Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is Living Hope all about?

It is about:

  • Sharing the living hope that I experienced on my journey of catastrophic suffering following the suicide of my beloved son Alex (17) and eight years later the unbelievable death of my beautiful daughter Rebecca (32);
  • Awakening faith by seeing how God entered in to my suffering with me, giving me the grace to journey on;
  • Sharing a message that if God can help me through my suffering, He can help anyone on their journey of suffering;
  • Awakening purpose by seeing how God is ever present and working in and through our journey, from start to finish;
  • Understanding suffering from an eternal perspective; and
  • Seeing that God wants to turn every bad thing in our lives into something good to help others.
2. In Living Hope, you share the treasures you’ve learned on your journey. What are some of these learnings?
  • This life is not the end, it’s just the beginning – the best is yet to come!
  • Love never fails!
  • Never, ever, ever give up.
  • The fight of faith takes place in the mind but it’s decided in the heart!
  • How God built my faith and equipped me for my calling.
  • Viewing life with an etervnal perspective changed everything!
  • How to pray with God’s promises.
  • How God works through His body, the Church, to comfort and love me in my pain.
  • God hates suffering and how He comforted and restored me, turning the evil that had happened to me into something good to help others.
  • Suffering is a journey, and it helped to see and understand where I was on the journey. The first and every step needed courage.
  • At my lowest point, God was there for me. God’s grace, like water, finds you at your lowest point.
  • Viewing my journey through the eyes of faith, helped me to experience more of God.
  • My suffering prepared me for God’s calling in this life and the next!
  • There are over 100 scriptures that were an anchor for my soul in my darkest hours.
  • Purpose is a friend of hope; and hope is the lamp of the soul.
  • How God led me to make major changes in my life, such as leaving many exciting ministry opportunities in London and moving to the New York, and taking early retirement from my banking career to work for Alpha USA.
  • 5 key ways to help you journey through suffering.
  • 7 key ways to find your purpose – even through suffering.
3. What was behind your wanting to write this book?

Looking back over my life, I realized God prepared me for an unusual calling. From a blessed and loved filled Christian up-bringing, 5-years at military school, becoming a top college athlete, pastoring in London, a 30-year career in banking, to leading Alpha USA, they all helped to prepare me for my calling. A calling to share the comfort God gave me in my suffering to help others in their suffering.

Things came to a head after having a massive cardiac arrest in which I was twice pronounced dead in a 30-minute period. Coming to, without any brain damage, the medics and first responders called it a miracle and I asked the question, “Lord, why am I still here?”

I realized that on my journey of catastrophic suffering, I had received a very special gift – the ability to empathize with the broken and to help them to find comfort and hope. The truth is, the really deep things of the heart come only through the journey of suffering.

That’s when I knew I had to write Living Hope.

4. Say more about the “journey of suffering.” What do you mean by that?

At the beginning, you simply need to be loved and comforted. Later, your soul needs to be restored. And then, you will be in a place to join our Hope Warriors who are turning the bad things in their life into something good to help others.

If this life is all there is, I would have become bitter, with no hope. However, in seeing that this is ‘just the cover page of a never-ending story,’ and that I’m going to see Rebecca and Alex again, I have great peace and joy.

5. Who do you envision reading your book and what do you hope they take away?

Living Hope is for everyone because suffering is a fact of life, and no one escapes it. However, we’re not taught how to journey through suffering. I share how I learned to journey through suffering with a living hope, knowing that God was with me and that there was a purpose in all that I was going through.

My prayer is that Living Hope will:

  • Give the reader the comfort and hope that I experienced in my suffering;
  • Awaken faith, give peace and enable the reader to find their God given purpose;
  • Inspire the reader to join a growing number of courageous men, women and children who are turning their suffering into something good to help others.
  • Provide insights into the mystery of suffering; to see how God is present in it and how He works to turn it for good, to help others.
6. How much was Jeannie involved in the writing of Living Hope?

As in all we do, we wrote Living Hope together. I wrote Living Hope as an instructional memoir but Jeannie added the color. She helped to make the story come alive by helping me to include the more personal parts of my journey. Jeannie is writing her side of the story from the perspective of unconditional love. Like her dancing as a ballerina, she has a beautiful way of writing and I know her book will be a massive best seller. It should be published in 2022.