Versandra Kennebrew, author of “Thank God for the Shelter” and Ressurrection Graves, author of “Identity Crisis, Identity Christ Is: A Journey to Love”
What a fantastic way to start Thanksgiving! I just got home an hour ago (9:00am) from a nine-hour drive from Detroit to my home in the Washington DC Area. My husband is long gone, fast asleep. But I am so excited, rejuvenated and overwhelmed with intense joy that I can’t sleep. My eyelids are slightly closing but the keys being pressed under my finger tips are enjoying their massage.
I met Versandra Kennebrew on MySpace. I did not realize who she was until last night. She also did not know that I did not remember our initial connection until moments before we got in our car to drive back home. I was standing in her corridor and saw a framed write-up in a newspaper of Versandra concerning her Touch is Great campaign. It was a campaign she created years ago to eliminate touch deprivation.
I kept seeing this phrase “Touch is Great”, and finally it all came back. I was following this campaign to see her impact. She and I both are licensed massage therapists, and during the time of her campaign, I had a one-woman campaign of my own to eliminate touch deprivation by speaking about the impact of infants and children who do not receive nurture through healthy touch at home.
Earlier this year, Versandra who follows my blog here, and my facebook pages here and here, read my bio and said that she would be praying about how we could work together this year.
We must seize opportunities in the time of the opportunity. In other words, there are seasons in which things flow. Now is the time.
I accepted an invitation to speak at Versandra’s Healthy Detroit Event which is held inside of a street-front retail space at Whole Foods Market in Midtown Detroit, Michigan.
But that’s not all! My husband Deven and I are on a mission to help the homeless with their soul. The struggle to move past rejection, and the feelings associated with the experience of homelessness are areas of great importance to us because Deven and I met in a homeless shelter.
Versandra can understand that all-too-well. Her book, Thank God for the Shelter was written in reflection of her own homeless experience. When I informed her about Deven and I co-facilitating groups for perpetrators of domestic and sexual violence, and that we wanted to begin our Homeless Healing Tour she was happy to initiate our Inauguration by booking me as a speaker for Peggy’s Place a division of COTS (The Coalition for Temporary Shelter) also located in Detroit.
Peggys’s Place was absolutely wonderful to us! They loved the presentation so much they want me back. Peggy’s Place has identified that they are in need of two specific things: A few High-Chairs for Homeless Mothers with infant children, and brand-new twin sized sheets.
Please consider sending a care package to the shelter and tell them where you heard about their need. All Care Packages can be sent to: 16630 Wyoming, Detroit, Michigan 48221 Attention: Sandra Eberhardt
Two speaking engagements in forty-eight hours, eighteen hours of driving, and a single mission that was fueled without funds, but with lots of faith the outcome was nothing less than extraordinary!
I went to teach, and I was also a student. There is a quote, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” The anxieties that propelled me to write a trending topic entitled, ” What I am afraid of telling you” are subsiding as I meditate on some things that I learned in Detroit.
This is one of my trademarks. We have a campaign in process for child sexual abuse survivors. You may put this picture on your social media pages, share it please.
Imagine three people standing at the head of a class in a line like #1, #2, #3 all facing you side-by-side. As I taught, the clearer your vision, the more confident you become in who you are and what you are called to do. As answers come, you are energized in your spirit. Your soul which represents your mind, your will and your emotions, or as Pastor Tony Brazelton ( Pastor of Victory Christian Ministries International) would say, “Your thinker, your feeler, your chooser”, will eventually align itself with your spirit because of its rebirth. You body will follow your soul. Your soul will stop being fought over as a result of your reformed energy.
The more I ingest the plans that solve my crisis’, the less congested my world will be as an aspiring so-and-so to a recognizable healer and entrepreneur; dynamic speaker and author.
One other thing that I mentioned in my teaching at Healthy Detroit was that you must ask for the experience that you want to have. When I did this, instead of asking for what I wanted someone to do or be (in hopes of fulfillment), my husband came about six months later.
For example: I wanted someone independent-minded who would not burden me and expect a taxi driver out of someone they were dating. Yes, this was on the list. And, no I have never fallen for this. In my list of expectations I previously had that he had to have a car. When I opened myself and asked for the experience I want to have, i.e, an independent-minded person who would not burden me and expect a taxi driver out of someone they were dating, I lost the desire to only accept dating opportunities with car owners.
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I met my husband in a homeless shelter and he had nothing. He also never asked for a ride. When God blessed him with a full-time job, it came with a company car, that he could drive to and from work. Do you get it? Ask for the experience.
At the homeless shelter, there was one young woman in particular that we will call Tamara. She was so bubbly and could barely keep still. My husband and I agree that she reminds us of me. She is full of creativity, visions, and inventions. She has a gift of faith. Faith is a spiritual gift, and I believe that true entrepreneurs often operate in that gift.
Tamara is praying for her husband. She doesn’t know where he is but she is in strong desire for the experience and ministry of being a wife. To see my husband, how we met and our mission now, she was greatly impacted.
Others were overwhelmed by the way that we were able to connect with their own stories. Speaking as a Life Skills Expert, at the shelter my main message was that being homeless is the beginning; it is not the end. Homeless people have the unique opportunity to do what stable people can not do. People with jobs and mortgages often forfeit the visions that God has given them for a steady paycheck.
Homeless people have an opportunity to hear from God, and do what he says; cultivating their relationships and their gifts both natural and supernatural to achieve their purpose.
Deven and Ressurrection are a lovely married couple who met in a co-ed adult homeless shelter. Now they have a Homeless Healing Tour traveling the country to empower men and women who are homeless to heal from child sexual abuse, rejection and other ingredients that explain their homelessness.
It is not over. Life is just beginning and my mission in life in joint supply with my husband – and people like Versandra Kennebrew is to help you authenticate yourself by using crisis as a turning point; an opportunity to become extraordinary.
BE. Extraordinary! – Ressurrection Graves
Donate to the Homeless Healing Tour by Downloading her book:
$3.99 per download
http://www.amazon.com/Identity-Crisis-Christ-Journey-ebook/dp/B007PYRONK/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1
You can download the Kindle App on your PC for free:
You do NOT need a Kindle to read the book! You can still read it for free on ANY computer, smartphone or tablet using Amazon’s free software available here: http://amzn.to/QFexMk
Or buy a physical copy here.
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Ressurrection is a child sexual abuse grooming expert seeking to make it a felony. She is an author and speaker on topics surrounding emotional wellness, relationships and child sexual abuse. She is available for interviews and speaking engagements by phone or nationwide. 202.717.7377 and ressurrection(dot)wordpress(at)yahoo.com
Love, Life, and Relationships: Overcoming Emotional and Child Sexual Abuse 