I was born in Conway, Arkansas, on March 29, 1951, and I am the middle child of seven. My father was James W. Goodwin from Faulkner county, Arkansas and my mother was Helen Clestine Herring Goodwin, from Quitman in Cleburne county Arkansas. My father was a veteran of WWII and the Korean war, and also served during the Viet Nam era. As a result of his being in the army we moved quite often in my childhood. His last posting in the Army was at Fort Ord, California. He left the army in 1963 because he had surrendered to the gospel ministry and then began his career as a Baptist pastor. He was called to central Arkansas to begin a new congregation in the area of Lake Conway in Arkansas and we moved from California to Conway. In 1966 he was called as Pastor to the First Baptist Church in Damascus, Arkansas and I was in the 9th grade. He remained there until I graduated from Southside High School in Bee Branch, Arkansas.After I graduated high school I enlisted in the Arkansas Army National Guard and was sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky for Basic and AIT training. After completing those training assignments I returned to Damascus and enrolled in Central Baptist College in Conway. It was there that I met my wife-to-be; Deborah Hayes of Cleveland, Tennessee. Her father was also a Baptist pastor from Cleveland, TN.We were married 13 August 1971 and we began our life together in a little 4 room house outside of Damascus. Together we have three children, Clint born December 9th, 1972; Jeanie born July 6th, 1974 and Amanda born November 25th, 1978. I began working full time for the Arkansas Army National Guard in 1971 after we were married. We built a new home between Greenbrier and Quitman, Arkansas, and were living there when Amanda was born.I surrendered to the gospel ministry in October 1976. Debbie and I had began a singing ministry with another couple, Dennis and Juanita Brock, in early 1976 and had traveled from the Great Lakes to Texas, and from California to Georgia. We were in that ministry for 3 years, the last 2 years we were full time and living in a converted Greyhound bus. When Amanda was born we decided to stop travelling; the other couple had school age children and our older two were ready for school, and home schooling children in a bus wasn’t working out too well. I accepted the call of Barney Baptist Church to work as Assistant Pastor with Bro. C. C. Bishop who was having some severe health problems. He eventually had to retire and I became Pastor there until I was called to the Bethel Baptist Church in Londell, Missouri, where we served for 2 years. From there I went to the Bradford Baptist Church in Bradford, Arkansas, and served there from March 1981 until November, 1985. I was called then to the Bethel Baptist Church in Cabot, Arkansas, and served there from then until November, 1991. When I resigned the church at Cabot I was called to the Walridge Baptist church in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I served for two years. When I resigned there I worked for the Weiss Fur Company in Cleveland, Ohio, where I conducted fur coats sales in various high-end department stores – Boston, MA; Knoxville, TN; Witchita,KS; Harrisburg, PA.I was called to pastor the First Baptist church in Newark, Arkansas and moved on the field there in March, 1993 and I am still serving there. In the last few years Debbie and I have adopted three of our granddaughters, who are now 6, 9 and 10. We have had the older two, Coraline and June, for 8 years; we adopted the youngest one, Emma, in 2020. Their mother was very ill and has since passed away. In my preaching ministry I mostly try to preach through a whole book or to preach on a character in the Bible. My book “The Prayers of Jonah” came to me when I had finished preaching through Jonah’s book. I had an appointment to preach at another church and I preached a sermon on the Prayers of Jonah. The congregation responded to that sermon in a way I had not expected, but it was evident the Lord used it to speak to many of the people there. I had never preached that sermon before, nor have I since then.For a couple of years the idea of trying to make that sermon into a book rattled around in my head, then in March 2023 I got COVID; I was real sick for a few days, then I got pneumonia and for the next 6 weeks I was constantly under medical care – I have COPD. During those 6 weeks I was not able to do much more than preach on Sunday; so the rest of the time I worked on writing this book. I think the book has touched a lot of people because of it’s subject – Prayer. If you ask believers what they feel is the greatest struggle of their Christian experience most of them will say it is their prayer life. Either they are not consistent in it; or they don’t feel they are effective in it; or a large part of them have just become discouraged in prayer and have stopped trying to be an effective prayer warrior. In the book I stress the point that I believe there is a huge difference in “saying” a prayer and really praying. Most believers just settle for saying prayers because of the difficulties they have experienced in their prayer life. When tragedy or trouble comes to them, they realize the need to really pray. I hope “The Prayers of Jonah” will give people a little insight into prayer that will encourage them in that part of their lives. Jonah is not well known for his prayers, but there are some things we can learn about prayer from what we see in Jonah. Read more about this authorRead less about this author