Since I was 12 years old, I’ve had an incredible sensitivity to race-related issues and have carried a significant weight of personal responsibility to address them. Maybe it was my dad’s fault. He played no games with me when it came to the classroom. At 14, his mom died and he started working full-time to provide for his siblings. He received a diploma but never made more than $10 an hour in over 40 years of working third shift in mills. He managed his money well and demanded academic excellence from me because he was determined for me to do “better” than him. As a result, in middle school I was the only black guy in my grade in the academically gifted classes. There was one black guy in those classes in the grade above me and one in the grade below me. 

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It was not lost on me that my surgeon’s name was pronounced “dagger.” What’s in a name? Apparently a lot, and I appreciated the levity (however, I kept that to myself since he’s probably heard that one before). I decided that with a name like that, Dr. Dagher was meant to be a surgeon. 

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Though baptized and saved as a 14-year-old in his Baptist church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Ed Pilkington of Boone spent years searching for something he felt was missing, a spiritual connection he hadn’t felt yet and, frankly, wasn’t sure where to find it. 

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Bonnie Church of Boone reminds me of a boxer taking the walk to the ring for a highly anticipated fight: energetic, firing up those around her, ready to work, and pumped-up with energy not often seen in everyday life. Bonnie “The Vivacious“ Church. 

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It’s human nature to try to avoid pain and sadness in life, yet despite our best efforts our days are filled with ebbs and flows of happy and sad. In hindsight, we often see that these tides were turning points in our lives. Some are big, some are little, but all are points that hone us, forcing us to grow, change, and, hopefully, move towards God. 

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With today’s worldwide scale of Samaritan’s Purse and it’s medical arm World Medical Mission, it’s easy to forget that the people at the birth of these ministries didn’t have a large-scale vision as much as a desire to meet needs and follow the Lord’s leading, even when the Lord’s involvement wasn’t clear until seen in hindsight. 

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Stuart’s family moved to the USA in 1966, and he soon joined the US Army for three years, and served in Vietnam for 20 months. Cherry and Stuart wrote to each other almost every day, and in 1969, Stuart returned to Cape Town, South Africa where he and Cherry were married in December of that year. Their two oldest children, Naomi and Jo-Anne were born in Cape Town. The Burns lived and worked in Cape Town for 7 years, until they emigrated to the USA and settled in Nashville, Tennessee in 1977. 

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Most importantly, the process of putting together my book taught me how to listen to the Lord and the importance of saying “yes” to whatever He puts on the table. I still don’t feel qualified to consider myself an author, but I think that’s kind of the point. I never could have done this in my own strength. I did it because I was relying on the Lord, and I trusted that He would guide me every step of the way. I knew that He would provide what I needed to accomplish what He called me to do. And He did! 

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This publication, The Journey, is part of that legacy to push back darkness with light. He believed testimonies were powerful because they reveal what God is doing in ordinary people’s lives. He believed that stories could build faith, encourage believers, and help point wandering hearts back to Jesus. 

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“It Is Well With My Soul” was my father’s favorite hymn. The hymn had followed him through decades of faith, grief, service, and loss. His father, Benjamin Wofford Cox Sr., was a Baptist minister who exhorted faithfulness in God’s divine plan throughout life’s challenges. That faith sustained both him and the troops he served as a chaplain during WWII, where he sang the song with men on death’s door.

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Their story is a story of a young woman hiding in a closet, convinced she had ruined her relationship with God. It is a story of a teenage boy who was told he would never play sports again, only to walk out of church healed. It is a story of a husband and wife separated by hundreds of miles who experienced the same spiritual breakthrough at the same moment. 

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Before I found Jesus, I was on a bad path, so my parents were relieved to see this transformation. While they didn’t quite know what to think about the Holy Spirit’s move, they knew that their lost son had now been found, transformed, and was on fire for God. 

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The 2026 Summer Journey is Out Now, it is being distributed throughout the High Country this week!

If you want to start reading it is up on Issuu for free to read online.

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It was a prayer she had been trying to teach her young daughters to pray and believe about the worries in their own lives. But it’s a prayer that’s nearly impossible to pray when you’re pleading about the life of your daughter. 

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This is a story of God working to strengthen the daily walk of women in Avery County. I would like to say that the Embrace story begins with seven women coming together to build the Avery Baptist Association Women’s Ministry in 2015, but that’s not the real beginning. 

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Taylon Hope is a familiarity in Ashe and surrounding counties. However, more recently, she is becoming a national sensation as an up-and-coming artist in the world of country music. God has endowed Taylon with the beautiful gifts of singing, song composition and a deep compassion for others, but she is quick to proclaim that her best gift from on high is that of her family. 

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I was born and raised in the South 62+ years ago as the 4th child and only son of a Southern Baptist pastor. My wife was born 60+ years ago in Michigan as the 4th child of 7 and her parents were devout Catholics. In other words, we were raised in Christian homes with traditional Baptist and Catholic values. However, neither of us were really serious about Christianity until 40 years ago in 1977. That’s the same year we were married (May 7, 1977) and then moved to Boone (October, 1977).

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In that same period, 1977, my brother and I were invited by a friend of ours, who had transplanted from Boone to Asheville, to be his guest at a Billy Graham Crusade being conducted in Asheville. Much to our surprise, we were invited to sit on the stage with others, which was quite an experience. After the meeting, we were asked if we would help with a medical need in India that the Grahams were aware of. Of course, we said yes.

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Dad then explained the gospel to me, that I was a sinner. Even when I was 6 years old I knew I wasn’t a good kid all the time. I disobeyed, I knew I was a sinner and I didn’t want to spend an eternity in hell, so I asked Jesus to come into my life. It was a really childlike thing. I didn’t have a complete understanding. I couldn’t tell you the books of the Bible, but I wanted to be with Jesus and I gave my life to him. It was simple, childlike faith. 

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By then, I had given dating up to God. Though at work one day, there was a chef’s intern who asked my friend the baker if she thought I would go to dinner with him. When she told me that he was a Christian and only wanted to have someone to go to dinner with, I accepted. He invited me to a church that he was attending and I immediately felt that I had come home as soon as I stepped over the threshold. 

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