The Gospel of John recounts the story of an encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman at the well. After their conversation, she goes out to tell her neighbors about the mysterious stranger, and many of them believed "on the strength of her witness." These essays, drawn from around the world, reflect the many ways that women have reflected on and borne witness to the person, teaching, and praxis of Jesus Christ in light of their own varied contexts. These contexts include their struggles for life amidst wrenching poverty, racism, and violence; their experience of being female in male-dominated structures in the church and society; and their commitment to promote justice in view of the human dignity of women, all done in tandem with their faith relationship with the living God.

The Gospel of John recounts the story of an encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman at the well. After their conversation, she goes out to tell her neighbors about the mysterious stranger, and many of them believed "on the strength of her witness." These essays, drawn from around the world, reveal the many ways that women have reflected on and borne witness to the person, teaching, and praxis of Jesus Christ in light of their own varied contexts. These contexts include their struggles for life amidst wrenching poverty, racism, and violence; their experience of being female in male-dominated structures in the church and society; and their commitment to promote justice in view of the human dignity of women, all done in tandem with their faith relationship with the living God.

OUR DEAR YOUNG MEN AND YOUNG WOMEN, we have great confidence in you. You are beloved sons and daughters of God and He is mindful of you. You have come to earth at a time of great opportunities and also of great challenges. The standards in this booklet will help you with the important choices you are making now and will yet make in the future. We promise that as you keep the covenants you have made and these standards, you will be blessed with the companionship of the Holy Ghost, your faith and testimony will grow stronger, and you will enjoy increasing happiness.

"A fascinating glimpse into the consciousness of being an outsider in every possible way, and what it takes to find your path into the life you'd like to lead."--Nylon A riveting memoir of losing faith and finding freedom while a covert missionary in one of the world's most restrictive countries. A third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Amber Scorah had devoted her life to sounding God's warning of impending Armageddon. She volunteered to take the message to China, where the preaching she did was illegal and could result in her expulsion or worse. Here, she had some distance from her community for the first time. Immersion in a foreign language and culture--and a whole new way of thinking--turned her world upside down, and eventually led her to lose all that she had been sure was true. As a proselytizer in Shanghai, using fake names and secret codes to evade the authorities' notice, Scorah discreetly looked for targets in public parks and stores. To support herself, she found work at a Chinese language learning podcast, hiding her real purpose from her coworkers. Now with a creative outlet, getting to know worldly people for the first time, she began to understand that there were other ways of seeing the world and living a fulfilling life. When one of these relationships became an "escape hatch," Scorah's loss of faith culminated in her own personal apocalypse, the only kind of ending possible for a Jehovah's Witness. Shunned by family and friends as an apostate, Scorah was alone in Shanghai and thrown into a world she had only known from the periphery--with no education or support system. A coming of age story of a woman already in her thirties, this unforgettable memoir examines what it's like to start one's life over again with an entirely new identity. It follows Scorah to New York City, where a personal tragedy forces her to look for new ways to find meaning in the absence of religion. With compelling, spare prose, Leaving the Witness traces the bittersweet process of starting over, when everything one's life was built around is gone.

This Story is about a series of life events I witnessed; normal and ordinary or perhaps not. Mainly the story of an infant, a child; a beautiful young woman that she became and her life, though short, full of courage, resolve and full of joy for life and always pushing the envelope to LIVE to her fullest. Was her life full of Miracles or was it just an ordinary life? Labor Day, Monday September 4, 2006. "Go home mom, go home and rest; it is going to be a very long and hard day today. Bye, bye mom," she motioned with her tiny hand; and with a beautiful smile on her face, she said good bye, as I reluctantly, left her hospital room. I knew I had to hurry back. I just didn't know it would be that fast. Did she know and understood what was going on? Why didn't she want me there? Why did I listen to her; why did I leave her alone? Journey with me, my story, my pain, and her pain our happiness and my soul searching for answers.

Evangelist and teacher McNeil thinks evangelism that only introduces people to Jesus is incomplete. The picture is much larger than that, she claims. Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman gives the full picture of reconciliation with God and with one another.

Exploring six Gospel texts in which women encounter Jesus, Gench encourages readers to view these stories anew through the eyes of contemporary biblical scholarship.