Focus on Christmas with Kay Marshall Strom and a giveaway

Welcome to my Christmas Focus series. Today we are featuring Kay Marshall Strom.
I have also enclosed some of Kay's books which would make a great Christmas gift.
Welcome Kay thank you for visiting us today.

1. Firstly thanks for coming back to my blog this time we are focusing on christmas.
What do you most associate with Christmas where you live?
Christmas carols, festive decorations. I spent most of my life in Southern California where the weather is sunny and bright at Christmas, but just last year moved to the Pacific Northwest where I have a whole new respect for songs about chilly weather and snowmen.

2. Do you have any special family traditions you do at Christmas time?
One year when we were going through dire financial hardships I did all my Christmas shopping at second hand shops. Each of my two children got a “new” used outfit and one toy, then I filled the empty space under the tree with withdrawn library books wrapped in Sunday comics. The books were such a hit that we kept including them as an important part of our Christmas giving. It’s been over twenty years, yet last week when I talked to my daughter about Christmas plans, her first response was, “I can’t wait to get my books!” (Jenny here sounds like a great tradition)


3. Do you have a favourite christmas Carol and if so do you know why?
Silent Night. It just seems to encapsulate the reason for the season.


4. If you could spend Christmas anyway you could how would you celebrate?
A candlelight church service on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas day, with the family doing everything the way we always do ever year. I love same old, same old tradition!


5. Do you have any special memories of Christmas?
By plan or by circumstance, we have spent several Christmases in unexpected ways, and each has brought its own unique blessing: As food basket recipients when my husband had been out of work for an entire year… in a vacationing neighbor’s house after our house burned to the ground… in Hawaii with my children after my first husband died, because we couldn’t bear to have our traditional Christmas at home… in India awakened at 1 a.m. by caroling church elders…

6. What is a typical Christmas eve and or Christmas day for you.
On Christmas eve, we follow the Swedish traditions of my first husband: Swedish meatballs for Christmas Eve dinner before a last night church service, fruit soup and Christmas bread for Christmas breakfast, labels on the gifts with the recipient being a hint as to what is in the gift (i.e. A flannel shirt may be from Paul Bunyan, new socks from Muhammad Ali, or books from Benjamin Franklin).


7. Do you have any Christmas movies or Christmas books you like to see or read each year? The Christmas Story! Who can resist Ralphie and his overwhelming desire for a Daisy Repeating Rifle despite the danger of shooting his eye out? (Jenny again I must watch this movie. I have read about the rifle in a christmas book just this week I must see it!)

8. Do you have a Christmas message for my readers? Jesus is born! May we pray together, “Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly!”

Forgotten Girls: Stories of Hope and Courage
This book tells the stories of the girls who lived in the hard places of the world, and what we can do to give them a hope and a future. The stories tell of pain, of inspiring courage, and of hard-won hope that demonstrate God working through compassionate people to rescue and restore the ones most often overlooked. Addressing physical suffering, education, sexual protection, prison, war and spiritual life, readers will find practical action steps and prayer points that will allow them to help free the forgotten.

Second-Half Adventure: Don't Retire-Use Your Time, Skills & Resources to Change the World A social worker from New England... a Texas airline pilot.. a homemaker from California... a lawyer who has lived everywhere... a quilter in Oregon. What do they have in common? All are on the adventure of their lives. Like many others among the 77 million baby boomers, these men and women don't want to retire from contributing when they retire from their careers. So they are using their time, skills, and resources to make a difference. Written in conjunction with Finishers Project, this book will help baby boomers discover a second-half adventure that fits them and counts for eternity.



In The Presence of the Poor: Changing the Face of India
"Why does God make so many poor people?" That is the question Dr. Vijayam, PhD, recipient of India's highest national science award, kept asking as he grew up. He could not get over the suffering, despair and seeming hopelessness all around him in India. In this deeply moving account of one man, whose life was profoundly changed by God, we see the power one life can make even in the most challenging of circumstances. Reaching across deep cultural chasms, Dr. Vijayam pioneered the idea of harnessing technology for the poor and using it in combination with cutting-edge microenterprise concepts. So what can one person do? Only change the world.

The Call of Zulina

In West Africa, 1787, Grace Winslow runs away to escape her betrothal---only to be swept up in a slave revolt that reveals the truth about her family's business! Threatened with death, Grace begins to understand the plight of the captives. Will African Cabeto---the man she admires most---sacrifice himself for his people's freedom? 352 pages, softcover from Abingdon.

Giveaway.

For one lucky Australian reader you have a chance to win a copy of The

Call of Zulina. Just leave a comment with a way to reach you (if I dont already have a way to contact you) by Friday, December 4th Midday.