Suzy A Richardson

Deborah Young wanted time to mourn her husband’s death, but the church they started together needed a pastor; and she was God’s choice.

With her life crumbling beneath her feet, Deborah Young hit her knees. Desperate, the young mother of three begged God to save her marriage and her life. Deborah made a promise to God that day—that if He would just save her husband and her marriage, then she would serve Him for the rest of her life. It is a promise that—more than 20 years later—has paved the way for her life's path.

Today Deborah is the head pastor of House of Faith (hofgospel.org), a small church in Lafayette, Louisiana, where she is doing big things to impact a community that has been completely ravaged in recent years.

Karen Wheaton returned to her Alabama roots and launched a revolution among young people who were hungry to know God.

Gospel singer Karen Wheaton discovered the power of her voice as a young woman, singing her way onto the high-profile stages of mega-ministries across America. But she discovered her voice's real power away from the bright lights of stages and on the dark streets of a small Southern town.

Karen recalls the drive—after a move back to her hometown in 1998—that ignited a brand-new passion within her heart for the youth. "These kids were sitting on the hoods of their cars in the middle of the night," she recalls. "They were just wasting their lives and had no purpose for living. They had no idea who God really was; they equated God with religion and with dead churches."

Denise Bristol Gordon loves motivating parents to become involved in their children’s educations. But more important than that, she tells them, is that they learn to trust in the Lord.

As a child, Denise Bristol Gordon discovered her first audience in the backyard of her childhood home.

It was there she would talk to the swaying coconut trees under the clear skies of Guyana. "My mother would say, 'Speak to the coconut trees.' And when I spoke, they would begin waving," Denise said, recalling that when the wind blew, the clanking of the coconuts sounded like clapping hands to the ears of a child.