Debbie Wilson

Christy Award-winning author Debbie Wilson has loved stories from the time she was a small child. She first learned the stories of the persecuted church from her older cousins’ Sunday school papers with graphic accounts of the early church and of persecution under Communism. The accounts of the faithfulness and courage of those believers wove their way into her soul. In the late seventies, she discovered the ministry of Russian Pastor Georgi Vins who was freed from a Russian prison in a prisoner exchange. Pastor Vins published the smuggled accounts of imprisoned Russian Christians. Wilson read one of those accounts of a young, imprisoned pastor who said, “If God can use me best in prison, why should I want to be anywhere else?”

As she read more of the persecuted church and realized that few people knew of the dangers faced by believers in China, Nigeria, Myanmar, and North Korea, she turned to the story. Drawing on true accounts from organizations representing the persecuted and headlines, she fashioned stories filled with espionage, danger, romance, and truth. Her first book, Tiger in the Shadows, won the 2005 Christy Award for suspense.

Wilson, a political and human rights activist, has debated various issues on college campuses and on television. She is currently studying China, terrorism, and persecution of Christians around the world.