New Memoir AND THEN GOD STEPPED IN Shares Testament to God's Love and Blessings
Charleston, SC, May 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Co-founder of In the Garden Missions and Greater Heights Missions, John Womack witnessed the power of God's love firsthand while serving in the mission field of Africa. Called to be a part-time missionary in 2011, he led eighteen different mission trips to Uganda before retiring, and time after time, he saw all the amazing ways in which God intervened in their ministry to bless the lives of the Ugandan people. Having discovered a new appreciation for Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, John looks to inspire a new generation of missionaries in his new memoir.
In 'And Then God Stepped In,' John invites readers to embark on a spiritual journey. Recounting how he observed God's love in action in Uganda, John reminds readers of God's presence and direction in their own daily lives. 'God is constantly at work,' John says. 'His love for all people is infinite, and His blessings await those who have faith.' This moving memoir is a must-read for anyone looking to grow their faith or for those who feel called to serve God through ministry.
'And Then God Stepped In' is available for purchase on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.
About the Author:
John Womack is a retired businessman and former part-time missionary. He is the co-founder of In the Garden Missions and Greater Heights Missions and has led eighteen mission teams to Uganda, Africa. A CPA with an MBA, he worked for over fifty years as a financial controller. In his final year of missionary service, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Ministry from Global Bishops, Apostles and Ministers Academy recommended by Rev. Dr. Medad Birungi.
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2 hours ago
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Five Baha'i Lessons for a Happier Life
Want to stay current with Arthur's writing? Sign up to get an email every time a new column comes out. One of the biggest gripes I have about my academic field of social science is that it explains a lot about human behavior but is very short on prescriptions for how to live day to day. Even when it does have something suggestive to offer, the research almost never supplies evidence of whether its widespread adoption would have a positive effect. The same deficiency is even truer for philosophy, a realm in which big thoughts about life usually remain abstract ideas. In my case, I can resort to a branch of human knowledge that parallels social science and philosophy and is a true laboratory of human behavior and experience. In this field, people think big ideas and act differently because of them, and then we can observe whether doing so enhances their lives. I am talking about religion. Religions in effect ask people to opt into mass human experiments, which require them to convert to a new way of thinking and to live differently from nonbelievers, all in pursuit of particular benefits (both in life and after death). Even for those who don't practice a religion and merely observe religious people, such study can be an invaluable source of information. Indeed, researchers have shown that learning about different faiths promotes a deeper understanding of psychology and culture. Listen: Can religion make you happy? I was reminded of this recently when my friend Rainn Wilson (of The Office fame), who hosts a popular spiritual podcast called Soul Boom, texted me some words of encouragement from his personal faith, Baha'i (pronounced buh- high), in response to a note of desolation I had sounded about the state of the world: 'All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.' 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Bahá'u'lláh himself was first imprisoned and then exiled; many of his followers were executed. To this day in Iran, the Baha'i faith is illegal and its followers are persecuted—barred from attending university, holding a government job, or inheriting property. Despite this repression in its place of origin, Baha'i's message is remarkably positive and nonapocalyptic. The faith now counts more than 5 million adherents worldwide, including about 175,000 in the United States. Bahá'u'lláh spoke often about happiness in spite of worldly troubles, which he saw as a normal feature of life, even a part of God's plan. 'Happy is the man that hath apprehended the Purpose of God in whatever He hath revealed from the Heaven of His Will,' he said. 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Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
'They really took care of me': Cudahy veteran who died at 91 credited the VA as a lifeline
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Burdecki praised Zablocki VA staffers as "just really on top of everything," including calling to remind them about appointments, offering valet parking when Notham was in poor health, keeping wait times short and following up after treatments. "Everybody was extremely polite and personable. Made you just feel good to be there," she said. "All of those little things just made life better when you're going through cancer, numerous treatments and different things." Notham said VA staffers responded with urgency when he needed something. "They've been good to me," Notham said. "I can't find anything bad." John said his father would want his family and friends to drink a toast to him rather than mourn his passing. "Enjoy being part of his legacy and take a walk in the woods or prairie," John said. "And leave the land a better place when you depart." Notham was preceded in death by his wife Elaine, daughter Judith Norberg and son Ross Notham. He is survived by his sons John (Ann Raghavan) Notham, James (Leigh) Notham and Gary (Kris) Notham, as well as his sisters, grandchildren, great grandchildren and many relatives and friends. Graveside service and honors will take place on Aug. 22 at Woodville Cemetery in Hancock at 11 a.m. A celebration of life will follow at the Moose Inn in Wautoma. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 91-year-old Cudahy veteran credited the VA as a lifeline Solve the daily Crossword
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a day ago
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Untitled Art's non-alcoholic beers are sometimes boring, sometimes magic
I like non-alcoholic beer. Well, I like the *idea* of non-alcoholic beer. Being able to recreate the relaxing ritual of cracking a beer without the concern of a minor hangover or the massive calorie load of a boozy IPA is a wonderful hypothesis. But for too long, non-alcoholic beer all tasted the same -- crisply carbonated but undeniably loaded down with cereal grains that made you feel you were sipping a bowl of Grape-Nuts, not a lager. That tide has turned in recent years. Breweries, grasping for market share when America is drinking less alcohol than it has since prohibition, have turned to the NA sector for new streams of income. That's meant a rising tide of THC drinks and booze-free beers. Untitled Art has been kicking around in my fridge since back when it was 3rd Sign -- makers of a pretty good porter but shuttered due to distribution issues. In the years since they've experimented wildly across the spectrum of beers and NA beverages and eventually got bought out by Asahi. Those beers are often hit-or-miss, but they're never boring. Big, sweet dessert stouts and bold IPAs were standouts across the backdrop of contract brewing that's helped Octopi expand to a staple in package stores across the country. How does that apply to their non-alcoholic beers? Let's see what we've got. Mango dragonfruit sour: A I'm drinking this one the way God intended. After thoroughly exhausting myself inflating a raft at my daughter's pool. An extremely Dad scenario deserves an extremely Dad beer, and an NA fruited sour? That'll do. Cracking the can unleashes a wave of fruity slightly tangy aromas backed by just a little bit of lactic acid. The first sip is dense complex and rewarding. The dragon fruit is tangy; slightly sour but sweet enough to remain balanced. The hint of bile that you get from some of the worst sours out there is nowhere to be found, relieving me of my greatest fear. That bit of lactic acid in the slightly denser texture makes us feel more like a milkshake beer than many milkshake IPAs. What you get is a dense, surprisingly low calorie beer. Well, not a beer but, you know, something close to it. It clocks in at 90 calories, which is about 60 percent of a soda or a regular beer. At that value. You're getting a lot of flavor at a light beer's toll on your gut. That's a solid trade. The downside is it's not quite a hoppy refresher in the way a hop water or a light beer are. It's dense. It's more of a sipper and it's probably not the first thing I should have grabbed after modestly strenuous activity. That said, I am enjoying the hell out of it. All in all, it's not what I expected in a good way. It's not quite a sour and not quite a traditional NA beer. Instead, it is its own thing. And that's great. 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It feels more like a Blue Moon or a Shock Top -- more forgettable than a big bold juicy IPA you would get from a local brewery. Italian Style Pils: B I'm a little bit hesitant with this one. Italian beers, at least the big ones you find out here, are fairly minimal when it comes to hops or other flavors that could wash over the signature taste of non-alcoholic brews. They're crisp and sharp and other adjectives that stand in for refreshing-but-not-quite-easy-drinking. This pours with a lovely, lacy head that dies down to a lingering quarter inch after a minute. The smell off the top is grain and just a bit of hops. That grain is half the Grape-Nut cereal malt that dominates NA beers and half something sunnier. There's a certain brightness involved that, if nothing else, does raise it higher than similar booze-less brews. That battle carries on in the first sip. It's undoubtedly an NA beer, but it's also sweet and crisp. That gives way to a pleasant aftertaste that lands in the middle. Malty, effervescent and with juuuuust a little citrus involved to make everything a bit more complex. These powers combine to make it refreshing and poundable. It's a great warm weather beer, though it holds up well enough regardless of climate. Chocolate Dark Brew: A First thing first: this smells incredible. Cracking the can unleashes a wave of rich chocolate like you just unwrapped one of those $6 bars of cacao. It smells like a fresh mug of hot chocolate. A really nice start. The first sip is thinner than expected. The carbonation is crisp, and while this is heavier than a lager it's about the same mouthfeel as, say, a big juicy IPA. You get that chocolate flavor, but also some roasted porter notes as well. You go from sweet up front to malty before a crisp, not-quite-dry-but-close finish. It's great. What's even better is the lack of NA cereal vibes coming from it. This tastes like a full-fledged chocolate porter. Maybe not a heavy, eight percent beer, but a lighter version. If you put this in a lineup of six similar, full ABV beers and asked me to pick out the impostor I might still land on it, but that's no guarantee. This sounds like faint praise, but almost anyone who's had a bunch of NA beers knows that distinct taste and how it stands out from your regular sip. Not this Dark Brew. It's sweet and crisp and a little complex. Untitled Art went for a dessert beer and wound up making something that would be just about perfect for a fireside fall night. Even without the alcohol. Oktoberfest: B Let's finish with my favorite beer style. Marzens, festbiers, anything that's a malt bomb is gonna be an easy win for me. Can Untitled Art balance those toasty, crisp and refreshing flavors with the inherent cereal-ness of a non-alcoholic beer? It pours with a fluffy white head. It smells mostly like the real thing, though a sweet, Grape-Nut tinge settles in toward the end. While the sweetness carries through on your tongue, that NA taste is minimal. The feeling you get here is Munich-adjacent malt. It's a bit thin and definitely too sugary, but it's not a typical non-alcoholic brew. That leaves it in a weird spot, but kind of a logical one. Untitled Art's best NA beers are sweet -- the sour and the chocolate dark. That sweetness again crops up to mitigate the feel you're drinking a beer with less than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume. That doesn't jive with your typical marzen, it does sorta work here. While I miss the crisp finish of those beers, this is unique, interesting and refreshing. On the other hand, I can put down a liter of Lowenbrau without issue. This? This would be much more difficult. Still, it doesn't taste like NA beer. That's a win. Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's? This a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I'm drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That's the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm's. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Untitled Art's non-alcoholic beers over a cold can of Hamm's? The sour and the chocolate dark are good enough to be sipped regardless of alcohol content. The others helpful recreate the ritual of cracking a beer. All in all, it's a solid lineup so, yes. This is part of FTW's Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
