First Person with Wayne Shepherd

Alistair Begg of the radio program Truth for Life discusses the fruit of the Spirit and his latest book, titled We Will Be Changed with Wayne Shepherd.   (click for more…)    

Website:  www.TruthforLife.org

Book: https://www.truthforlife.org/store/products/books-alistair-begg/we-will-be-changed/

Host Wayne Shepherd talks with Alistair Begg about his new book, We Will Be Changed, on the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). Begg is more than a year out of the pulpit at Parkside Church after 42 years. He now focuses on his radio program Truth For Life, writing and speaking, and says he misses the congregation but enjoys freedom from weekly sermon preparation and more time with family. He stresses that Scripture says “the fruit” (singular) of the Spirit, like the segments of an orange. It is one package pointing to Christ, so no one can pick the traits they like and skip the rest. Believers are called to cooperate with the Spirit, whom he calls the often-neglected member of the Trinity, in becoming more like Jesus. Begg then discusses love as the root trait, joy as a deep reservoir that survives suffering, peace with God, and patience, with brief nods to kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness. He closes by encouraging listeners to ask God to conform them to Christ, and to be honest with others that “God is not finished with me yet.”

                     Next Week:  Gregg Quiggle discusses the Reformation

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Zach Heinold is a now a dedicated Christian husband and father, co-owner of a residential construction business. But he tells Wayne Shepherd of almost ruining his life until he met Christ.  (click for more...)  

Zach's Business Website: https://heinoldhomes.com

Raised in church with a Sunday-morning requirement, Zach describes drifting in his teenage years into a popularity-driven crowd and a hidden double life — playing sports and getting decent grades on the surface while struggling with drugs and alcohol, even attending church while high. He talks about constant remorse, fear of being found out by his family and future wife, and escalating legal trouble — seven arrests/tickets in 2007 alone.

The conversation highlights his father's non-judgmental, faith-centered support, his wife's similar background of growing up in church and returning to faith, and his rock-bottom moment on the night of August 1-2, 2008. After college loans for SIU-Carbondale were denied and he planned to sell drugs instead, he says God gave him a clear choice that night — die or get help — leading him to wake his father at 1 a.m. and enter rehab, where his journey toward restoration began.

                                              NEXT WEEK:  Alistair Begg

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After experiencing a construction accident, Brad Willey began thinking deeply about his life when an unexpected stranger showed up to point him to Christ. He tells his story to Wayne Shepherd.   (click for more…) 

Website:  https://missioneurasia.ca

Brad Willey, now executive director of Mission Eurasia Canada, talks about how he came to faith. Willey grew up in a rough, isolated mountain town in western Canada where fighting, drinking, and gang influence were part of daily life. Around 2001–2002, he was operating heavy equipment when a landslide pushed his machine 30 feet underwater. He cried out to God, escaped through the roof hatch, and survived. He attended church for six months afterward but felt spiritually lost and drifted back into old habits. Years later, on a December morning, he prayed for someone to explain God's message to him. That afternoon, at a Calgary truck stop, a stranger with a Polish accent told him about Jesus, and Willey committed his life to Christ. He then grew in faith through Christian radio and a men's discipleship group, and was baptized in 2008. After a 2019 mission trip to Chile, he moved into full-time ministry, which led to his current work supporting field teams in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia.

Next Week:  Zach Heinold

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Once a convicted felon, Jermaine Wilson became a Christ-follower through a Prison Fellowship program and now discusses his changed life with Wayne Shepherd.  (click for more…)         

Website:  www.prisonfellowship.org/story/the-spiritual-awakening-of-jermaine-wilson/

Jermaine Wilson, now mission ambassador for Prison Fellowship, describes growing up in government housing with a teenage mother and a father who struggled with addiction. He began using drugs at 11 and committed his first crime at 12, seeking the acceptance he lacked at home. He spent four years in juvenile corrections, where he joined a gang, and after release he returned to drugs and crime. That led to a three-year adult prison sentence for narcotics possession, served when his son was eight months old. During that sentence, facing the prospect of his son repeating his path and with family visits suddenly stopping, he joined Prison Fellowship's program, surrendered his life to Jesus, and saw his family restored. After release, the church and Prison Fellowship volunteers gave him and his family food, housing, and jobs. He had his record expunged and later served as mayor of Leavenworth, Kansas. He now shares his story with inmates and lawmakers and urges listeners to volunteer with Prison Fellowship, especially its Angel Tree program, and to extend grace to people who have been incarcerated.

                                                             NEXT WEEK:  Brad Willey

Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
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Edward Bouvier who uses woodworking as a spiritual mission, joins Wayne Shepherd in conversation to talk about his joy of working with his hands and teaching others his craft.  (click for more…)                              

Website: www.villagewoodwright.com    

Edward Bouvier, "The Village Woodwright," started in furniture restoration and moved into teaching after a health crisis in his 30s showed him he wanted his craft to reach people. He now runs classes, mostly for homeschool groups and private schools, in which every tool is hand-powered and students start by splitting a fresh log. They work without rulers or patterns, using classical proportions instead. Bouvier ties his work to his faith, especially the idea of redemption: rescuing discarded wood and furniture, and helping students salvage flawed pieces or burn the rest in the class campfire. He also mentions a former apprentice who is now a blacksmith at Kline Creek Farm, and his lifelong love of the pipe organ, which he is returning to after advice from Wheaton's Harold Best to use music for worship rather than performance. He describes his path as a calling that has taken detours, and says that although mission work rarely pays well, God has always provided and interest in his classes is now growing.

Previous interview with Edward Bouvier: 

https://www.buzzsprout.com/121603/episodes/1015078-edward-bouvier

                                           Next Week:  Jermaine Wilson

Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
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Executive leadership coach and author Fred Gladney is Wayne Shepherd’s guest to tell his personal story of faith and the biblical principles for business he’s learned.  (click for more…) 

Website:  TheDNAofSuccess.com , https://thegladneygroup.com/

Fred Gladney is an executive leadership coach, entrepreneur, and author of The DNA of Success. Gladney describes growing up in a "cultural Christian" household in Pittsburgh, coming to genuine faith in his late twenties after being prayed for at a dinner in California, and being discipled by mentors including Dr. E.V. Hill and Frank Wilson. He reflects on integrating faith with a long corporate career (including leaving a company over ethical issues), and shares his coaching philosophy — that real success requires surrender, that leaders should focus on personal growth and self-awareness rather than assessments and quadrants, and that significance comes from mentoring others and leaving a lasting legacy. The conversation closes with his emphasis on Scripture memorization and mentorship, especially in an age of AI, and a mention of his book and his longtime board service with the Far East Broadcasting Company.

                                            NEXT WEEK:  Edward Bouvier

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Cheryl Steele Tinsley, the lone survivor of a wilderness surveying trip gone awry, talks with Wayne Shepherd about her experience.  (click for more) 

On July 3, 1980, Cheryl Steele Tinsley and three of her friends were caught in a deadly “freak storm” on Michigan's Lake Huron that meteorologists say only appear once every ten to twelve years.  Her three companions died, but Cheryl miraculously lived.
As you listen, Cheryl will recount the story and speak to what she learned about how God speaks to us when we encounter the reality of death.
Cheryl can be reached through her webssite, cherylsteeletinsley.com.
Cheryl has also written a book detailing the experience titled Wave by Wave, A Memoir of Survival, Faith, and How God Works which can be found here. 

                                                NEXT WEEK:  Fred Gladney

Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
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Country preacher Jeremy Farley, author of Hay Bales and Holy Rollers, joins Wayne Shepherd in conversation about his life and testimony.  (click for more...)   

Website:  www.JeremyFarley.com 

Jeremy Farley, a pastor from Wytheville, Virginia, and author of the memoir Hay Balers and Holy Rollers. Farley was born to a teenage mother in 1985 after she rejected pressure to have an abortion, and he grew up on his great-grandfather's Virginia farm after being raised partly in West Virginia coal country. His great-grandfather, "the Old Man" (Tom Farley), was a hard, self-made, "black-and-white" man who taught him toughness but dismissed church as being "for weak men." Jeremy had a false conversion as a teen under social pressure at a legalistic Christian school, then genuinely surrendered to Christ in college on October 15, 2004. He describes founding Restoration Church of Wytheville in 2019, which weathered pandemic setbacks (meeting in a cow pasture) before growing into a two-service congregation. The interview's emotional centerpiece is his 2014 hospital-bedside conversation with his dying great-grandfather, where he shared the "Romans Road" gospel passages and learned the old man's own mother had shared the same verses with him as a child before she died — leading the great-grandfather to profess faith in Christ shortly before his death.

                                             NEXT WEEK:  Cheryl Tinsley

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Adam Waters is a living testimony that God can rescue and redeem a life headed for self-destruction. He tells his story to Wayne Shepherd.  (click for more)              

Website: https://www.gracebiblechurchelmhurst.com

Adam Waters shares a powerful testimony of transformation from atheism, rebellion, drug addiction, broken relationships, and imprisonment to faith in Jesus Christ and pastoral ministry. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, Waters rejected Christianity as a teenager and became deeply involved in drugs and alcohol, eventually serving in the military as a highly trained medical corpsman while secretly struggling with addiction. After reaching a desperate point that led him to consider suicide, he confessed his addiction, was discharged, and eventually returned to Chicago, where his addiction worsened and ultimately resulted in prison. While incarcerated, reading the writings of Martin Luther, Calvin, Augustine, and other theologians opened his eyes to his spiritual brokenness, and he experienced a profound conversion to Christianity. After prison, with the support of his parents, mentors, and his wife Elaine, Waters pursued theological education at Moody, sensed a call to ministry, and eventually became lead pastor of Grace Bible Church in Elmhurst, Illinois. Today, he views his suffering and recovery as preparation to speak truth and hope into the lives of others, emphasizing the power of prayer, God's ability to redeem broken lives, and the truth that even the most unlikely people can be transformed and called to serve Him. 

                                        NEXT WEEK:  Jeremy Farley

Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
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Dannah Gresh, author and founder of the Christian tween ministry True Girl talks with Wayne Shepherd about her passion to help young girls understand and live with “Pure Freedom”.  (click for more…)

Website:  https://dannahgresh.com

Gresh opens up about grieving the recent loss of a beloved horse and the spiritual lessons she found in that pain, then traces her journey from a childhood dream of being a writer through a period of sexual sin in a relationship as a young Christian woman, and how healing from that shame at 26 became the foundation for a ministry helping girls escape their own "pits of shame." She recounts how a divine prompting to pray for Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth (rather than resent her) led to a lasting friendship, co-authoring Lies Young Women Believe, and eventually renaming her ministry (originally Secret Keeper Girl) as True Girl amid #MeToo-era concerns about secrecy. The conversation covers the ministry's growth — reaching 130 countries and hundreds of thousands of listeners — its focus on empowering parents (especially moms) to guide daughters through cultural pressures like early sexualization and gender confusion, and Gresh's core conviction that regular engagement with Scripture is the most powerful antidote to anxiety, depression, and cultural confusion in kids' lives. The interview closes with a mention of her husband's parallel ministry for boys, Born to Be Brave, and a plug for her new book, Lies Girls Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free.

                                            NEXT WEEK:  Adam Waters

Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
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Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!