First Person with Wayne Shepherd

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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Far East Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 6020 
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Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

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:
FEBC National Processing Center 
Far East Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 6020 
Albert Lea, MN 56007

Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

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
Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
FEBC National Processing Center 
Far East Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 6020 
Albert Lea, MN 56007

Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

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:
FEBC National Processing Center 
Far East Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 6020 
Albert Lea, MN 56007

Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!

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
Send your support for FIRST PERSON to the Far East Broadcasting Company:
FEBC National Processing Center 
Far East Broadcasting Company
P.O. Box 6020 
Albert Lea, MN 56007

Please mention FIRST PERSON when you give. Thank you!