Tell us about yourself.
My parents were missionaries in Nigeria, West Africa.  When I was ten years old it became necessary for us to settle down in the United States due to illness in the family.  So I became thoroughly Americanized – particularly during my middle school and high school years.  It was during those years that I really began to question the faith that my parents had raised me in. I had a lot of questions – questions about God’s existence; about the reliability of the Bible; why so many sincere people believed so many different things; etc.  But unfortunately, at that time in my life, nobody was available to answer them.  My Dad was very ill, and I didn’t want to bother my Mom (who was very busy trying to make ends meet), and no one in my church seemed to take my questions seriously.

Then I went off to college, and I found the answers I had been searching for.  Unfortunately, they were the wrong ones! I bought in to the whole idea that Christianity is just a psychological crutch. It had obviously been useful in getting my parents through life, but I didn’t think it was necessary for me. Here I was, an intellectual student at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League college – I didn't need that kind of help. So, for several years I abandoned the Christian faith.

During that time, I ran into a classmate named Ed – who later became my husband.  God has a tremendous sense of humor, and Ed accepted Christ, right about then! His new exuberant faith caused me to rethink all the questions that I had, but I was still unwilling to open my life to Christ.  We were married, and Ed convinced me that it was best for our marriage for him to go to seminary. While we were at Dallas Theological Seminary several people entered my life who loved me back to the Lord.  And they had intellectual answers that made sense.  I remember particularly the role Jeanne Hendricks, the wife of Dr. Howard Hendricks, played in my life.   This fine, wonderful lady was as bright as anyone I'd ever met, and she believed the Bible was the Word of God. So I began to really take it seriously and to search honestly for answers to my questions.

Many years later, as my own children (Ed and I have four sons) began to enter their teenage years, they started to ask the same questions that I had asked as a teenager.  I realized that I had to have answers for them. That's when I began to do a lot of research – not because I didn't have the answers at that point, but because I didn’t know how to give them to my children in ways that they could really understand; in ways that would help them define and defend the Christian faith in their own life situations. I started to write the answers down, including the stories that I used as illustrations, because I didn't want to have to have to do the research over and over again each time a child asked me the same question! And that's how this whole project evolved.
 
Why did you decide to publish the books — had you intended to publish them when you started writing them?
Not at all. I never intended for the answers I wrote down for my own children to become books – but friends started to come to me and say things to me like, "My child is asking 'How do you really know there's a God?' or 'How are you sure that Jesus is the ONLY way to heaven?'" and they would ask me how to answer them. Read More 

Did you find many challenges when converting these books to a wider audience than your family?
It really surprised me when NavPress decided to use my notebook just as it was. I wrote it to Zach, MattE, Ben and Jonathan, and I talked directly to them in the book. Read More

Did you do a lot of research did you do for this series?
Well, the first one I researched as my children were growing up and as they would ask me questions.  I had a source book that was kind of my bottom line through those years. Read More 
 
I really like how you use powerful analogies to simplify and explain complicated spiritual truths. How do you hope teens will respond to that style of writing and why did you choose so many analogies?
I know that my own children were able to understand spiritual truths much better if I was able to apply them to their own situations and illustrate them using events that had actually happened to them. Read More
 
Are these books intended more for teens or their parents?
Well, originally they were intended for teenagers, because they were written for my own sons. Read More 
 
How do you hope them to be used — in youth groups, for kids to read on their own, or for families to read together, for instance?
All of the above! And they are starting to be used that way. There's a Christian boarding school in Germany, called Black Forest Academy, and they're using my books in their senior theology classes. Read More
 
What kinds of questions are teens asked about their faith, and how did you decide what questions to include in Sticking Up For What I Believe?
The first book, Sticking Up For What I Believe: Answers to the Spiritual Questions Teenagers Ask, is really focused on the area of apologetics. Most of the questions in that book are the ones that you would study if you took an apologetics course at a Bible college or a seminary. Read More
 
Do you think that people might want to argue with you about the conclusions you draw in this book, or any of the books in this series? What would you say to your critics?
I'm sure that some people are going to argue with what is in these books, but they're not really arguing with me. The way I see it, they're arguing with what the Bible says. Read More
 
Whose job is it to educate young people on what to say about their faith?
Bottom line, it is the parents' job! That's what the Bible says in Deuteronomy 6 and in Ephesians 6:4.  It tells us that we are the ones to nurture and admonish our children in things of the Lord. Read More 
 
When did you decide to write the second book, Sticking Up For What Is Right? Was it before or after you wrote Sticking Up For What I Believe?
Sticking Up For What I Believe was the first book – it was written while my children were growing up. I didn't even realize how important a separate book on moral dilemmas would be until NavPress had already approached me about the first one, and they asked me to write a proposal for it. Read More 
 
What will the next book, Sticking Up For Who I Am, coming out in the spring of 2003, deal with?
Well, it deals with emotional issues. First of all, how can you stick up for someone you don’t even know? "Who am I?” and “Why am I here?" are the first couple of chapters. Other chapters deal with jealousy, anger, fear, and discouragement. Read More
 
How has your own relationship with your sons been impacted by writing these books, and your efforts to solidify their faith?
As parents, we have so many dimensions in our relationships with our children.  We have the physical dimension as we teach them to dress themselves, and run them to and from ball games, and attend their school plays. Read More 

Is there anything else you'd like to add?
The number one reason kids abandon the Christian faith is because they haven't been given answers to their questions. We not only need to define their faith for them, we need to help them know how to defend it. Read More

Anything you'd like to say to teenagers?
I hope that you can understand my heart of love, care, and concern. God has so much in store for you if you are willing to live life the way He has asked you to live it. Read More