at the time, I didn’t even have a healthy royalty check to motivate me. Did I mention how difficult it is to get readers to post reviews?

Was there fruit? Yes! I made many wonderful connections in the book world and was blessed to receive great feedback from readers. I believed in the message of this new book, but because my first book hadn’t translated into a full-time income (yet), I got discouraged and questioned whether I should do it all again. There would be significant investment required of my time, energy, and finances, was it worth it? Is this still what you want me to do, Lord? Investment in the Kingdom is what I heard. So, I signed the contract, and was pleasantly surprised when my publisher offered me a revised contract several weeks later for the entire seven book series!

Now, just two months from the release date of my second book in the Questions for Kids picture book series, I am reminded that I am not responsible for the outcome, only for obedience to what God has called me to. He has provided this amazing opportunity to pursue my writing dream, and while there is significant investment required without any guarantee of ‘success,’ I understand that success in God’s Kingdom looks much different than ‘success’ in the world, and that’s ok. This is an investment worth eternal rewards because I seek to write for His glory and to point young children to Him.

If you believe God is calling you to write, even if you haven’t seen much fruit yet, don’t despise small beginnings. Continue to step out in faith and obedience to God, knowing that the outcome is in His capable Hands. God has amazing ways of doing much with very little, in His perfect timing.

Colossians 3:23-24 (NKJV)

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.

Matthew 25:20-23 (NKJV)

“So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him,‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’”

Book Summary:

Guess Who Is in God’s Family will engage young readers in one of the most foundational biblical accounts important to building a solid Christian worldview, while delivering a heartwarming message of family, faith, and God’s faithfulness. All through the eyes of curious young Lucy who takes her questions about God and family to her trusted advisor Papa Joe.

This second book in the Questions for Kids picture book series jumps into the Bible once again, this time going back to the Garden of Eden, where readers meet Adam, Eve, and a sneaky serpent who caused trouble for the first family, and for families ever since. What will God do when His people disobey? The answer may surprise you.

Guess Who Is in God’s Family is a beautifully illustrated, biblically-based account of the Garden that showcases the beauty and diversity with which our Creator made the human family and His Good Plan for us from the very beginning, driving home the timeless truth that God’s love is never-changing, never-failing, and never-ending love.

From the back cover:

When Lucy comes across some old family pictures, she has a lot of questions for Papa Joe.

• Who are these people?

• Why doesn’t she look like them?

As Papa Joe tells Lucy about her family, he shares with her the uniqueness that God created in each of us from the very beginning, all the way back to our first ancestors, Adam and Eve.

What follows is a wild adventure through the Bible, where Lucy and her papa discover God’s love and faithfulness for all people throughout all of history.

In this second book in the Questions for Kids series, discover how much God loves diversity and how God created your family in the most beautiful and perfect way

Karen Ferguson is a freelance writer and the author of the Questions for Kids picture book series. A lover of words, family, animals, and Jesus, Karen is a passionate advocate for truth that transforms lives. Her faith in God and background in K-8 education inspires her mission to write stories that grab and hold young readers’ attentions, teaching them all about God’s unchangeable truths and His unchanging love for them. Karen’s first book Guess How Much God Loves You is available on Amazon or wherever books are sold. The second book in the series is scheduled for release June 2024.

Connect with Karen:

Website: karenferg.com

Amazon Author Page: Amazon Author Page

Order on Amazon: Guess How Much God Loves You

Preorder through Publisher: Guess Who Is in God's Family

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WHERE ON EARTH DO I GET MY IDEAS? by LOUISE M. GOUGE
4/22/2024 9:25:00 PM BY Patti Shene

FEATURED BOOK: Safe Haven Ranch

AUTHOR: Louise M. Gouge

PUBLISHER: Harlequin’s Love Inspired

GENRE: Contemporary Romance

SERIES OR STAND ALONE: Series

TARGET AGE: Women, teens through adults

IT IS MY PLEASURE TO WELCOME AUTHOR LOUISE M. GOUGE TO PATTI’S PORCH. LOUISE SHARES THE INSPIRATION FOR HER LATEST RELEASE.

WHERE ON EARTH DO I GET MY IDEAS?

Louise M. Gouge

Hi, Patti. Thank you for inviting me to sit with you in a rocking chair on Patti’s Porch and have a chat with your readers! Here’s my big news: Today, April 23, 2024, my brand new contemporary romance, Safe Haven Ranch, is being released. So let’s chat about it! People often ask authors where we get our ideas. Well, mostly from life around us and that all important element of imagination. Such is the case of this novel. My late sister lived in an adorable pink adobe house beside the Rio Grande. Attached to her house was a cute little studio apartment. She and I often discussed how fun it would be to rent that space to artists needing a retreat.

While that dream never came about, it did serve as an inspiration for my story. Olivia Ortiz is a young widow with a daughter to raise. She moves in with her father in that little adobe house, planning to rent out the studio apartment to artists, one of whom is on her way to stay there. Olivia also wants to buy the adobe house on the next property so she can expand her business. To her shock, handsome cowboy/lawyer Will Mattson also wants to buy the house so he can provide a home for troubled boys. Because Olivia’s policeman husband was killed by a gang of youths, she does not want such boys to live so close to her precious daughter, Emily. Throw in an adorable little orphan boy who latches on to Emily, a couple of abandoned puppies, a few hummingbirds, and maybe a horse or two, and conflict ensues!

Here’s a bit more about the story:

Can two little children help turn a feud into a family?

It should be easy for widow Olivia Ortiz to despise Will Mattson, the man keeping her from buying the ranchland she needs for herself and her daughter, Emily. But when Emily becomes instant friends with Will’s nephew, Jemmy, Olivia and Will find themselves growing closer as well. And as Olivia’s feelings for the handsome cowboy shift, competing for the property could be the start of something more…

South Carolina author Louise M. Gouge writes contemporary and historical romance fiction, winning the prestigious IRCA in 2006 and placing as a finalist in 2011, 2015, 2016, and 2017. She was also a finalist in the American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Awards in 2005, 2007, and 2008, and placed in the Laurel Wreath contest in 2012. Most recently, she was a finalist in the 2023 Selah Awards and is a current finalist for the 2024 Selah Awards. A former college English and humanities professor, Louise is a member of the Christian PEN and has been copyediting for well-known authors for fifteen years. Married for fifty-four happy years to her husband, David, Louise is now widowed and spends her days researching and writing her next novel.

Where you can find Louise:

Website

Facebook

Follow Louise on BookBub

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THE ALOHA PEOPLE by H. L. WEGLEY
4/18/2024 11:45:00 PM BY Patti Shene

FEATURED BOOK: Facing the Darkness (Against the Darkness 1)

AUTHOR: H L Wegley

PUBLISHER: Trinity Press International

GENRE: Medical Thriller

SERIES OR STAND ALONE: Book 1, Against the Darkness

TARGET AGE: College age and up

IT IS MY PLEASURE TO WELCOME AUTHOR H. L. WEGLEY TO THE OVER 50 WRITER. H. L. SHARES INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE POLYNESIAN PEOPLE AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.

THE ALOHA PEOPLE

H. L. Wegley

When my wife and I retired and spent six weeks in Maui to wind down from stressful jobs, I became interested in the Polynesian people, their history, and culture. After reading several books and observing the people firsthand, I’m providing my nutshell description of the breathtaking history of this special group of people.

First, a principal: regardless of what modern anthropologists say—anthropologists whose findings are often tainted by inadequate theories of human sociology, psychology, and evolution—cultures grow darker the more the knowledge of God is removed from them. “Pristine” cultures are not always beautiful. Some are horrifying. If you don't believe me, read Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman's Story by Mark Andrew Ritchie, a real eye-opener.

According to Daniel Kikawa, in his well-researched book, Perpetuated in Righteousness, the Polynesian people migrated eastward from the Middle East, the cradle of civilization, eventually reaching the Pacific. They became great navigators and, a little before 400 A.D., using the stars, they made a miraculous journey in small boats, hitting a minute target in the middle of the Pacific, the Hawaiian Islands. They brought with them much of the Old Testament in story form, including stories of the flood, Joseph, Moses, and much more. In fact, their word, aloha, derives directly from this retained knowledge of God. “Alo” means Divine Son of God in their high priestly language. “Ha” means spirit of life. So, to say aloha is literally to say, “May the spirit of the one true God go with you.” Aloha is much like “shalom” used by the Jewish people.

For nearly 1,000 years, the “spirit of aloha” and the stories of God they preserved characterized the culture of this Pacific paradise. But around 1,300 A.D., Pa’ao, a pagan priest, arrived from Tahiti and began to rule with force and fear, introducing evils such as gruesome methods of human sacrifice and perverting God by characterizing Him as a violent god of war. The priests of this religion controlled the people, demanding from them what the religious leaders needed to live in wealth and luxury, enslaving the people and forcing them to fight in their armies to conquer more territory. But the stories of God were hidden in the hearts of a few people who refused to forget them.

Eight hundred years later, in the early 1800s, several things happened that prepared the islands for a return to God. King Kamehameha unified the islands, freeing them from the former system of rule, kapu. The people openly defied the laws of the kapu system.

A new priest began quoting an old prophecy announcing the imminent coming of the Prince of Peace, who was supposed to arrive on a ship with white sails and give them back the knowledge of the God of peace. He would come by way of a small black box. At that very time, the first missionaries were onboard a ship on their way to the Hawaiian Islands. When the ship landed, the first thing the missionaries brought to the people was a black Bible box.

The Hawaiian people’s hearts had been prepared for this event and the gospel spread in a huge revival beginning in 1837 and lasting more than 20 years. By 1860, the island population was 90% Christian, and it had the highest literacy rate in the world because people wanted to read and study the scriptures.

I chose to end the story on this high note because the last 40 years of the 19th century were a sad time in Hawaiian history. I pray that the people of the Islands will return to their historical beliefs in the one true God, that they will be made whole again, and that their many wounds will be healed.

Back Cover Blurb for Facing the Darkness

She scuttled the CCP’s biowarfare plans. When they catch her, she will pay.

Dr. Meiling Chen, a brilliant young virologist from the Hong Kong Medical School, is on the verge of a major breakthrough for manipulating the entire class of RNA viruses that would make gain of function hardly more than child’s play. She is offered an attractive postdoctoral fellowship at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to complete her work, and she accepts.

Knowing the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) plans to use her work to create deadly bioweapons, she memorizes her important findings, deletes all her files, and tries to escape to America with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents in pursuit.

Escaping China with its surveillance and social credit system is not easy. And even if Meiling is successful, can she find someone she can trust in the U.S. who will allow her to continue her work, using it only for good? But treachery is a capital offense to the CCP and PLA, and it never goes unpunished.

Ryan Adams, a meteorologist at a Bend, Oregon TV station and a self-taught Christian apologist, said he’d give his right arm for a reliable source of info on China’s bioweapons program. He might get his wish, but it could cost him more than just his right arm.

Set in Wuhan China, Hong Kong, Oregon, and Colorado, Facing the Darkness is a clean medical thriller that paints a picture of the cost of Facing the Darkness.

Purchase Link for Facing the Darkness

Available on KU

H. L. Wegley served in the USAF as an Intelligence Analyst and a Weather Officer. In civilian life, he was a weather forecaster and a research scientist in atmospheric physics. After earning an MS in Computer Science, he developed computing systems for Boeing before retiring in the Seattle area, where he and his wife of 57 years enjoy small-group ministry, grandchildren, hiking Olympic Peninsula beaches, visiting Maui whenever they can, and where he writes inspirational thrillers and romantic-suspense novels.

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