Answered Prayer for Lisa! Free Books on Amazon!

Above: Lisa and Rich back at home together after Lisa’s 5-night stay at the hospital.
Dear Friends,
(From Lisa) Thank you so much for your prayers and kind words during my hospitalization. I am not out of the woods, but I am home, taking two strong antibiotics. The infected mass that grew around my ruptured appendix shrank considerably through your prayers and five days of IV antibiotics. It is not gone, my surgeon stressed, and my blood numbers are still not in normal range, so I need to rest and monitor for fever and pain, and go back in for more tests in a few days. But it was delightful to get a full night's rest in my own bed. I had never understood so fully the saying that a hospital is no place to get well or get rest. To all who replied with kind notes, I did not reply but read them all and smiled--I am grateful. We appreciate continued prayers for full healing. 
Gratefully, Lisa

(From Rich) I too am so grateful to have Lisa back, and thankful as well for all the kindness shown us in this time.
In other news, I have written a few books! Ten, to be precise. To be clear, they are short and simple, with no footnotes, and they contain many things I have been teaching for about 40 years. The series is called Sketches of Leadership (sound familiar?) and the books are compilations of “Sketches” around different leadership and discipleship topics. Each book contains 10-12 Bible studies that could be used by a small group or ministry team, but of course they can be read by individuals for their own learning and growth.
Now, I did not stop my teaching ministry in Asia to write these books. The pandemic produced a great surge in writing energy in me, and my collection of written Sketches of Leadership tripled during 2020-2022. Several colleges in Malaysia and India asked me to teach courses on different leadership topics, which required me to develop new material. This prompted new sketches. I have now put all this into short books (70-100 pages each).
I had resisted putting these into book format for over 20 years, since I began developing my leadership material. I am committed to the inductive Bible study process, and my material was delivered almost exclusively as Bible studies intended to be inductively led in small groups of students, staff, church members and leaders, pastors, etc. But in the last year I kept having conversations with pastors and leaders that made me realize that having a more familiar and portable content delivery vehicle such as a series of books would allow me to reach a  wider audience, and perhaps more deeply, even though I would trade away my beloved inductive process.
I believe these short books will be helpful in Malaysia, India (even in English, but especially in translation) and elsewhere.  And I hope that you who read our letters will find them helpful.
In the US, these books are now available on Kindle and perhaps eventually in print. For the next few days (through July 12th) they are free on Kindle. So, if you have an Amazon Kindle or Fire (or a Kindle reader on your laptop) you can download free Kindle versions of these books. In fact, if you would do that, then you can write a short review of one or more of these books and that can help them become better known and noticed. If you have any interest in these books, but do not have a Kindle reader, you can download one for your laptop here. You can also find a Kindle Reader app for your phone, but I personally couldn’t imagine reading these on a phone.
I encourage you to visit Amazon.com for the complete list of books, although the list is also available on our blog, with more information about each title. Let me highlight a few of the titles:

• Book 1: Shepherds and Servants: Sketches of Leadership for Those Seeking to Make a Difference. A look at the two most common images the scripture uses for leadership and how Jesus teaches and models these classic leadership images for us. He calls us to be like him, shepherding the flock of God as he did and serving those in need, just as he did. This flock may be our family, our students, our work team, or anyone in our life given us by God to care for and serve.
• Book 3: Wise and Gentle Words: Sketches of Leadership for Humble Influencers. Studies on verbal influence, asking questions, addressing sin and conflict, reconciliation, and forgiveness. It also includes three studies on leading people into inductive, transformative Bible discussions in small groups.
• Book 6: Personal Leadership: Navigating Life’s Turns and Disappointments: A look at burnout, failure, resistance to God’s work, disappointment, disillusionment, temptation, fear, suffering, loss, and death. A meditation on becoming an excellent learner of the (hard) lessons of one’s own life: overcoming, avoiding, going through difficulties, and navigating these turns with skill and hope. Whether it is adult development or deep discipleship, failure, disillusionment, and suffering have much to teach us.

I think each of these titles is worth the Amazon price of $2.99, but for the next few days they are available at the price of exactly $0.00! Please take advantage of the deal and let others who might benefit from it know about it. (If you have Kindle Unlimited you can download these anytime for free.)
I have pursued the growingly popular self-publishing route. 1) The process with IV Press takes a long time—from inquiry to published book was almost 2 years, and that was after I already had first drafts completed. I didn’t want to wait to get these vetted and approved by IV Press, which was of course not certain anyway. 2) I wanted to produce books in Malaysia and India that the average person in these countries could afford. I think printed books will be priced at a level of about $2.50 in India and about $4 in Malaysia.
Thank you so much for your prayers for Lisa! We were very encouraged by the response.

1. Please continue to pray for her complete healing from infection without the need for major surgery. 
2. Please also pray for the teaching ministry we have ahead: Lisa is completing the course lectures and grading for three courses, while I am finishing up two courses and preparing for another 11-day trip to India in early August. I will be returning to Andra Pradesh and Orissa states.

If you really do not want to read a book in the Kindle format, please reply to this letter with your request and I will send a PDF version of any of these volumes for no cost. I certainly want these to get out and be read!
Thank you for your prayers and notes! They are very much appreciated. If you’d like to read a short sweet lament Lisa wrote about her time in the hospital, visit our blog.
Rich and Lisa