A Tanzanian pastor faces his family with a grumbling stomach and empty hands. He scrapes together spiritual sustenance for his congregation with no seminary education, commentaries, or study Bible. But his meager salary leaves his table bare at the end of the day.

“They’re going hungry,” Pastor James concluded in a conversation with ABH Board President Howard Joslin.  

This passing comment ignited a vision—not just to offer a few meals, but to purchase plows so pastors can provide a lifetime of meals for their families, churches, and the surrounding villages.

“We live in a farming community,” Howard said. “We could probably raise the money in no time.”

Howard and ABH President Fran Joslin brought the need to their small group at Redeemer Church in Winterset, Iowa. Some church members generously donated $111 each to purchase and deliver a single plow. Meanwhile, a friend longed to contribute. For years, he prayed for an insurance settlement from a car accident, but the insurance company refused to pay. When the money “happened” to come during ABH’s plow campaign, this friend recognized God’s provision and gave $3,100 to help hungry pastors.

In all, ABH raised $4,196—enough to purchase and deliver thirty-four plows—and another $400 to buy seeds. Pastor James personally delivered the plows, dropping off twenty-three plows in a region called Katavi.

“Does the ‘A’ in ‘ABH’ stand for angels?” the presiding bishop in the region joked.

A one-hour meeting with the bishop stretched to four, and then an overnight stay. Later, the bishop called the pastors he oversees, telling them to welcome James who works as ABH’s Africa director, along with ABH’s books.

“Most Americans train but leave pastors hungry,” the bishop explained. “You have saved us by meeting our physical needs first.”  

Next James headed to Singida to deliver the remaining eleven plows. Local pastors hailed James as the “Lifesaver to Pastors” and lavished him with gifts – two chickens and an acre of land. One elderly pastor asked James to be his son because of James’s walk with the Lord.

“The door is open to ABH,” the regional chairman of the Pentecostal Church declared. “You are welcome to come and train as many pastors as you like.”

Before receiving plows, the pastors could cultivate only an acre or two of land. Now they can plant around seven to ten acres, more than enough to feed their families. In three years, the pastors will have grown enough food to last ten years. But these pastors have a greater vision than simply providing for their own needs.

By selling surplus harvest, they plan to buy plows for the church planters they send out to surrounding villages. Then the church planters can raise crops, buy plows, and send out more church planters. As churches multiply, ABH’s scope grows to include more pastors and congregations starving for God’s Word.

“You’re not just training pastors but helping them take care of their families,” James summarized. “The whole region is open now.”

James headed home after delivering plows and experiencing God’s blessing in Katavi and Singida. Around midnight, his car sputtered to a stop by the side of the road. James messaged Fran to pray he could get his car fixed and make it home safely. A local mechanic “happened” to drive the streets in the middle of the night to see if anyone needed help. In less than an hour, God blessed again by sending a mechanic to tow the car, fix it, and send Pastor James on his way.

A gold couch nestled in our little living room provided me with my first image of caregiving. As a child I knew this couch was special. It contained a hidden bed my mother could fold out whenever an emergency arose.

When lightning flashed off the shiny insulation of our attic bedroom, my sister’s and my frightened screams caused my mother to pull out the bed. Dad carried us downstairs and tucked us in. We felt safe and protected with my parents sleeping nearby.

Through my childhood this bed came out to hold my grandmother as she went through an extended illness, me when multiple teeth came out and I sported puffy cheeks like a chipmunk, and one of my sisters as she battled a particularly serious case of mononucleosis. Each time my mother brought comfort and care to the person on that fold-out bed.

As I grew older, I observed a wider world of caregiving. I watched my aunt and uncle care for my father’s mother until she died from heart disease. I watched my friends’ families open homes to aging parents. I saw wives care for injured husbands and one mother care for a disabled child. It never occurred to me to wonder what all this activity felt like for the caregiver—not until I unexpectedly became one myself.

My husband experienced a mysterious debilitating illness in middle age. Our routine of life came to an abrupt halt as Mark lost much of his mobility and some cognitive functions. Eventually he could no longer work and our dreams of what we thought our future might hold fell like a rock to the ground.

Just as suddenly, I entered the world of caregiving. I entered a world where routine moved into the background and the unexpected became the new normal. In this world my own work patterns forcibly changed to provide what Mark could no longer supply. My participation at church and in our social world changed as well. My plans held no guarantees. I began to learn how God’s presence was the strongest truth I could hold to, to get through each day.

Mark and I are not unique in this experience which led me to write Caregiving: A Path Toward God. All around the world life changes for people as accidents occur, wars are fought, and illnesses strike. Caregivers arise and face challenges beyond what they may have imagined.

In working on Caregiving I sought to understand caregiving from a biblical perspective and to find hope in a role that often includes chaos. I started with two basic truths:

1. God calls me to care for my husband and one of my sisters, since my parents’ sudden deaths a few years ago.
2. God promises to equip his children for what they experience in life, both the heartaches and joy.

I then sought to understand how God teaches us to respond when forced into this type of role. I also explored how pastors and spiritual leaders can contribute, as they often take on caring for caregivers.

My writing journey led me to look at dynamics shared by most caregivers:

1. How to manage new circumstances when God changes the paths we think we will travel in life. I soon recognized how these difficult twists in the road brought Mark and me to experience blessings and relationships we might never have known.
2. How to refresh relationships that take on different dynamics when a person becomes ill or survives an accident. I learned how losses can potentially bring a new sense of connection with some creative fine tuning.
3. Dealing with burnout but taking advantage of our never-interrupted ability to talk with our heavenly Father through our most trying moments. I began looking for realistic ways to gain refreshment and practiced leaning heavily on my relationship with the Lord through prayer. I find this path leads to growth of hope.

My mother made her caregiving actions look effortless. Yet looking back I see her frequent moments of prayer and the help she often received from friends and family. I’m sure there were many moments when she and my father found strength in each other.

Life can bring change to any of our worlds in a single moment. Caregiving: A Path Toward God seeks to understand how to face the change. Will we follow a path toward God or shut him out? Join me on this journey as you face your own challenges. I pray for all of us that God would continue to grow our hearts. I pray pastors and spiritual leaders will seek to serve those caring for others following biblical teaching. I pray we walk the paths God prepared for us in a way that leads us to serve him and know him more fully.

Sometimes ABH books sprout wings and fly farther than we dared dream. We may never know how a copy of Shepherding God’s Church travelled from Tanzania to Malawi’s Dzaleka Refugee Camp, but Pastor Jacob prays for hundreds more books to follow.

A refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pastor Jacob is one of over 50,000 people crowded into a camp designed for 10,000. Refugees from Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, and Somalia have called this former political prison home since 1994, according to www.dzaleka.com. The camp sits forty-one kilometers from Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city, according to unhcr.org.

Five hundred churches also make their home at Dzaleka. But few of the pastors know Scripture or understand their pastoral role. Some participate in adultery. Pastor Jacob possesses a generous vision but few resources to help them.

With a PhD in theology and church planting, Pastor Jacob has already planted the Berea Pentecostal Mission Church in various regions of Malawi. Classes began in September at his Berea Pastoral Training Institute of Africa. He plans to teach—and feed—thirty pastors for free over the next two years. Each pastor will receive a certificate at the end of their training course.

But what is school without books? In a series of text messages, Pastor Jacob pleaded with ABH President Fran Joslin to send books for his students.

 “I have seen your books are very good and can help pastors and church leaders here in Malawi,” Pastor Jacob texted Fran.

Without a printer at the camp, the project of supplying books seemed doomed. Pastor Jacob could ask his students to download the books to their phones—if only they had a good Internet connection. Hope dawned when a pastor in Tanzania offered to get the books printed and send them on the bus route to Dzaleka. He also agreed to make his location in Tanzania a printing hub to send ABH books throughout southern and eastern Africa.

Within days, 250 copies each of Shepherding God’s Church and Discipleship: Following Jesus rode the bus to Malawi. Pastor Jacob announced their arrival with a text to Fran exclaiming, “”Praise the Lord, Fran! I received books. God bless you. I am very grateful.”

Future shipments will include A Walk with the Wounded (a book about pastoral counseling) and Widowed, since Pastor Jacob said many widows live at the camp. He also hopes to use ABH books at a conference this fall for 300 pastors across Malawi.

“Our God is great! We continue to pray for Satan to be defeated in Jesus’ name,” Pastor Jacob concluded in a text to Fran.

Authenticity Book House represents a rising from the ashes, a living corporation pulled from the hardness of life for the glory of God. The foundation of this statement sits on the reality that God loves to take the pain and defeats of our lives to create something new.

ABH began in the mind of my husband, Howard, and the continued shaping of ABH comes from our joint journeys and the battles the Lord continually lays before us. Let me start with the early years.

As a missionary kid I grew up convinced of the high calling of missions. Similarly, Howard so yearned for a life in missions that, when proposing to his first wife Ann, he asked if she would agree to live with him in a yurt in Mongolia. Apparently she said yes. They married in 1985.

As the years passed, my heart continued to beat for foreign missions, yet I found myself planted in Dallas, Texas. How could this lead to a missionary life? I remember sitting at a red light in East Dallas, when I finally surrendered. I realized the Lord placed me in this city with my family as my mission. My husband, Brian, and I served our children as each fought for their lives against asthma. In 1999, while the kids were still young, Brian received a dreaded diagnosis of brain cancer, leading to his own harrowing fight for life. Almost nine years later—July, 2008—I found myself widowed with three children at home…still in Dallas.

Howard’s journey saw similar hardships. In 2006 at the age of forty-four and twenty-one years into marriage, he earned a ThM degree from seminary—preparation for future ministry. Less than twenty-four hours later he suffered a heart attack. Less than a month after that, Ann received a terminal cancer diagnosis. In May, 2008, Howard himself faced widowhood with four children and this time, a battle for his faith.

The Lord joined our paths a couple of years into widowhood while deep in depression. Our desperate loneliness found refuge, relief, and rejuvenation in another compatible match. We married and blended two families with a total of seven children.

So what of missions? We entered middle age, confused by God’s plan of placing us “on the bench” for so many years. Yet, out of Howard’s grief emerged a book, Honest Wrestling, describing his personal confrontation with faith. The path to publication held great frustration and thus began the seed for the ministry of ABH. The Lord blessed Howard’s move from employee to independent consultant so he could nurture the ABH seed.

I agreed to join, offering him sixteen hours per week of my time. I quickly found myself pouring forty hours into ABH, and my business card suddenly carried the title of president! The mission the Lord so carefully prepared us for—through many detours—rose to life.

ABH established itself on three main pillars: to serve authors, translate resources, and fund missions. It sought to make the publishing process author-centric, allowing much needed stories and biblical insights to see the light of day. In our early years, translated materials travelled to East Africa and 20% of net royalties aided international pastors.

ABH received its official 501c3 non-profit status in 2016, simultaneously receiving an invitation to gain counsel from two Dallas businessmen with a heart for non-profit ministries. These men listened to our story and examined our two-year-old ministry seedling. Howard and I left with a great challenge designed to strengthen ABH’s roots—narrow the focus to rural pastors as the target audience, simplified writing, and bite sized books, but keeping a heart for those who suffer. A new tagline arose: simplified pastoral training in bite-sized books.

Since that time Howard and Fran moved to Iowa, unsure of what God would do with the ministry. We followed God’s leading to join up with another organization and then followed his leading two years later to go back on our own and focus fully on the mission given to us in 2016. One word in the tagline changed to include anyone who needs biblical training: simplified biblical training in bite-sized books.

It took us a couple of years to stabilize, and now we watch in awe as God explodes the ministry, answering our prayers for more authors, more staff, and pastors who need our books. As we enter the second quarter of 2024, we anticipate holding two events to showcase our ministry and raise funds. We are writing more books at a time than ever before. We also anticipate a trip to Tanzania in 2025 to hold a marriage conference for pastors and their wives. Our own pastor and his wife, along with another couple from our church may join us.

New hope and excitement continue to rise as the Lord blesses the mission of ABH.