Teri Metts

I began writing in my early teens. I suppose you might say my first book was a romance. It was a mixture of truth and fiction based on the courtship of a young couple in our church. After I got married, I toyed with the idea of writing a Christian fiction novel about a young woman serving as a missionary in Jamaica, but my writing aspirations were put on hold after the birth of our first child in 1978.

During the late 1980’s I wrote a series of basic Bible studies to use with a class of Vietnamese I was teaching in our church in Kansas. Then during the mid-1990’s, using several years worth of letters as the basis for my story, I wrote an autobiographical book about our missionary pilgrimage and a close friendship I shared with a missionary friend serving in Thailand.

After moving back to the States, as a part of my own journey towards emotional and spiritual healing, God led me to write two twelve week Bible studies (Touching Jesus and Embracing Christ) as curriculum for a ministry in our church called Hem Touchers. Over the past ten years God has used these studies to help women and men from troubled backgrounds, whether as children, youth or adults, find emotional and spiritual healing and begin the process of becoming faithful disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the fall of 2008, God brought me full circle, and I began work on my first Christian fiction novel, Caribbean Paradise – the first in the Island Legacy Novel series set on the mission field in the Caribbean (where our family served as missionaries for eight years). Pearl of the Caribbean is the second book in this series. Presently I am at work on the third and final book in this series, which is set in Cuba. I hope to start work soon on a Southern fiction novel, the first of three in the Southern Heritage Series.

My greatest joys in life are my relationships with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, my husband of 36 years – Joe, our three children, two children-in-law, and four grandchildren. Joe and I live with our two dogs, Buddy and Shug, in a 100-year-old bungalow in a small town in south-central Mississippi. Besides writing, I enjoy Bible study, reading (a novel a week) and photography. Many of my photographs can be seen on my website: www.bungalowretreat.com.