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November 13, 2009

Christian author speaks Tuesday at Books at Noon

Catherine Zoller of Broken Arrow — wife, mother, writer, author and inspirational speaker — will talk about her book, “Genesis,” when Books at Noon meets Tuesday in Fellowship Hall of First Presbyterian Church, 205 N. Main St., Wagoner.

Lunch will be provided by the Presbyterian Women. Lunch cost is $3.

Zoller was born in the sweltering heat of an El Paso, Texas, summer in June 1958, the year International House of Pancakes opened in Toluca Lake, Calif., and Jim Henson decided a frog puppet had the potential to become a big deal.

Less than two years later, her father would move the family to Oklahoma City and open his dental practice. She would leave her parents’ home just after her 15th birthday.

She graduated from Alexis I. du Pont High School in 1976 and joined Youth with a Mission. She went through their Discipleship Training School and School of Evangelism programs at the YWAM base in Hammonton, N.J.

Her ultimate goal was to attend the highly selective Slavic Training School in Austria to prepare for the danger of missionary work behind the Iron Curtain.

“Things were progressing in that direction, but they didn’t work out like I thought they should so I found myself getting a little irritated with God,” she said. “At that point I was questioning my call.”

Around that same time Zoller’s father suggested she return to Oklahoma and give college a shot. Confused and floundering, she accepted the offer.

“It turned out to be a colossal waste of my time and his money, but that’s where I met my husband.”

She and Jay have been married for 27 years. They had three children in quick succession and kept the family tradition of giving them J.T.Z. initials.

Naming her children was the easy part. Having her first-born son diagnosed with life-threatening heart problems was the hard part.

Her life is proof that God can take the most unlikely person and transform them by the “washing of the water of the Word” into a voice that shares His heart and exhilarates a room full of people, according to a media release.

Her passion for the Word of God drives her goal for each and every person in the audience to leave with their minds revolutionized by truth and their hearts magnetized toward the living God, said Jack Crocker, president of Wagoner Library Friends Corp. in a media release.

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