From drugs to deliverance, author shares her story by Shera Everette

Cover Story - Blessed Magazine

How God Delivered Me! by Joyce Waller

I got a testimony! First of all on August 6, 2005 I suffered a heart attack, but thought it was acid reflux disease. Boy was I wrong! I walked around to August 9, 2005 taking Alka Seltzer, and Pepto Bismol trying to relieve the severe burring in my chest and throat. During this time I also remained sick to my stomach and nauseated. I did not know the symptoms of heart attacks in women.

I am blessed to be here after ignoring the signs for 4 days. I went to my Doctor on August 9, 2005 and she diagnosed me with have all the symptoms of a heart attack. She immediately called a ambulance and had me sent to the hospital for treatment.

I remained in the hospital until September 9, 2005. My triple bypass surgery was done on September 2, 2005.

On August 6, 2005 the taste for cigarettes was gone, and every time I tried to smoke one I would get sick on my stomach. I am still not smoking. I give all thanks to God for blessing me to still be among the living. I also thank all my family, friends, and co-workers for their kinds words, and constant prayers.

To God Be the Glory, for the great thing he has done! Amen

© 2006 Joyce Waller, Executive Director, Star Eleganze
Youth Talent Mentoring Program, Durham, NC

Is it really as bad as this article says???

Black Chile in Moscow

Our writer-friend, Black Chile, in Russia answers:

"It's -40 degrees today.

not 40,

-40 degrees. Help me...."


Russia in Grip of New Cold War
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow, Wednesday January 18, 2006
The Guardian

The schools are shut, traffic has ebbed and life has taken a more cautious pace over the sheet ice. There is little you can do but shuffle on, tape up your windows and buy a thicker hat. Temperatures in Moscow yesterday plunged to -28C.

Three people froze to death and 14 were taken seriously ill. But, as ever, it will get worse for this city of 12 million. Weather forecasters predict that tonight and tomorrow temperatures will plunge to as low as -37C, the coldest in the capital since 1979. Moscow's record low is -42.1, set 66 years ago. One Russian news website ran the headline "The Day After Tomorrow - in Moscow", referring to the Hollywood film about global warming in which the United States is enveloped overnight in a new ice age. Tales of burst pipes, electric-heater fires, icy road accidents and homeless people frozen solid will become commonplace as the week rumbles glacially on.

Cold, known in Russia by the phlegmy word kholod, is a familiar but indefatigable enemy and 107 Muscovites have died from it since October. For the thousands of homeless who roam the city's streets, -37 is a death sentence. At the weekend, the police were ordered to stop their traditional practice of ejecting homeless people from underpasses and metro stations and told, instead, to help them find state-run shelters. In a city normally paralysed by traffic, up to 400,000 Muscovites found their cars would not start and took the metro to work instead. The 9 million people who use the system routinely just grimaced and bore the extra load. The city's electricity network was more troubled. The government made large businesses pledge yesterday to put out their lights while they still had a choice, though between 3pm and 9pm, the city authorities introduced,,electricity, rationing. Some businesses reached agreements to keep functioning at a basiclevel.

An editor at the business daily newspaper Vedomosti said the lights were off and only the computers were working in the newsroom. "It looks a bit like an orchestra at the moment, with only the players' music stands alight," he said. But when life is hard in Moscow, it is intolerable in the regions, where Russia's remaining 131 million people live. It's an unexpected crisis in a country that prides itself on being an energy power - the biggest exporter of oil after Saudi Arabia and the leading supplier of gas to Europe. But among Russians, where the Kremlin's geopolitical ambitions have nearly always taken precedence over ordinary folk, it came as little surprise. To top it all, they are also facing a record rise in utility prices.

My (Stanice) response, PRAYER. Please, stand with me in this:

Father God, help her and keep her safe, keep her warm, rally to the aid of the country, it’s foreign population and the Muscovites and the other European countries that are deluged with the drastic and unbearable cold. Rebuke everything that is trying to come against the people – oppressed by the cold and in some cases governments who’s hearts also have a tendency to be cold. Forgive us Father if we have done things to this planet—that you designed as our haven—that in any way have caused the environmental conditions from wince this type of cold is possible. I know so little Father God about such things but I know that you are God, the great I AM and you can change things in an instant. So I ask you to raise the temperatures and may the people see and acknowledge by giving you praises. You know I’ll praise you! As a matter of fact, I praise you now like it is already done. Thank you for hearing my prayer. Thank you for ____, who alerted my heart to the needs of the people. In Jesus’ Name. Amen. So be it! So it is!

Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion

Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion

Movie Short: The Life Guard

© 2006 The Jamie Kennedy Experiment Click for the movie above or here

Also, take a break at www.stanice.com. (Mucho more than a web site—it's an inspirational experience!)

Prompt Faith by Ajelon Straws

I remember when you was a baby and you made a lot of mistakes,
Not knowing, I was preparing you to be a world changer that awakes.

So many looked over you and even thought you were weird,
You have a giving heart to help others but in need they disappeared.

When you told your friends "I can’t drink, smoke, or club no more," they said, "please get with the program."
That was the beginning of your battles, as my secret lies in the Spirit realm.

You didn’t understand why you were going through so much hell, but I was keeping you humble,
Knowing you had to seek me for guidance so the world won’t make you stumble.

Many nights you cried out and you asked me, "Lord what did I do wrong?"
I’m allowing you to go to trials to build character and make you strong.

The bruises and scars you received in spiritual warfare is to show you that you’re not a weak Saint,
Ensuring that you will endure the journey and I will not let you faint.

Yes, I see the storms coming but hold on to me and know that I’m the way,
This will teach you to use the Holy Spirit, as your intercessor, when you kneel and pray.

When you have sinned, the devil attacks your mind saying “you failed God and you're nothing. Why don’t you submit to me in defeat?”
With each and every failure, you are running to my throne where it’s always space on the mercy seat.

Your training is almost over and hell is starting to tremble,
Satan screaming Legion spirits and principalities, we must quickly assemble.

In your final stage, I see you praising and crying out but I stay quiet to make your spirit thirst,
For at the divine appointed time, all that I put in you will be like a dam that’s getting ready to burst.

Now, you’ve graduated from the prompt faith level and the world knows you stand for me,
And, now you’re on a rising level and I built your spirit like wood from a cedar tree.

So, go forth and shake the nations and prophesy to them “that time is short for Shiloh is coming for his bride,"
And, I sit and smile from my throne saying you’ve been tested and you’ve been tried.

© 2005 Ajelon Straws, Miami, FL.

A Million Little Lies - January 8, 2006

A Million Little Lies - January 8, 2006

Tribute to Gene Zucker by Frank Bertrand

Brethern in Harmony of Northern VA
Frank: My good friend, Gene Zucker, died this weekend. It had been a long fight for him with bone cancer and leukemia. He will be buried sometime this week and my Gospel Barbershop will sing for him. He was one of our members and singers. He will be sorely missed; but we are jealous that he went to his reward without us. We will just have to wait a little longer to sing with him again.

Stanice: Amen, my friend. How blessed you were to share your earthly journey together as friends and how blessed to know that through Christ you have eternity yet to go. To God be the glory forever and ever.

Christian Barbershop Harmony Fellowship, Brethern in Harmony of Northern Virgina

CNN.com - Review: 'The Bible Game'�is a�testament to your knowledge - Jan 13, 2006

CNN.com - Review: 'The Bible Game'�is a�testament to your knowledge - Jan 13, 2006

The Kristo - Movie

The Kristo - Movie - The Kristo

The Tired Christian's Prayer: Just Breathe by Jennifer Brown

Sculpture, "Breathe" by David Thummel

Just need a minute to breathe,
Just a moment of space & time, to catch my breath Not to run a marathon, or go for a drive, Just a minute to breathe, just breathe

Not a minute to breathe between abusive words, Not a minute to breathe between Having your legs knocked out from under you, But just a minute to breathe, just breathe

Wanting clarity, revelation & understanding of thought Having to wait for the right time & season seems unbearable, Do I dor Don't I, Do I go or Do I Stay I just need a minute to breathe, just breathe

Wanting a moment to ask God why,
even though we aren't supposed to,
When it seems like the ones we need to help us fight this fight are taken from us And all that is left is a empty great big gapiing void, Just a moment, to absorbe, to download to reflect, to breathe, just breathe

Having to re-group, re-plan, re-gather,
after loss, shock, or disappointment.
To sit and remember when life wasn't so complicated.
To sit and enjoy life, to breathe just breathe,

To exhale,
To be one with the peace,
To be in the world and not be a part of it.

To breathe, just breathe,
To smile, when everything inside you feels broken, no clarity to make sence for yourself.

To breathe, just breathe, seems unobtainable.
Not wanting to take the wrong turn,
To know God's way despite it all,
but all things will work together for my good...

To breathe, just breathe...

© 2006 Jennifer Brown, Acworth, Ga.

Their Eyes Were Reading Smut by Nick Chiles

New York Times - January 4, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor

Their Eyes Were Reading Smut
By NICK CHILES

Snellville, Ga.

LAST month I happened to go into the Borders Books store at the Stonecrest mall in Lithonia, Ga., about a half-hour from my house here. To my surprise, it had one of the largest collections of books by black authors that I've ever seen outside an independent black bookstore, rows and rows of bookcases. This is the sort of discovery that makes the pulse quicken, evidence of a population I've spent most of my professional life seeking: African-American readers. What a thrill to have so much space in a major chain store devoted to this country's black writers.

With an extra spring in my step, I walked into the "African-American Literature" section - and what I saw there thoroughly embarrassed and disgusted me.

On shelf after shelf, in bookcase after bookcase, all that I could see was lurid book jackets displaying all forms of brown flesh, usually half-naked and in some erotic pose, often accompanied by guns and other symbols of criminal life. I felt as if I was walking into a pornography shop, except in this case the smut is being produced by and for my people, and it is called "literature."

As a black author, I had certainly become familiar with the sexualization and degradation of black fiction. Over the last several years, I had watched the shelves of black bookstores around the country and the tables of street vendors, particularly in New York City, become overrun with novels that seemed to appeal exclusively to our most prurient natures - as if these nasty books were pairing off back in the stockrooms like little paperback rabbits and churning out even more graphic offspring that make Ralph Ellison books cringe into a dusty corner.

Early last year I walked into a B. Dalton bookstore in a New Jersey mall where the manager had always proudly told me how well my books were selling. This time, I was introduced to a new manager who was just as proud to show me an enhanced black books section teeming with this new black erotica. I've also noticed much more of this oversexed genre in Barnes & Noble bookstores over the past few months, although it's harder to see there since the chain doesn't appear to have separate black fiction sections.

But up until that visit to Borders in Lithonia, I had thought this mostly a phenomenon of the black retail world, where the black bookstore owners and street vendors say they have to stock what sells, and increasingly what sells are stories that glorify and glamorize black criminals. The genre has been described by different names; "ghetto fiction" and "street lit" are two I've heard most often. Apparently, what we are now seeing is the crossover of this genre to mainstream bookstores.

But the placard above this section of Borders in Lithonia didn't say "Street Lit," it said "African-American Literature." We were all represented under that placard, the whole community of black authors - from me to Terry McMillan and Toni Morrison, from Yolanda Joe and Benilde Little to Edward P. Jones and Kuwana Haulsey - surrounded and swallowed whole on the shelves by an overwhelming wave of titles and jackets that I wouldn't want my 13-year-old son to see: "Hustlin' Backwards." "Legit Baller." "A Hustler's Wife." "Chocolate Flava."

I've heard defenders say that the main buyers of these books, young black women, have simply found something that speaks to them, and that it's great that they're reading something. I'd agree if these books were a starting point, and that readers ultimately turned to works inspired by the best that's in us, not the worst.

But we're not seeing evidence of that. On Essence magazine's list of best sellers at black bookstores, for example, authors of street lit now dominate, driving out serious writers. Under the heading "African-American Literature," what's available is almost exclusively pornography for black women.

As I stood there in Borders, I had two sensations: I was ashamed and mortified to see my books sitting on the same shelves as these titles; and secondly, as someone who makes a living as a writer I felt I had no way to compete with these purveyors of crassness.

That leaves me wondering where we - writers, publishers, readers, the black community - go from here. Is street fiction some passing fad, or does it represent our future? It's depressing that this noble profession, one that I aspired to as a child from the moment I first cracked open James Baldwin and Gabriel García Márquez about 30 years ago, has been reduced by the greed of the publishing industry and the ways of the American marketplace to a tasteless collection of pornography.

I realize that publishing is a business, but publishers also have a responsibility to balance street lit with more quality writing. After all, how are we going to explain ourselves to the next generation of writers and readers who will wonder why they have so little to read of import and value produced in the early 21st century, why their founts of inspiration are so parched?

At times, I push myself away from the computer in anger. I don't want to compete with "Legit Baller." But then I come across something like "The Known World" by Edward P. Jones and again I am inspired.

But I must say that I retain very little of the hope and excitement and enthusiasm that I had when my first book was published eight years ago. I feel defeated, disrespected and troubled about the future of my community and my little subsection of this carnivorous, unforgiving industry.

Nick Chiles, the editor in chief of Odyssey Couleur magazine, is the co-author, with Denene Millner, of "A Love Story."

Keep Movin' by Michael J. Burt

I gotta keep movin'
I said I gotta keep movin'
They wanna keep me back
Stop my progress
Kill my pride
Steal all I've got inside

I gotta keep movin'
Cause' one day I'm gonna be free
I said one day I'm gonna be free
The Lord's gonna come for me
That will be the day I leave

I gotta keep movin'
Cause' this world was meant for me
Meant for you
Built for us
And everyone else too

I gotta keep movin'
So I can get to the world
Cause' I'm not there now
I'm not even a man
I said I gotta keep movin'

I gotta keep movin'
It's time for us to settle down
Build a family
Two kids or three
Cause' this world was made for livin'
And I wanna live in it
With you

I gotta keep movin'
I said I gotta keep movin'
And one day I'll be free
Like the ones that died
So I could be

© 2005 Michael J. Burt, Washington, DC, Author, Experience Is Impossible Without a Chance: A Collection of Poems, www.mjburtpoetry.com

Believing God by Billye Okera

(far right)Billye Okera
I am looking for healing from a depression I have had most of my life (although most of the time, it is mild). The other day, I started to say well maybe this is just my "THORN IN THE FLESH", but, then I thought, well maybe God doesn't want us to accept everything as a Thorn in the Flesh (perhaps Paul was a special case, maybe God wants us to continue to believe in his healing power...and that is what I am holding onto this year. Please keep me in prayer.

© 2005 Billye Okera, Washington, DC

StaniceSpeak: My friend since my youth, Billye, will be performing poetry with the group, Collective Voices, for their 10th Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Poetry Extravaganza. Please check it out, if you are in the Washington, DC area:

Saturday, January 14, 2006 at 1:30 - 5:00 P.M.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Library
(Lower level Auditorium, Room A-5),
901 G St. NW,
Washington, DC
FREE to the Public.