An Unexpected Journal: Mystery: Detecting Truth in the Darkness

Jasmin is graduating with a Master's degree in cultural apologetics at Houston Baptist University. She loves reading & writing about philosophy, poetry, literature, & cultural analysis. She also enjoys gardening, water coloring, hiking, and traveling.

Jesse Baker is a United Methodist pastor, and has previously written for An Unexpected Journal. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and two sons.

Donald W. Catchings, Jr. is co-founder of publishing company, Inkwell and Pen, LLC. Also, Donald holds a Master of Arts in Apologetics from Houston Baptist University. Donald regularly contributes to An Unexpected Journal and has numerous published works, including Joy Through a Wardrobe — a poetic companion to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Annie Crawford lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and three teenage daughters. She currently homeschools, teaches humanities courses, and serves on the Faith & Culture team at Christ Church Anglican while working to complete a Masters of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.

Karise Gililland has a BA in English from Southern Methodist University and a Masters in Imaginative and Cultural Apologetics from Houston Baptist University. She consumes copious amounts of time (and coffee!) shuttling her teenagers to and fro, rescuing her cats from impending peril, and writing for An Unexpected Journal. She currently teaches the most amazing third graders at a classical Christian school in Fort Worth.

Sojourna Howfree is a pen name for Sonja Howard, an Australian biographer, poet, essayist, and English Literature teacher. Residing in the beautiful Sunshine Coast of Australia with her husband of 24 years. Sonja is a mother of four.

“I am dust that has been drawn into the breath of God, only to be exhaled as something of worth, because in that moment of being drawn into him, there was the great transformation.” Sonja

Kimberly Hyland is wife to one, mother to six, and “Mina” to eleven! She teaches apologetics and worldview classes to high school students and recently became a student herself at HCU, where she is a candidate for the Masters in Cultural Apologetics. Kim is also the author of “An Imperfect Woman: Letting Go of the Need to Have it All Together.” You can find her online at www.winsomeliving.com and “on air” at the “You’re Not that Special” podcast,which she co-hosts with her daughter Emily Dean. 

Tim McGuire is a retired social worker who continues his ministry of service through a prison pen pal program and as an Eucharistic minister to the homebound. He lives with his wife of forty-nine years have three children and four granddaughters. My wife and I have been married forty-nine years and have three children and four granddaughters. He is an amateur pianist and ministers through music through recitals at a local collage as well as an annual service for families and friends who lost someone to homicide, suicide, or accidental death. It was by doing that Tim learned the meaning, and value, of "releasing an eye-drop of comfort into an ocean of grief.

Erica Milecki McMillan completed graduate work in the MAA in Apologetics at Houston Baptist University and was a recipient of the program’s Merit Scholarship. She lives in Orange County, California, where she is still obsessing about Hae Min Lee’s murder (except when she is alone at night).

Dr. Brian Melton is a longtime residential and online professor of history with a strong and abiding interest in a wide variety of topics, particularly in all things Lewis and Tolkien. He and his family have shared adventures together all over the world, but are now settled in his hometown in Southwest Georgia.

Seth Myers completed his MA in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Baptist University in 2017. As a power systems engineer, he has been involved with transformer diagnostics and rural electrification projects by partnering with NGOs in West Africa. A volunteer with international students through local churches, he enjoys conversations with friends from all cultures. He considers himself rich in friendships across time and space, including but not limited to C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Bede the Venerable, Augustine, Ravi Zacharias & friends, and many student friends (chess-playing when possible, but not required) typically from throughout Asia. He has recently begun taking online courses in Faulkner University’s Doctor of Humanities program.

Annie Nardone is a two-year C.S. Lewis Institute Fellow with a Master of Arts degree in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Baptist University. She has homeschooled her three kids for twenty-five years and taught art and humanities at her local co-op. Her heart is for Rohan, Narnia, and Hogwarts, far fairer lands than this. Annie contributes and edits for An Unexpected Journal at www.anunexpectedjournal.com. She publishes online at www.literarylife.org, www.theperennialgen.com, and most recently began writing for the online magazine Cultivating at www.thecultivatingproject.com. She also wrote an historical cookbook for Bright Ideas Press. She can be contacted at: [email protected].

Rebekah Valerius is a graduate of the MA in Apologetics program at HBU. She is a wife and homeschooling mother of two. You can see more of her writing at www.alongthebeam.com.

After retiring from a ballet career, Jacqueline Wilson became an assistant pre-school teacher and bachelor student of English Literature at Houston Community College. At Houston Community College she was nominated “Student of the Year” and received the creative writing “Voices Without Boarders” award. Upon graduating from HCC, Jacqueline continued her studies in English Literature at the University of Houston-Downtown, where she received first place in an essay contest for her writing on George Herbert’s “Easter Wings” and graduated Magna Cum Laude. While working on her bachelor’s degree in English Literature Jacqueline frequently guest wrote for Red Letter News Blogs and created a blog of her own titled, Beneath the Dogwood Tree. She has recently been accepted in Houston Baptist’s University’s Cultural Apologetics program and is excited to begin classes in Spring 2022. She is currently working on receiving her teaching certification with Texas Teachers of Tomorrow and hopes to one day teach middle school or high school English.

Ted is independent scholar, writer, and founder of EpicArchaeology.org. For over a decade, Ted has been a speaker on Christian apologetics as well as Biblical Archaeology across North America & internationally. In addition to public speaking, Ted was the former Executive and Teaching Director of CrossExamined.org. Ted has also appeared on numerous television and radio programs including the History Channel’s TV miniseries – “Mankind: The Story of All of Us,” as well as CNN’s documentary on the historical resurrection of Jesus, “Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery.” Ted has also served as adjunct professor of apologetics at Southern Evangelical Seminary as well as Charlotte Christian College and Theological Seminary, where he has taught for over a decade.