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Story by Michele Joseph/ Photos by Norman Mitchell

Saundra Austin’s prayer life changed the day she got baptized in the late 1970s. On that day, she felt too sick to leave home. “I called my Bible worker,” says Austin, now prayer coordinator for the Allegheny East Conference (AEC). “She said to just go back and lay down, and we’ll pray for you.”

Hours passed, and each time a pastor or prayer warrior called, she still felt sick. However, no one gave up praying. By the time the baptism began later that day at AEC’s Dupont Park church in Washington, D.C., she was the first one in line to enter the pool.

Story by V. Michelle Bernard

In the 2017-18 academic year, Columbia Union Conference pre-K through university-level schools reported a combined opening enrollment of 8,917 says Donovan Ross, the union’s vice president for education. Enrollment is up 90 students from last year, he adds.

Roland Hill’s wife, Susie, was tired of hearing Hill complaining that there wasn’t a deep Christian book about success, so she encouraged the stewardship guru to write his own book.

Six months later, Hill, a pastor at Allegheny East Conference’s Maranatha church in Fredericksburg, Va., and Penuel church in Brandy Station, Va., noticed the prayer of Eliezer in Genesis 24:12—a prayer for success. His latest book, Success is Bigger Than Me, delves into all areas of success in Christian living.

The book includes an 8-week study guide designed to help readers ignite their lives and change their world, says Hill.

Editorial by Ricardo Bacchus

I don’t think your son’s going to make it,” said the chaplain at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to my parents. “It’s not looking good.” 

On April 4, 2009, during postoperative care for ulcerative colitis, something went terribly wrong. My left lung collapsed, I stopped breathing and fell into a coma. Code blue was set in motion, as nurses hooked me to every resuscitation device available. Conventional wisdom pointed to a young man’s death, and it was the chaplain’s duty to break the heart-wrenching news to my parents.