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Hope's husband, Harry MacDonald, was one of the early full time Young Life staff members under founder, Jim Rayburn. After serving as an Area Director in California, Seattle, and Pittsburgh for a number of years, Jim asked them to consider starting a work for Young Life in Brazil. They accepted the challenge, with three children in tow, and left the comforts of home to learn Portuguese and pioneer Young Life for Brazilian teens. Harry established a thriving ministry to teenagers in Brazil (known as "Alvo"), formed a foundation to support the work, and built a Young Life camp. In the meantime, Hope warmly welcomed many teenagers into their home, and also ministered to a group of 33 poor children living in an abandoned house down the street. 

 

When they returned from Brazil, Hope began to study the craft of writing and wrote her book. In the meantime, Bill Starr asked Harry to coordinate the international work of Young Life as he studied for his PhD in Missiology. After her book was published, they traveled as a couple to promote the international start-ups of Young Life, which also expanded Hope's opportunities to teach on the subject of prayer around the world.

 

One of Hope and Harry MacDonald's sons, Dan, a former Young Life staffer himself, taught Bible at a large private Christian school in Seattle (King's High School). He integrated his mother's book on prayer into his curriculum and developed a study guide to go along with it. He wanted his students to learn about prayer and discuss the material more deeply. When Zondervan found out about it, they incorporated Dan's Study Guide into the 1990 publication of Discovering How to Pray. All future printings, domestic and foreign, included the Study Guide, with individuals and groups using it for bible study with much success.

 

Hope followed up her book on prayer with four other popular books: Discovering the Joy of Obedience, When Angels Appear, Traditional Values for Today's New Woman, and her final book, Letters from Heaven. By the last printing of When Angels Appear, there were over 500,000 copies of her books in print.

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Today, only used copies of her books are available, many in somewhat tattered condition. Over the years, Hope received many requests for copies of her books wherever she went. She began to purchase used copies to hand out to interested persons. Finally, she asked Zondervan for her publishing rights back, so she could find a way to make them available again in fresh paperback and digital formats.

 

At age 94, her fingers didn't work as well as they used to. So, she asked her adult children to find a way to make her former books available again. They have combined their talents to re-publish her books, starting with Discovering How to Pray. They preserved her original words but updated the book to newer formats for easy reading. Her hope is for young and old alike to use this book as a tool for private study as well as for small groups. As soon as this project was announced, accolades from former readers began to pour in. (See Endorsements on the HOME page.)