Exchange student Maggie Swanson always loved her morning runs through the streets of Seville, Spain. This one almost cost her - her life. Maggie was crossing a street when a bus, traveling 37 mph, hit her - throwing her 80 feet. Seven hours later and over 4000 miles away in Minnesota, Tad Weiss, got the phone call at work that his 19-year-old daughter was in the hospital fighting for her life. Tad recalls. “Our life just got turned upside down in the matter of moments with one phone call.” Tad immediately called his wife, Wendy. She says, “It was almost like an out-of-body experience. Packed the bags, grabbed the passports, made my way to Tad's office, picked him up, got to the airport. I know that that was the Holy Spirit that was guiding me.”

Wendy and Tad say despite full flights, God paved the way for them to get last minute tickets to Spain. They spent most of the journey praying. Tad says, “Praying to God during that time was probably the only thing that we felt we could do that made a difference.” Wendy says, “Maggie was a believer in Jesus Christ. And if the Lord chose not to save her life, we knew that she would go to Heaven.”

In Seville, they rushed to the hospital where they found Maggie in the ICU in a medically induced coma. It had been 25 hours since the accident. Tad recalls, “We were in shock. Due to all the swelling from the accident, it just didn't even look like Maggie.” Wendy recalls seeing Maggie that morning, “Those first moments of seeing Maggie, we just knew we had a long battle ahead of us.”

Through translators, they learned that Maggie suffered a traumatic brain injury, pelvic fracture, and broken ribs. Their main concern was the possibility of her brain swelling. The first 72 hours were critical. Wendy recalls, “They never told us that she would live or that they had assurance that she would live. And so, we went through the first four days wondering at any moment whether or not we would hear from the hospital that she had taken a turn for the worst, and we would be called in to say ‘goodbye’ to her.” 

Now it was a waiting game. Tad and Wendy spent every moment they could at Maggie’s bedside. After a week, Maggie was stable enough for surgery to repair her fractured pelvis. While doctors assured them Maggie would live, they couldn’t predict what her future would hold. Wendy thought, “What if she is not...no longer able to speak clearly or hold a job. Or would she be able to be an adult who is able to earn an income and get married and have a family. All of those thoughts raced through your mind.”

By then, Tad had set up a Caring Bridge page to post updates on Maggie. Prayers and encouragement came pouring in. Tad says, “The people that came alongside of us were such a part of this story and such a big part of Maggie's recovery, we just can't thank them enough.”

By the end of three weeks, Maggie had been brought out of her coma and was stable enough to fly home. Psychiatrist and brain trauma specialist, Doctor Bob Sevenich, was on the team that took over Maggie’s care in Minneapolis. Dr. Sevenich recalls, “When I first saw her, she was quite cognitively impaired. She was semi awake, and she was answering yes, no questions, inconsistently, even fairly simple questions. People that have traumatic brain injuries often have ongoing difficulties with walking, with moving, with coordination, all those sorts of things.”

However, Maggie would begin defying the odds, making great strides in physical therapy and on August 7th she was up and walking. Wendy recalls, “She stood up out of that wheelchair and we walked her out of the hospital. And it was just the most beautiful thing.” Maggie recalls, “It felt so freeing to walk after I've been sitting around for months.”

Although she was improving physically, Maggie’s emotional and mental healing took longer. Maggie recalls, “I just couldn't join my friends with a lot of things. And I found that that was very isolating and very confusing. That led to me asking God a lot of questions of why, why is this happening to me? Why, why, why am I alone? It was very, it was a very isolating time. I was wondering why God had taken my running, my academics, my social life, my, my ability to really do anything, to be a normal, to be a normal student. Romans 8:28 was a real encouragement during this time. ‘God works all things for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his will.'"

Those words would come true. That Fall, with therapy, hard work, and a lot of prayer, Maggie returned to college and was soon running again. A year after the accident, after working through her emotional and mental challenges, Maggie was back in Spain as an exchange student. In May of 2016, she graduated from college on time. Dr. Sevenich says, “The accident was quite severe, and I think it surprised a lot of the providers, the medical professionals both in Spain and here, how rapid her recovery was and how well she did considering the injuries that she sustained.”

Married in 2019, Maggie went on to accomplish even more. Since then, she has competed in three Ironman Triathlons. In 2023 she placed 100 out of 2000 women. As in everything, she gives God the glory. Tad says, “It is just amazing what God has done in her life, how she can use her story, um, to help others learn about Jesus and about God and how He can take the worst of events and turn them into incredible blessings.”

Wendy says, “Be in the word, know the Lord Jesus in such a way that you can stand on His foundation of truth when the storm comes. It's not just a pat answer to say, that is where you go to for strength.”

And Maggie says, “I'm grateful that the accident happened and that, and that He did, He did turn what was initially meant for evil to something beautiful. All the things that happened to me, God did mean it for good and God brought so much good from it. Keep the faith that God is with you and that God wants the best for you.”

Maggie's father has written a book about this miraculous healing and it can be found at www.25meters.com.
 

“That’s why I say, I used to lock people up, now I’m trying to set people free.”

From buying cocaine as an undercover mob boss to preaching about Jesus, Dale Sutherland worked as both a pastor and an undercover narcotics officer in Washington D.C. for 22 years. In his words, “I'd be in the office counseling, working, and then in the evening I'd go to the police department and buy drugs and arrest bad guys.” As part of his undercover persona, he was presented as several different roles to entice perpetrators to sell and buy drugs from them; one of those roles was as a pimp. He would often have prostitutes surrounding him, while also preaching on holiness at church as a pastor, so he found his unexpected job duo often challenging.

In his early 20s, Dale felt the call to minister to urban youth. However, growing in a Christian home within a safe and secure neighborhood, Dale didn’t have much experience with life on the streets, so after a few years in Bible college, he enrolled in the Washington D.C. police academy. Shortly after graduating, he was introduced to the undercover department, fell in love with the work, and most importantly God revealed to him a new way to minister to the urban communities he felt called too. 

Following a close call dodging his own murder by 45 minutes, Dale’s desire to evangelize on the force significantly increased. He began sharing the gospel more and more on the force, and many former drug dealers, including his friend Javier, who he initially arrested, credit him for leading them to Christ and getting them off the streets.

After 22 years on the force, 12 of those years balancing both jobs, Dale retired from the police force. Today, he is an associate pastor at his local church in Washington D.C., where he become known as the Undercover Pastor. He’s also the founder of Code 3, a non-profit organization that provides training and programs to police and citizens so they can work together to build safer, more connected communities. His goal of sharing the gospel remains the same. 

In his words, “The only thing that matters is that I can reach more people for Christ, for eternity. That’s why I say, 'I used to lock people up, now I’m trying to set people free.'"

Connect with Dale’s nonprofit community organization, Code 3 at www.code3.org.  
 

22-year-old Emmaus Vanderbilt owns Silver Fox Productions, a video production company located in North Carolina.  His wife, Hannah, owns and operates her own cleaning company, Joyful Cleaning. From the beginning, they made tithing a priority.  
 
Emmaus said, “I credit that to my parents. They've always modeled that for me. God just gets the first 10%.”
 
Hannah feels the same. She said, “ I want to honor God as best as I can. And so, from that first job when I was 14, ever since, I've just always tithed 10% of what I made. And it’s just been a habit I’m joyful to do.”
 
Emmaus has learned valuable lessons about finances. At 18, his income had grown to six figures as a startup video business shooting destination weddings.
 
“I believe there were certain times in my life when I slipped. And I said this is something I’ve been able to do. Look what I did,” said Emmaus. “And I won't never say that I totally cut God out of the equation. Because I still tithe on it. I thank the Lord for it. But what I realized was that no, the Lord was the one who put the breath in my lungs this morning. The Lord was the one who provided these opportunities. And God has just allowed me to manage this money, this video project.”
 
When Covid hit in 2020 Emmaus experienced God’s faithfulness as his business weathered the storm. 
 
He said, “Some people, they were, they were dropping by 50% of their weddings, 60% of their shoots. And just the Lord continued providing even whenever a few weddings canceled, we still had 85 90% still hire us and for the 10% that had to cancel. We had local government organizations reach out and ask us to film videos for them. Different corporate groups.  We never went without. I totally attribute tithing to the fact that we stayed safe during that storm.”
 
Soon after he met and married Hannah in 2021, she became co-owner of the production company and in 2022 she started her in-home cleaning business. The couple then got serious about debt. She had school loans and they both had car payments which in all totaled $90,000. They began paying it off working long hours, tithing the whole time and their businesses thrived.
 
Hannah said, “There's no other no other answer, but the Lord did that. We're having a month where we're having less weddings, but more cleaning clients. So, it's all, it all balances out. And the only answer for it is, God, He's the one providing it.”
 
Today, they are debt free. Looking back on all God has accomplished this year the couple is grateful for their two businesses growing at a rate of 40% and many more opportunities awaiting them.
 
Emmaus said, “And whenever we don’t have debt, don’t have payments, we have more money to invest, save, and ultimately give and be more generous.”
 
Emmaus and Hannah say it all starts with generosity.
 
“The Lord provided for us. And, it says in Malachi three 10, the only time in the Bible that we can test God in something. Yeah. And it's tithes and offerings. And God just completely overflowed our storehouses,” said Emmaus.
 
Hannah said, “I say when you give 10% that God's going to bless you because you're obeying Him and you're doing what His word says.”

Eleven-year-old, Rayhan, was raised in a Muslim home in Indonesia. “I was told I had to memorize the Quran and attend an Islamic school,” said Rayhan. Then a Christian Sunday school teacher invited him to visit her church. There Rayhan learned about the Bible by watching CBN’s Superbook. “The SBK story I watched that day was, 'In the Beginning,'” explained Rayhan.

Rayhan continued to go to Sunday school where he watched more episodes of Superbook. One day, he saw the story of Daniel. “He refused to worship King Darius,” said Rayhan. “From that story, I learned that I wanted to be like Daniel and only worship the Lord.” At the end of that episode, Rayhan prayed to become a Christian. “I prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, I invite You to come into my heart as Lord and Savior,” explained the child.

Rayhan no longer attends the Islamic school and loves to share Superbook stories with his parents and sisters. He’s praying that they’ll become Christian too. “I want to say thank you to all of the people who gave us Superbook,” said Rayhan. “Thank you and God bless you.”
 

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