We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Nancy Elaine Hartman Minor. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Nancy Elaine below.
Hi Nancy Elaine, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
When I was sixteen years old, missionaries came to the church I was attending. They put out a challenge for the teenagers, inviting us to give our lives in Christian Service. I answered that call in my heart. I’ve done street evangelism in several major cities, multiple times. Also, jailhouse ministry and juvenile lockup ministry. I’ve traveled to two different Indian Reservations in North Dakota. In 1997, my husband went on a mission trip with Josh McDowell Ministries, and he came back home with a request. You’re familiar with how wives like to give their husbands “Honey do” lists, right? Well, my husband gave me a “Honey, can we do List!” Can we get some used baby clothes, and some over-the-counter medicines like Tylenol, vitamins, cold medicines, and things for babies and small kids, etc.?
That began the saga of the “Blessing bags.” I put the word out to the young mothers in our church and soon our den filled up with “lawn and leaf” bags full of clothes! We figured out how to get them shipped and paid the freight ourselves.
Fast forward to 2 years later and I am driving home from work and I am listening to the song, “All The Power You Need,” by Hillsong. I have the music blasting and I’m singing loudly when suddenly a loud voice booms in my right ear, “I want you to start a ministry and incorporate it.” I jumped and looked into the back seat, expecting to see a man sitting there and almost served into the car next to me! I then realized I had just heard God speak to me in an audible voice. I immediately said, “God, you got the wrong girl! I’m just a farm girl. What do I know about incorporating and running a ministry?” He didn’t answer me, He just continued with His instructions; “And I want you to name it `Heart and Hands.’” I went home and didn’t tell anybody, but just pondered this. The next day coming home, I had the same CD in the player and again He spoke, this time quietly inside my head. He repeated his instructions. I am so grateful that He is patient and persistent! Because again I balked, but He just kept urging me quietly. Finally, I got up the courage to tell our pastor and my husband simultaneously after church one Sunday. Amazingly, they both agreed, and she knew people in the church who could help me with the legal stuff. Thus, Heart n Hands was born! This is the ministry’s 25th anniversary this year.
My other venture is my writing. In 2009, I was blogging quite a great deal and wrote a five-part series for Christmas. In 2020, God nudged me to turn that series into a book. In 2022, I established my publishing company, Light Bringer Publishing and Studio, LLC. The mission of the publishing company is to produce Christ-centered literature and art through my photography and graphics, that lifts the heart and soul, challenges us, and points to Christ as the answer for all of life.
Nancy Elaine, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Hello everyone. My name is Nancy Elaine Hartman Minor. I am a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian, a seven-time award-winning author, with several more books in progress. I am also an ordained minister and have been doing missionary work since 1999. And I am a cancer survivor.
I’ve lived in multiple places in the US, one of those places being a farm on the West Coast! I have been on the East Coast now for many years, currently domiciled in Maryland, where I live with my husband Tom and our 2 cats, Dude and Mr. Gray. Besides writing, I also love creating things digitally, mostly using Canva. However, I’ve also created all kinds of documents as well. My favorite hobby is photography. I also enjoy watching detective shows with my hubby, leisurely drives in the countryside, and spending time with friends and family. My kids live all over the globe, so that means coordinating different time zones and doing video calls! On Sundays, we go to church together, (unless I am traveling) and we try to catch up with our church family afterward.
What is the mission behind what you do?
The mission of the ministry is to meet the needs of the whole person; spirit, soul, and body–the physical. I’ve provided Bibles and spiritual mentoring. We (all the supporters of HnH) have helped to build a church in Uganda and expand it, and we have helped to put that pastor’s five children in school. We have provided back-to-school supplies to multiple schools in different nations: Uganda, Belarus, and The Gambia. We supplied Christmas to an orphanage housing 50 kids in Ukraine for about 5 years. We seeded books for libraries in Ukraine and Uganda. We had an ongoing Bible club program in the schools and hosted a Bible Contest with awards and food for about 85 kids in The Gambia until Covid shut everything down and the country destabilized. We sent funds and purchased 1650 pounds of rice and gave it out Easter week to celebrate Christ’s resurrection, to over 200 families in the North Bank of The Gambia, including both the local Imam and also the chief of the village who is like a Governor over the area. They said, “We’ve never seen anyone do such a thing! If you have extra and you share, that is one thing. But to buy things to give them away, is unheard of.” (sic) A cyclone hit the North Bank of Gambia about 15 months later and destroyed homes and the Christian church there. We sent money to rebuild the church and to roof 15 houses that lost their roofs, as well as repair the pastor’s house, and we gave out more rice to help those families.
I have physically traveled to Uganda 3x, Kenya 1x, Nigeria 5x, So. Africa 1X, and The Gambia 2x. I also hosted my weekly radio show in The Gambia for 27 months. I was the first Charismatic/Pentecostal “woman,” and the first “white person” to hold a radio program in the nation. The US State Dept. lists The Gambia as 96.4% Muslim and 3.5% Christian with .01% Animistic, with many tribes practicing voodoo and witchcraft.
I’m proud of what God has accomplished through one young woman, who felt “less than,” and was terrified to speak in front of people, but I trusted God and obeyed the call, and I have now spoken to crowds of 200—4500 people and traveled to multiple nations alone, to minister the Gospel. I am extremely proud of the `Jesus Christian Centre’ in Uganda, which began as a little cedar shack, and is now a 500-seat brick building with 15 branch churches, including 3 in Kenya!
My dear friend Jonathan Harris shared his authorship story with me when we were colleagues at the same institution of higher education. He encouraged me to write that book that was in my heart. I am proud to say that I am a published author! My book, From the Back of a Donkey, Journey of a Lifetime, came out on December 24, 2022. Then, in 2023, during the midst of a breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent surgery and radiation treatments, I expanded it from 80 pages to 144 pages and the Second Edition of my book came out on November 30, 2023, and has thus far won SEVEN awards! These are some things that I am proud of, and give all the Glory to my God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Oh, and by the way, I am 100% cancer-free, and that journey will be a book coming out, hopefully later this year. I have another one that I was already working on, so I have two more books coming and then a children’s series.
Here are the seven awards:
Christian Book Awards Gold Winner and Gold Best Book Cover Award
https://www.raeganandrjinspace.com/cba-2024-awards.html
Pinnacle Awards
https://www.bookmarketingprofits.com/PinnacleAwardsFall2023.html
Feathered Quill Finalist for Second Place in Inspirational
Feathered Quill Book Awards – 2024 Winners
Table of Honor So. California Bookfest; Honorable Mention
http://thetableofhonor.com/product/from-the-back-of-a-donkey-journey-of-a-lifetime-second-editionhonorable-mention-2023-southern-california-book-festival/
Indies Today “Notable Book Award”
The Wishing Shelf Book Awards (UK)
“Red Ribbon Winner”
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
My 1st overseas trip was to Ukraine, where my group went to the Carpathian Mountains to minister. It was below freezing and the building where the church was meeting had no heat or running water. There was a huge vat where clean water was for drinking, washing up, and flushing the toilet with. I ministered in a long knit dress with Long Johns underneath, gloves on, and my winter coat, but was still freezing! However, the countryside was beautiful. My 3rd overseas trip was in Uganda. We held an outdoor crusade, and unbeknownst to me until later, some radical Muslims were threatening us with jihad and the police refused to come and protect us. During my last night preaching, I could see many men in the shadows, ringing the perimeter of the place where the platform sat. At one point, I called out to them and invited them to give their hearts to Jesus. Then, unexpectedly, the next day we received an invitation to a Muslim school to pray for the students. Puzzled and apprehensive, I wondered if this was an ambush. Upon talking to the Headmaster, I surmised that he had been one of those in the shadows! They were having a problem at the school with unseen things attacking and biting the children. We prayed and bound the evil spirits and prayed for the children and all of them gave their hearts to Jesus. I consequently had Bibles smuggled to them.
On one of my trips in Nigeria, I traveled to a village that was supposed to be 6 hours away. It turned out to be 13+ hours. We were driving on what looked like a trail or cow path part of the way there. You should not travel at night because of robbers and carjackers. Even during the day, it can be risky because of kidnappings and armed rebels. At one point, after dark, a person traveling with me said we must be very quiet so our driver could concentrate and be on the lookout for bandits. It was pitch dark, as there were no lights except for the headlights of our car on this backroad.
Immediately, I prayed and asked God to send us an angel escort. I no sooner got the words out of my mouth, and everyone said, “Amen,” when a police car pulled out in front of us from a side area we could not even see. Sirens blaring, they led us to the next security checkpoint and told us to get a motel in the small neighboring town because we were nearing curfew when everyone must be off the streets.
That little motel had only a toilet in the bathroom, no shower or tub, just a pipe sticking out of the wall, with a pail on the floor, to catch the water to be able to wash up or flush the toilet. Plus, the room only had a flimsy slide latch on the door to the outside! No air-conditioning either and it was over 90 degrees outside with high humidity. Again, I had no choice but to trust God! So, I asked Him to station an angel outside of our door to protect me and the girl who traveled with us, and we went to sleep. We finally arrived at the church around 10 or 11 am that next morning. I told my traveling companions that I had earned my missionary wings on that trip!
Being a cancer survivor is a story of resilience all by itself. Despite that diagnosis and subsequent surgeries and treatments, I pushed through to publish the second edition of my book, which included fifty-six additional pages and has now won seven awards. And I am very blessed to report that I am 100% cancer-free. I give all praise and glory to God for His hand being upon me, and the doctors who treated me.
Contact Info:
- Website: My current website is outdated. The newly updated website is coming out by the end of April: www.authorladygrace.com
- Instagram: Nancy_AuthorLadyGrace or @authorladygrace
- Facebook: Light Bringer Publishing & Studio, LLC.
- Twitter: @authorladygrace
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/dTX_CSpX4wc
- My two other IG pages: my Publishing page:@lightbringerpublishing Ministry page: @heartandhands.inc.ministry
- FB Ministry page: Heart n Hands, Inc./Heart an Hands Radio
- LinkTr.ee: https://linktr.ee/nancy_authorladygrace
Image Credits
Pictures of me were taken by: Jonathan Harris
All other photos were either taken by me, or someone using my camera.
Author page listing places to buy the book:
https://books2read.com/b/4jEgpl