Latest project:Couples of the Bible: A One-Year Devotional Study of Couples in Scripture (978-0-310-33268-8, $22.99, Zondervan).

How did this devotional come about?

Bobbie: This really came out of a felt need with the girls in my Bible study. I teach 30 young moms at my church. … I had been for years listening to what they struggle with—moving, jobs, disobedient children, infertility, surprises, illnesses, circumstances that are beyond your control—and so I felt like zeroing in on God’s Word, and let’s find out what God’s character was, how did He act, how did He instruct couples in the Bible, both the good and the bad, and the thread of His redemption all the way through.

Robert: It’s the third in a series. The first was Women of the Bible, Ann Spangler and Jean Syswerda, and we had the privilege of representing them. Our day job is representing authors. Then Ann and I did Men of the Bible and so the third of the trilogy really would be Couples of the Bible.

What is the structure of the book?

Robert: It’s a 52-week experience for couples. Monday is called “Their Story,” and what we do is we take an event in the life of one of these couples. Now it’s actually 40 different couples, 52 weeks. There are some couples that we’ve spent more than one week with because they deserve more time … but Monday is “Their Story,” so we’ve taken a slice from their account in the Bible. Tuesday is called “Their Life and Times.” We had the joy of having a Jewish Christian researcher who dug deep, who helped us come up with accurate data about the life and times of these couples so we’re saying, OK, what was the culture like, what was it like politically, what was it like geographically? Then Wednesday is called “Can You Imagine?” so we’re inviting the reader or the readers to go into that cultural setting, into that relational challenge, then Thursday, we called it “Their Legacy in Scripture,” so the big idea, the issue the couple’s facing, whatever it is, we’ve given the reader a chance to have a Bible study on that subject, so it’s three or four Bible passages and questions that take the reader through the Scripture, back to the story of the couple in terms of the issues that they faced, and then Friday is called “Their Legacy of Prayer.” So now that you’ve spent the week with this couple, how are you best drawn into God’s presence? In fact, it’s interesting because there’s a section in that Legacy of Prayer of listening, so, like Jesus Calling, it’s written in the first person as though God is speaking to the couple.

Did you plan the timing of the release of this devotional?

Bobbie: Just at the point of doing some of the final edits, February of 2012, I went in for surgery thinking it was just routine surgery and came out with the diagnosis of stage four ovarian cancer. So between the hospital visits and the six rounds of chemotherapy, I just could hardly think. I could walk a little bit and I was cared for very well by Robert, but I had a hard time editing, so we asked the publisher if we could have an extension.

Robert: Bobbie had six treatments separated by three weeks. The first week, post-treatment can be a rough week, but you get better and better and better, so we captured Bobbie as well as we could the second and third weeks following treatments to do the editing ... so it stretched it out. From a marketing perspective, most devotionals come out in the fall, so it’s sort of cool to come out in April, and Mother’s Day is the second busiest time at retail, so we think this is a pretty cool Mother’s Day gift. We also think it would be a great wedding gift, and the wedding season starts May and June.

Todd and Tara Storch took their family on the trip of a lifetime in 2010, but before it was over, their daughter, Taylor, had died. A ski accident took the life of the 13-year-old.

At the hospital, devastated by grief and facing a parent’s worst nightmare, Todd and Tara had to answer a question they had never even considered: Would they be willing to donate Taylor’s organs?

After seeking counsel and prayer, they agreed. Todd told the neurosurgeon, “Absolutely!” and Tara added, “It’s what Taylor would want.” They knew Taylor would have chosen organ donation—not because she had said so, but because of who she was and how she had lived her life for others.

The Storches’ choice saved the lives of five people waiting for a heart, liver, kidney and corneas.

In Taylor’s Gift: A Courageous Story of Giving Life and Renewing Hope (978-0-800-72188-6, $21.99), releasing this month from Revell (Baker Publishing Group), Todd and Tara Storch, with New York Times best-selling author Jennifer Schuchmann, tell Taylor’s story—her life before the accident, her family’s grief, the purpose her family found in the organ-donation process and the lives of the people Taylor’s organs saved.

The Storches write candidly about the messiness of their grief, the heroic practical support of their family and community, and their determination to connect with at least one of Taylor’s recipients. 

“Since the day we made the decision to donate Taylor’s organs, it was the one thing I wanted more than anything else,” Tara writes. 

They got their wish. In a short time, they connected with four of Taylor’s five organ recipients.

In the early days of their grief, the Storches learned that their home state of Texas ranked the second-lowest in the country in organ-donation registration. This stirred a desire, first in Todd. 

“What could I do to help educate people and lead them in conversations about organ donation?” he wondered.

In response, the two created Taylor’s Gift Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising organ-donation awareness. Their journey has received national media attention, including an NBC Today Show appearance along with Patricia Winters, who received Taylor’s heart. 

The Storches write that their book is not only Taylor’s story, but also “the story of countless recipients who received organs because someone heard Taylor’s story and registered to be an organ donor.”

For more information about Taylor’s Gift, visit www.bakerpublishinggroup.com, or to order, call 800-877-2665.

Visit www.christianretailing.com/taylorsgift for our interview with the Storches.

Joni Eareckson Tada and husband Ken reflect on 30-plus years creating their ‘untold love story’

TITLE: Joni and Ken: An Untold Love Story

AUTHOR: Joni Eareckson Tada and Ken Tada

PUBLISHER: Zondervan

ISBN: 978-0-310-31469-1

PRICE: $18.99

RELEASE DATE: April 2

When Ken Tada met Joni Eareckson, he was smitten by a Christian woman with an attractive appearance and a striking personality. But that’s not all—Joni, as she has come to be known around the world—was a quadriplegic. Still, Ken committed himself to her, and the two took their marriage vows July 3, 1982. In Joni & Ken: An Untold Love Story, written with Larry Libby, the two disclose the hardships and joys they have experienced in their more than 30 years together.

Ken first saw Joni in person when she spoke at a Young Life banquet in Burbank, Calif. He had read her biographies, watched her on Billy Graham crusades and had seen the movie about her life. Joni wondered if Ken understood just what a long-term relationship would be like with someone so well-known.

As for her fame, “she had come to accept it and live with it as a matter of course; it went with the territory,” they write. “But she had worried about Ken sometimes. Was he marrying the persona or the real person? It felt at times like he was walking into marriage with an idyllic view of who she was and what a lifetime with a quadriplegic woman really meant.” 

Early on, however, Ken learned what it was like to live with Joni, who was recognized wherever she went and known around the world. Joni had an international disability ministry—and a full schedule—while Ken was comfortable in his own world as a high school history teacher and coach. On the weekends, he needed some time to himself to recharge, so Judy, Joni’s longtime caregiver, would assist her when Ken went to visit his aging parents or go on a fishing trip, for instance. Ken was part of Joni’s ministry activities at times, but as a couple, they began to grow apart.

“They could still move in and out of each other’s worlds, but it wasn’t happening as often, or as joyfully, as it used to,” they write. 

Life with his wife’s never-ending needs led Ken into a depression, a condition he had battled in the past as well. By God’s grace, he began taking part in a men’s study focused on John Eldredge’s best-selling book Wild at Heart. Ken learned that men desire “an adventure to live, a battle to fight and a beauty to rescue.”

In June 2010, he got his big chance to rescue his beauty when Joni learned she had breast cancer. And Ken stepped up to truly be there for Joni. In fact, they write, her cancer became a “gift” that helped to transform their relationship.

“The more we have been forced to depend on Christ in our weakness, the stronger our marriage has become,” Ken told Dr. James Dobson in a “Focus on the Family” interview.

In a personal note at the end of the book, Joni admits that while their marriage may not “meet all the family-counseling criteria for ‘a happy marriage,’ ” there is one thing she knows for sure: “Home is with Ken Tada. … Home is wherever we are together.”

To order Joni & Ken, call 800-727-1309, or visit www.zondervan.com.

Audio Adrenaline—known as Audio A—is back, but in a new form. Kevin Max is now leading from the front where Mark Stuart was before he suffered a vocal setback. Fair Trade Services releases the album Kings & Queens (7-36211-60489-7, $11.99, Provident Distribution) on March 12. Felicia Abraham visited with band members to talk about the new project.

Your last concert was about five years ago, so what brought the band together again?

 Will McGinniss: Mark, my partner in crime, and I, we’ve been in a band for a long time. … He had some trouble with his voice, and so as a band, we made the decision together to come off the road. That was 2007. We wanted to just give him time to see if his voice could come back or what God was going to do with him, and then we also just thought maybe God was just taking us each individually to some different things. And so we kind of stepped out of the Audio Adrenaline touring world and just plugged into our local church again. We were digging into our families. We’d been on the road for 15, 17 years straight and just were seeking God’s will for our lives. Mark and I specifically plugged into an orphan work in Haiti called Hands and Feet Project. … Just recently some friends of ours in Nashville who we’ve known for years—they’ve managed the Newsboys and other bands and artists in Nashville—they’re just really impressed with the way Audio Adrenaline kind of carried themselves and our work and our ministry and the brand of Audio A, and they came to us with the idea of getting Audio back out there.

How does your new album tie in with the Hands and Feet Project?

McGinniss: The new single is called “Kings & Queens,” and really it was written for the kids of Haiti at our orphanages. We don’t really like orphanage, that term is kind of a negative term. We call our place down there a village. … We have two locations down there. There’s 100 kids we’re caring for. … It’s really why we got back on the road, why I would go to my family and say, “Hey, I really think I need to be back out there using this platform for something larger than just music or playing my bass or whatever.“ It was these kids. … Thematically the new one is about the least of these and all of the things that we stood for back before we came off the road. We were about the underdog, the person who didn’t think that they could do great things. 

Max: There’s a redemption story here with us and with me, and putting this thing together. God has obviously orchestrated it. … On the record, there’s a lot of different themes. … There’s themes of redemption about listening and being patient and letting God work through you. It’s definitely kind of an underdog record, but it’s hopefully going to be a contender. 

Stuart: Net proceeds from the record are going to build more orphanages. 

For more information about the work, see www.handsandfeetproject.org.

Down-home gospel: Produced by Jay DeMarcus (member of Rascal Flatts), Wayne Haun and Ed Cash, Love Is Stronger showcases the rich voice of GRAMMY- and Dove Award-winning artist Jason Crabb. This sophomore studio solo recording delivers messages of comfort through the love of Christ that conquers all. Gaither Music Group (EMI CMG Distribution) releases March 12.

New label: New Artist of the Year nominee at the 2012 GMA Dove Awards, Beyond the Ashes offers its new album Stow Town Records (Provident Distribution). Releasing March 5, Living in the Moment features new lead singer Dustin Doyle and is produced by Wayne Haun. The release will be supported by coast-to-coast touring.

Changing thousands: Ordinary People, a follow-up to Faith Like Potatoes, the story of Angus Buchan, an African farmer who became an author and evangelist. To be released March 19 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and distributed by Provident Distribution, the film tells the story of three troubled men in desperate need of faith who find themselves on a transformational journey to a gathering of a Mighty Men Conference led by Buchan. Rated PG-13 for some violent content, the 115-minute drama retails for $22.99. 

Solely for God: In the second film of her “True Beauty: Finding Your Identity in Jesus” series, Lisa Chan—wife of best-selling author and pastor Francis Chan—explores a way of life that is full of contentedness and joy. In Deny Yourself, Chan inspires Christians to let go of the lies that keep them trapped in bondage to earthly accomplishments. The 20-minute DVD, which retails for $14.99 and can be used for small groups or individual study, releases this month from David C Cook and Flannel. 

Secrets revealed: In Secrets in the Snow, six familiar strangers are the only students remaining at school as the conditions outside worsen and doors to the school are locked. An impromptu talent show and feast ensue, when a knock from outside brings a whole new element to the evening. Wills are tested, friendships are created, and secrets are revealed as the students realize they must rely on each other to make it through the stormy night.
Released last month, the 88-minute, Dove Foundation-approved film retails for $19.95 and is distributed by Bridgestone Multimedia Group.