Today I am blogging over at the Heroes, Heroines & History blog and offering a giveaway of The Master's Calling! Click here to read the post and enter the giveaway. With the new movie Risen coming out, and Easter drawing near, I thought I would take ya'll on a trip with me to visit the Garden Tomb in Israel. The Garden Tomb Out of all the sites that we visited during our trip to the Holy Land, this one tops them all. There are actually two places near Jerusalem that claim to be the place that Jesus was buried. There is the Catholic Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and then there is the Garden Tomb which was claimed by Protestants, which is where our tour took us. I found the facts about the Garden Tomb to be very interesting, and thought you might too. The Garden Tomb is a beautiful place that simply takes your breath away. As you enter, you are met by plants, flowers and stone landscaping that transports you to the Biblical era. The site is very unique, and ...

Join me over at Heroes, Heroines and History to learn about Leprosy in Bible days! Here's a preview: Incurable disease. Those two words have terrified people for thousands of years. The recent Ebola epidemic caused panic across the globe. In Bible times, leprosy was the disease that was perhaps the most feared of them all, because like Ebola, it was contagious, miserable, with no known cure.  What is leprosy? Leprosy is mentioned 68 times in the Bible, however the modern definition of leprosy, and what was considered leprosy during Bible days differs.  Read the full post on HHHistory.com!

Author and friend Michele Huey is hosting me on her inspirational blog, God, Me & a Cup of Tea. Here's a teaser: Be patient therefore, bretheren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. ~James 5:7 I volunteer about half my time at a non-profit ranch in the Ozarks. One of the many things I help with is the harvest of pears when they are ready for picking. We went out to the   tree with ladders, baskets, sheets, and set to work. It was absolutely unbelievable how many pears were on that single tree! We picked bushels and bushels of pears until we had them coming out our ears. A lot of pears were eaten before they even reached the house. Some were stored in boxes in the cellar. We froze gallons of them, gave some away, and still some went rotten before they could used. Then there were the pears at the top of the tree that were too high for...

Today I would like to introduce you to an author friend of mine. Joanne is the author of two books, and one of my close writing buddies.   Welcome, Joanne! Tell us a little about yourself. As a lifelong student of the Bible, I’ve done extensive Bible research, taken numerous Bible courses, and had the privilege and the joy of taking four exciting tours of Bible lands. I’ve taught foreign languages and English, and more recently, as an academic language therapist, I’ve helped dyslexic children strengthen their reading and writing skills. I’m a music lover and amateur pianist and especially enjoy accompanying singers. Wow. That's quite a resume. How did you discover your calling to be a writer? In a word: gradually. As a youngster in school, I actually found creative writing assignments intimidating. Later I discovered that writing can be a wonderful way to think through an idea in greater depth, and I wrote some articles and a few poems. But when I made an attempt t...