Biography
12 total works
A promising national swimmer, Maureen McKenna, has to stop the sport she loves on medical grounds. Distraught, she kicks back at the world that has betrayed her. If the world had let her down then she was determined to beat it into submission and win out on her own terms.
A combination of commercial acumen and problem drinking saw this business high flier soar and crash - repeatedly. The cycle couldn't continue and Maureen became an alcoholic and involved in an abusive relationship that lasted 12 years. The world had won, again.
Without hope, aged 33, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous as a last resort and met a young man who told her about a surer kind of hope, one founded on faith. She listened but was still determined to do away with what she considered was her worthless life. Just as she was about to throw herself in front of traffic on a busy road, she felt a hand on her shoulder, physically restraining her from stepping off of the kerb. When she looked around, there was no one there. She phoned the young man she had recently met and became a Christian that day.
Maureen and Hugh (for that was the young man's name) later married and worked full time with homeless people, prostitutes and addicts in the streets of Glasgow. After 12 years they decided that the people that they met needed more than food and clothes, they needed a saviour to break the cycle of deprivation. In 1998 they set up Open Door Trust Glasgow.
Read about this amazing work in the urban underclass, a work that will challenge your pre-conceptions and move your heart with compassion. Share Maureen and Hugh's vision of service to making a change in the lives of those whom the world passes by.
May Nicholson's story, told so powerfully in Miracles from Mayhem and More Miracles from Mayhem, tells of how she went from being a drunk no-hoper to establishing Preshal, a Christian trust based in one of the most needy areas of Glasgow. The work of Preshal and its impact continue to challenge and inspire. In Renewing Broken Lives you will find May's story and the story of Preshal interwoven with the stories that men and women tell of their own lives. The book will be sure to move readers to tears, to laughter and to prayer.
May Nicholson was a notorious fighting drunk in Ferguslie Park, Paisley until her conversion when she was 34. The last 22 years have been spend tirelessly working for the Lord as an outreach worker in Ferguslie Park, Church of Scotland Project Worker in Mid Craigie (a deprived area of Dundee) and now in Govan where she founded the Preshal (Gaelic for precious) Trust.
May's biography reads as though she is telling her story and is interspersed by accounts and comments from other people. Her story is so incredible that it needs other people to verify what she says; one of May's doctors, a minister, those who come to the Preshal Trust and The Duchess of Montrose all help to tell this compelling story.
Georgie Orme established a childcare centre in Kenya for the rehabilitation for children with mobility problems. Most of her original patients had suffered from polio and, left to their own devices, hauled themselves along the ground, seal–like – dragging their useless lower limbs behind them.
Seeking out anyone who would teach them anything, Georgie and her team stretched affected tendons through many hundreds of hours of pain–staking and painful physiotherapy until children’s limbs were straight enough to be strapped into very basic home–produced splints.
Many children were encouraged to do the apparently impossible – they learned to walk. Daniel, also a polio victim, joined the team. A shoemaker, he went to South Korea for a short training programme in orthotics and prosthetics. He soon put his newfound skills into practice. Amazingly, the Centre at Kajiado started producing its own artificial limbs.
Children who were born without feet, or had traumatically lost their feet, were fitted with Kajiado–produced limbs and enabled to walk for the first time. The work had extended way beyond the original need Child Care Centre. God used a very ordinary Scottish missionary to do a most extraordinary work. Becoming mobile was not an end in itself, Maasai children were enabled to attend school, learn a trade and become independent. Many who saw Christian love in action became Christians.
Many biographies of Christians begin at the point of the subject's conversion, with little attention paid to the preceding years. The emphasis of this book is different. As God has chosen his people before the beginning of time his interest with them does not begin at conversion. Gold from dark mines focuses on the pre-conversion years of its six subjects and how they came to faith. After telling their life stories in brief each section is concluded by showing how God used the experiences they went through before conversion to achieve what he did in their lives.
As award winning biographer, Irene Howat, puts it "It is surely true that the darkest mine from which believers take spiritual gold is the dark mine of their own pre-conversion experience."
Through this beautifully conceived book you will see the benefits (if that is the word!) of the problems of Jonathan Edwards, Isobel Kuhn, Charles Spurgeon, St. Augustine of Hippo, John Bunyan and Selina, Countess of Huntingdon.
God's providential dealing with his chosen children, before his work of grace took place in their hearts, makes for encouraging reading.
This is a delightful book that will inspire all Christians. It demonstrates how in God's providence he redeems our 'lost ' years by turning them into tools to help build his kingdom.
In Miracles from Mayhem May Nicholson told the story of how she went from being a drunk no–hoper to establishing Preshal, a Christian trust based in one of the most needy areas of Glasgow. Preshal comes from the Gaelic word for precious, and Preshal aims to show those who come in that they are precious, whatever their circumstances, whatever their needs, whatever their addictions, whatever the state of their mental health. Opening More Miracles from Mayhem opens the door to Preshal and allows the reader to meet those who come through the door, both locals seeking friendship and support as well as members of the staff, several of whom have come up through the ranks.
Those who tell their stories in More Miracles from Mayhem come from all sorts of backgrounds, from loving and Christian homes through to abusive and manipulative backgrounds to having no home at all, rather spending over 30 years in the care system. The book will move readers to tears, to laughter and to prayer. This book will give you new hope as you read of those who have come through terrible times and have found faith and hope.
Often, the things that make us really examine our faith are the trials that we have to go through. We tend to wonder what God's purpose is and can even rail against the injustice of it all. In this book you will find 12 inspiring stories of Christians who have experienced great trials, each one shows how God remains sovereign and is the one ?who comforts us in all our troubles' (2 Cor. 1 vs. 4).
- Gwen MacDougall, whose 12-year-old daughter died of cancer.
- Keith Weston, former Chairman of Keswick Convention grows old gracefully.
- Bertie and Pat Johnston, Bertie was a RUC Officer several times targeted.
- Hope Scott lives with a fatal genetic condition in her family.
- Ajith Fernando, working for the Lord in a civil war situation in Sri Lanka.
- Valerie Smith writes about bringing up her autistic daughter.
- Peter Trumper shares his experience of having Multiple Sclerosis.
- Jim and Margaret Prescott tell us of Jim's brush with cancer.
- Rob Hopkins whose parents were diagnosed with dementia.
- Emma Faragher, a young woman with acute back pain.
- Sandy Finlayson has spinabifida.
- Effie Lamont grieves after losing her mother, her son and her husband
From his early days Jackie's faith has been the motivating force in his life, the foundation of all that he has done. This inspiring story is a lesson to all of us who set our sights low, refusing to trust in God and his ability to use us as tools in the master's hands.
What makes Blythswood Care the organisation that it is today? The answer lies in the personal stories told in this book. They range from Scotland to Eastern Europe to Equatorial Africa and from WW2 to the present day. But there is one common thread: God hears and answers prayer.
In this book, thirteen individuals who work with or for Blythswood explain how they came to believe in Jesus Christ and how they put their faith into practice in their own communities. Join Blythswood Care in celebrating 50 years of God's faithfulness, and be encouraged!
Whatever an atheistic state plans, a higher power breaks the chains. Dimitry Mustafin, a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry in Moscow, was given permission by the Soviet Government to work for a year in Italy - although his wife and daughter were not allowed to go in case they all defected.
Dimitry became a Christian in Milan. When he told his mother of his conversion, he learned for the first time that his grandfather had been martyred for his faith. Defection was far from his mind; instead he longed to take the gospel to his Motherland. He left Russia a Lieutenant in the Soviet Chemical Defence Army and returned... a Bible Smuggler!
Since then, Dimitry has spent his time distributing Bibles in Moscow and other parts of Russia - and sharing his faith in every way possible.
Gideons International heard of what he and others in his congregation were doing, and they now supply Scriptures, not secretly, one at a time, but by the lorry-load.
Because of his family history, Dimitry has a deep concern for prisoners and orphan children, who also often end up in prison. He visited one of the largest prisons so often that the governor invited him to a staff meeting! It was there he was introduced to a retired executioner ... who worked in the prisons at the time his grandfather was killed. Such encounters do not make for easy evangelism, yet Dimitry was able to pray with him and lead him to the Saviour. Dimitry tells his story with heart-rending honesty. You will never forget his story.
Life can hurt deeply! But who do we turn to in such times of darkness and adversity? It might be through times of sorrow, bereavement, fear, anxiety or depression that you grow closest to God. These twelve highly personal accounts written by best-selling author Irene Howat tell of finding comfort through disabling illness, marital betrayal, a child murdered, a spouse imprisoned, difficult working situations and loneliness. All of these people in their difficult days have felt the hand of God, who is faithful and true to His Word and His people, rest upon them.
For five decades, Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) planes have been serving countless thousands of men, women and children, bringing medical care, emergency food, and Christian hope. In the places of deepest need they are serving as the air-arm of the church, enabling the work of aid and development agencies, missions, national churches and other local groups.
Using aircraft and electronic communication networks MAF overcomes barriers that isolate people from spiritual and physical help. These are remote places where flying is not a luxury but a lifeline. Operating over 130 aircraft from bases in 30 countries, today every three minutes, a MAF plane is taking off or landing somewhere in the world
Best selling author Irene Howat has compiled the accounts of MAF workers in the field and invites you to experience a week in their lives. Flying across deserts, jungles, mountains and swamps, be transported to some of the most inaccessible areas in the world with MAF employees who are giving hope to far-flung communities. From the Ecuadorian jungle to the wetlands of Bangladesh to the Mongolian plains prepare for take off on an exhilarating and eye opening journey that you will never forget.