Thousands Protest Removal of Wall
In 1989, tens of thousands of protesters tore down the Berlin Wall. But as The New York Times points out, the irony is that in 2013 people are protesting because they want the Wall to stay...
The Greatest Escape
I trudged along a canal in Berlin back in 2011, hoping to see the inside of one of the few remaining watchtowers in the city—a guard tower where East Berlin soldiers kept an eagle...
Finding New Life in the Death Strip
An elderly man shoves two packages out of a fourth floor window, and then he crawls out and sits on the ledge, staring down at the ground below. Then slowly, carefully, he turns himself...
Poland, 1979: We Want God! We Want God!
In 1979, schoolteachers in Poland were told to inform their students that the man about to visit their country “is our enemy.” Teachers were urged to explain to their classes that this man’s sense...
The Church From Below
How the Church Helped Bring Down the Berlin Wall
With the last name of "Fuhrer," he made an unlikely German hero.
His full name was Christian Fuhrer, and this pastor led a movement that helped to...
‘The Puzzle People’ is Out on eBooks–But Who Are the Puzzle People?
Solving a 600-Million-Piece Puzzle
My new novel, The Puzzle People, hasn't quite hit the shelves yet. But it has hit the webosphere and is now available for download on Kindle, Nook, IBook, and other electronic...
How Prayer Brought Down the Berlin Wall
This week, as the world observed the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the forgotten stories from the amazing year of 1989 was what took place in Leipzig, East...
The Puzzle People on CBS in Champaign
I did an interview on my Berlin novel, "The Puzzle People," this past week in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Wall came down on November 9, 1989,...
1989: The Year That Changed the World
Big Brother Takes a Big Hit in 1989
George Orwell didn't quite get it right. His landmark novel, 1984, describes the 1980s as a time in which Big Brother is all-seeing and all-controlling. Little did...
