Wednesday 11 May 2011

Exciting when New Books arrive!

Ray’s devotional books arrived last week.
My Justice at Baragula arrived last Monday so we have several boxes of books to store away until they are all sold – or given away, so watch this blog! I just checked one Christian bookshop on the internet and Ray’s books have started to arrive on their shelves in cities across Australia while mine are still to make their appearance.

I even eventually managed to work out how to “create an event” on Facebook to let folk know about the book launch we are organising – or at least the first one in Melbourne, Victoria, on Saturday, June 4th at 2.30pm at Ringwood Church of Christ. This will be followed by afternoon tea and the friends of our daughter, Gaylene, are kindly catering for us and would appreciate an RSVP so there will be sufficient goodies.

Now we can also announce the names of the kind folk who are going to launch our books.

John Sharpe, the minister at Ringwood will launch From Eden With Love. We do thank John for all his support.

We are thrilled our dear friend, Jacquiline Purnell, will be home from Bangkok and is launching CHILDREN: God’s Special Interest. She has worked for years with children and has written the forward to this book for Ray. Jacqui and her husband David have worked for many years with World Vision and he is currently their South-East Asian Development Manager.

Delightful, talented author Amanda Deed  will be launching my Justice at Baragula. I was not at all surprised when her challenging Christian novel, "The Game”, won the 2010 CALEB award for Christian Fiction.

Ray is donating the royalties from his devotions about children to the Khayelihle Children’s Village in Zimbabwe, and those from his devotions for married couples to the Australian Christian Lobby which supports Christian Marriage.

As well as all the excitement about our books we have been busy with other activities this last week. It has been very encouraging to receive feed-back about my talk last Thursday at the local Women Aglow meeting. As Ray teases me, I spend days preparing a talk but then get away from my notes as my heart takes over. How could anything else happen when talking about the outward appearance of Christians and their inward appearance that should shine the beauty and fragrance of Jesus to those we meet. As Isaiah 53:2 (NIV) says about the promised One, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him...” yet despite the horror of Him dying on a cross, for those of us who have learned to love Him as Keith Green’s song says,
“O Lord, you’re beautiful,
Your face is all I seek.
For when Your eyes are on this child,
Your grace abounds to me.”

Another old song should be our daily prayer. “Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me, all His compassion and purity.” If only that could be true!
Our prayer is that at least though our writings we may share snippets about the Lord Jesus Christ that will encourage readers to want to know Him as their Saviour and Lord  - and also intimately as their best Friend.

The winner of last weeks giveaway, Outback From Baragula, is Michelle Dennis Evans. Congratulations! Please send me your postal details to mary@mary-hawkins.com and I will have it in the mail for you.

2 comments:

  1. So excited for you guys! Looking forward to 4th June! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. We are looking forward to it too. Have made up a poster to send out advertising the launch. Thanks, Amanda!

    ReplyDelete

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