Cool Free Stuff!

I just wouldn't be a good friend if I didn't let my reader-friends know about some very cool free stuff my own Discovery House Publishers is offering. Every week between now and Christmas, on the DHP Web site (www.dhp.org), you can have a free Christmas song download.

The other really great thing is tied into a book that has just released: A Blossom in the Desert. The book would make a great Christmas present for the art lover in your circle of friends and family. It's a beautiful hardcover coffee table gift book, and I'm not just saying it's beautiful because it's a DHP book. The artist, Lilias Trotter, lived during the Victorian era and studied under English artist John Ruskin. Although she showed great promise and probably could have become quite famous, Lilias instead left her comfortable, plush English life and became a missionary to the Arabs of Algeria. During the years she served as a missionary, Lilias kept art journals, filled with exquisite, delicate watercolors of the people, animals, landscape, and flowers that she observed. She also recorded her thoughts, and her writings are as poetic and as lovely as her paintings. Lilias is a fascinating woman, and her biography, A Passion for the Impossible, is also available from DHP. What a role model for young women! Anyway, you can learn more about Lilias and choose from several of her pieces of art to download as wallpaper at www.dhp.org/passion And if you should happen to want the book as a Christmas gift, and you live somewhere near me, I would be happy to pick the book up for you so you can avoid shipping charges. You can also purchase it at the RBC bookstore at RBC Ministries. Have fun checking out Lilias's site!