Category: Blog

Well, friends, it is time for an update. My new book, “The Making of a Servant,” is finally being printed. The publisher is working on the marketing plan, publicity pieces, etc. Amazon has my book now available. Barnes and Noble also has the book available online but I do not know if and when it will be in the stores. I know you can order it at any B&N store.

The charge for the paperback version is $19.95 through these outlets. The Kindle and Nook e-books should be available soon for $9.95.

I do not have my own inventory of books yet but they should be coming in hopefully in another week. I will make them available for mailing at a cheaper price than the stores and will autograph them.

Both of my books are also available on this website and you can pay with any credit card through PayPal. It is easy to order!

Just for your information, my first book signing will be in my hometown, Liberty North Carolina, at the Randolph Library on June 16, at 11:30 a.m. I am so excited to meet my hometown folks who are so precious in my memory, and they are included in my book.

 

It has been a while since I put an excerpt from my book, “The Making of a Servant.” Seems like a good time to share just a small story. As brand new missionaries living in Hong Kong, I faced my first crisis in “Mission Principles and Practice.” A question arose that shook me to the core of my new missionary being. I hope you’ll think about this challenge:

“At that time, Hong Kong was considered the most densely populated city per square mile on earth. It was a colony of the United Kingdom and an economic powerhouse in Asia.  Dr. Carter Morgan introduced me to Hong Kong. He took me to visit a complex of refugee housing built by the British government. I saw ten apartment buildings in a row. Each building was ten stories tall. Each building housed ten thousand people.

 Carter shared a vision with me: “One day we will have a rooftop school on the roof of each building for all the small children in that building, especially preschoolers. We will plant a church in each building to minister to the people in those buildings.”
I thought, “My hometown, in North Carolina, has six churches for the population of fourteen hundred people. The pastor I followed at the rural church near Liberty had pastored that small church for twenty-five years. If each building has ten thousand people, would I be willing to spend twenty-five years of my life ministering to the people in one of those buildings?”

“Carter, how many people in those buildings know Jesus as their Lord and Savior?”

 “No one has researched that yet. Our Chinese convention estimates not more than one-tenth of one percent are Christian if that many.”

Suddenly I felt the enormity of the task. My mind ran wild! No way would I want to invest my whole life in just one of those buildings! I might do it in a city of ten thousand people. Then I thought, “What’s the difference between investing one’s life in a town of ten thousand people and investing a lifetime in a building of ten thousand people?”

Read the book to join that debate!!

I have some good news to share today, at least good news to me!! A call yesterday says that my new book, “The Making of a Servant” has gone to press and will be ready for purchase in the next two weeks. I will be announcing all the details of ordering within the next week. My publisher will begin approaching all the book retailers the end of this week to get them in bookstores and available as an E-book. Several things I’ll be letting you know such as (1) how to order from me at my address (2) how to order from the publisher (3) what retailers will carry it (4) when it will be available from Amazon and when available as an e-book from Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble “Nook”; and (5) how much it will cost at various outlets. I’ll keep you posted on this site with the answers to these questions.

God works in miraculous ways. My publisher for the past nine months has handled my book badly and showed little hope of a publishing date. A miracle occurred which shifted my book to ArchWay Publications, a subsidiary of Simon and Schuster. Within one week it was ready for printing after waiting nine months! The Lord was in this in a big way, and I am soooo grateful. Stay tuned!!!

I have not written much in the past few days. I have been in Dallas, Texas with Vietnamese pastors and churches in Texas. The Texas Vietnamese churches wanted to raise funds for their missions causes, especially for the Vietnam Baptist Seminary in Texas, and its work on a broad basis. Their goal was $25,000. A beautiful banquet and program were held Sunday night. I had the privilege of speaking. I could not believe the miracle that occurred. When they counted the offerings they had $50,000 to support their missions outreach. It was so encouraging for them to see the commitment and dedication of the Vietnamese Christians in Texas.

It was a busy time for me especially as I had had opportunities to speak four times over the weekend. It is good to be back home today. I hope to put another excerpt from my new book, “The Making of a Servant” on my page this week. Thanks to all of you for reading and following!

This week I share another excerpt from my new book “The Making of a Servant.” It shows the power of the written Word of God to transform life, even without someone explaining it! Several traumatic events led to this life-changing experience on board my ship docked in Yokosuka, Japan. I pick up the story at this point:

“It was late when I arrived at my ship. Due to the war, no lights were allowed anywhere. I made my way to my locker and retrieved a small flashlight. I went to the ship’s ward room and found a New Testament. I made my way to an empty ammunition room under the flight deck. There was no electricity in that room, so I closed the hatch; sat down on the deck; and shining my flashlight on the Gospel of Matthew, I read all of it. I read all of the Gospel of Mark. I read all of Luke. I had an insatiable hunger to learn everything I could possibly learn about Jesus. It was as if I was seeing all of this for the very first time.

When I read the account in the Gospel of Luke about the betrayal of Jesus, His death on the cross, His burial, and His resurrection, I stopped reading. I was overflowing with emotion. Suddenly, I knew why Jesus died on the cross. I knew why God raised Him from the dead. He was taking on Himself my sin and dying on the cross in my place. On the cross, my old life died, and I was being raised with him to a new life. God raised Him from the dead to prove His sacrifice on the cross was accepted for my sin and not for my sin only but for the sin of the whole world. 

 All I needed to do was trust Him that this news was truth.

At that moment, I realized I was being given a new life. This was what it meant to believe! I could not keep the tears from flowing.

My whole life had been lived in a dense fog, and suddenly the sun had broken through and was shining directly on me. I could start life all over again. Everything I’d heard over the years, the services I’d attended, the songs I’d sung, and the stories I’d heard suddenly became meaningful. The piece of the puzzle I had looked for all my life and could not find fell into place. The loneliness, the troubled heart, the restless soul, all were being healed. I entered a place of total trust in the Lord for my new life.

I continued reading into the early morning hours until I finished the Gospel of John and then began to read the Acts of the Apostles. It was as though my hunger to know more could not be satisfied. I could not stop reading. The silence was broken by the boatswain mate piping reveille. It was time for the ship’s crew to wake up.

I had been up all night.”