Category Archives: Writing

Posted on

Restoring the Years Global Ministries’ Founder Dr. Rhonda Travitt Heals Through Counseling…

Hello World,

I’m all about healing – in mind, body and spirit.  To that end, let me introduce Dr. Rhonda Travitt, who primarily addresses spiritual healing which I’ve learned affects the mind and body. Dr. Travitt is a noted author, entrepreneur, certified life coach, and professional counselor. A celebrated international speaker, Dr. Travitt has a passion through a practical and Biblically sound approach to empower the life of the everyday believer and help restore them to proper spiritual health. The founder of Restoring the Years Global Ministries in Marietta, Georgia, Pastor Travitt genuinely engages her past experiences and openly shares her heart with those seeking an empowered and fulfilled life. Her commitment to reach the lost expands beyond the lines of age, nationality or gender. Please see my interview with her below.

Tell us more about you and your ministry, including any particular focus areas.

Restoring the Years Global Ministries is a five-fold ministry located in Marietta, Ga. Through five-fold, we believe in apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors as well as signs, wonders, and miracles. Our primary area of focus is inner healing, simply being healed internally from the wounds, scars, past emotional conflicts and trauma through the power of the Holy Spirit. We’re no longer concealing our wounds with titles, relationships, labels and the like, but allowing the Holy Spirit to penetrate the deep and dark places, addressing them spiritually.

Please share more about your book “Rejection and Rebellion: The Twin Towers.”

“Rejection and Rebellion” is a self-help book that confronts both rejection of self and others while at the same time addressing rebellion — rebellion being the force that prevents us from making the necessary changes in order to be successful to be in our own personal life and space.

I found that a lot of people were masquerading in life because they felt they had to. I wrote the book to pull down the masquerade that some of us have felt is so necessary for survival, to allow for complete healing.

You recently launched Game Changers, an organization focused on helping tackle the recidivism rate in Georgia. What is Game Changers?

In essence, a reentry and mentorship movement Game Changers is a nonprofit organization focused on promoting successful re-entry and reintegration of returning citizens, ultimately reducing recidivism here in the state of Georgia.

We understand that the re-entry process begins the day incarceration begins, but the reintegration process is much more in-depth and takes time and customization. We have partnered with both the Department of Community Supervision and Department of Juvenile Justice, to name a few, and are looking to build and leverage these partnerships to accomplish a great work.

We believe in changing mindsets through mentoring, education and advocacy to invoke cognitive thinking as well as service programs tailored to meet the needs of our individual clients. Some of our service programs include mentoring and counseling, workforce development, adult literacy and GED classes and family reunification.

You have a passion for helping to equip women and men to embrace inner healing. Why a focus on inner healing, and what are some steps to take toward inner healing?

I focus on inner healing because I saw so many people who were labeled as successful, but they weren’t because they were not healed inwardly. To the human eye they possess all of the material possessions and prestige that we equate with success. Still, they lack empathy, compassion, peace and gentleness toward themselves or others they interact with on a daily basis. Thus it compels me to address these inner inequalities to bring wholeness and solidarity to every individual — man and woman —so that they may live and experience a holistic life as God has ordained through divine intervention by inner healing. The first step to inner healing is pulling down our inner mask we hide behind. Address the damaged little boy and the damaged little girl on the inside that hides behind facades, seemingly making them appear whole and complete outwardly but leaving them naked and afraid inwardly.

Is there anything more you’d like to share?

I’m currently keeping busy with NACC (National Association of Christian Counselors), teaching the concepts of Christian Counseling as well as certifying teachers/counselors. The school is available to leaders as well as lay members.

As chancellor and founder of the Apostolic and Prophetic School of Inner Healing & Deliverance, I teach on deliverance, and spiritual warfare — training deliverance ministers and five-fold ministers on the art of spiritual warfare. I teach on how to be free mentally, emotionally, socially and economically. I don’t want to be the church that focuses on one issue.

I love helping women and bringing them together. I love tearing down stigmas that women can’t get along. I have a new women’s empowerment group called the Queens and Rubies for ladies 18 and older. We meet monthly, coming together in our “safe space.” We’re naked, transparent, raw and unmasked — all for the sake of healing, deliverance and empowering one another to know that she’s worth it, she’s enough and that she is a Queen and a Ruby!

I serve on the Board for the Music Foundation of America and the Young Men of Standard. I have a passion for people and life, and also serve as the chaplain for the Motherless Daughters Foundation.

For more information about Dr. Travitt, go to www.rhondatravitt.com.

Any thoughts?

Posted on

Software Developer & Author Vanessa Riley Writes Code By Day & Romance Novels By Night!

Hello World,

I’m always fascinated when I meet people who are truly multi-talented i.e.  someone whose fields of expertise are on the opposite end of the spectrum. For example, I know a medical doctor who is also a budding author. That is astounding to me because as a journalist/author, anything involving math and science is like a foreign language to me. Aside from my medical doctor/author friend, I would like to introduce you to another multi-talented author, Vanessa Riley!

Vanessa writes Regency and historical romances of dazzling multi-culture communities with powerful persons of color. She writes for historical romance readers who admire and acquire books that showcase women who find joy in sweeping kisses and strong sisterhoods. Even in the darkness, she promises to give you laughs, maybe a few cries, to show you how light always prevails and how love always, always wins.

Below is my interview with Vanessa:

1. You write novels about the Regency & Victorian time periods. For those people who don’t know about these time periods, please tell me about these time periods and what attracted you to writing about them?

Vanessa’s novel “The Bashful Bride, (see cover above)” No. 2 in the Advertisements for Love Series, will be released on May 28. Below is a description of the novel.
When a newspaper advertisement for a bridegroom nets London’s most famous actor, a shy, sheltered heiress risks all to be with him in a mad dash to elope, escaping her overbearing family’s plan for an arranged marriage. But does the actor with the voice of honey have far too many secrets to make a safe happy match?

A friend’s newspaper advertisement for a groom nets the most famous actor in London, Arthur Bex. Shy heiress Ester Croome proposes to elope with the handsome man, who she’s secretly loved for two years, in order to escape an impending engagement arranged by her overbearing family.

Trying to outlive the shadow of his infamous slave-trader uncle, Bex needs to marry quickly—to a woman of good character. And smart, beautiful Ester fits the bill. But a harrowing trip to Gretna Green and dangerous abolition rallies prove to be a more treacherous stage than either imagined. Infatuation and a mutual love for Shakespeare might not be enough to bind a couple looking to outrun the chains and secrets of family and the past.

For more information about Vanessa, please go to vanessariley.com. 

Any thoughts?

Posted on

From Doomed to Doctor – NEW BOOK ALERT!!!

Hello World,

I am a born storyteller. If you ask me a simple question, I am likely to give the answer plus many more extraneous details that you probably didn’t ask to hear. But I will tell you anyway because just about anything can be made into a story when that is your gift from God. And while that is true, there are stories. And there are stories that must be told because in their telling they have the capacity to bring joy, inspire change and unshackle chains. The best stories have these qualities.

Years ago, through some mutual friends, I met Dr. Bonita J. Gay-Senior, and as we became friends, as friends do, we shared various details from our lives. As she would share a snippet here or there, I began to realize that this woman had been through some situations that would have caused many people to collapse into themselves, sentencing their souls to be among the walking dead. Have you ever met a person who was so beaten up by life, they seem to operate on autopilot? I have, and it is startling. Others would have retreated to a maze of deadening behaviors to distract themselves from the pain. And some would have taken what was never theirs to take: their very lives. She shared about being mercilessly teased by not only by her classmates but by her brothers as well.  The teasing was so toxic, she was later diagnosed as having Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Her first boyfriend punched her face so hard that he broke part of one of her front teeth. On one occasion, he pointed a loaded gun at her face and threatened to shoot her. Despite the abuse, she dropped a warrant she had against him and had to go to jail for perjury (although she was telling the truth initially.)! When she was in her freshman year in college, she was raped by two men. Sometime later, while still in college, she got pregnant by another man. She watched a brother commit suicide by cop. Her only sister disappeared and has not been found to date.

And yet, the woman I met was a decorated teacher on the way to earning her doctorate in education at Clark Atlanta University. Laughter punctuated nearly all of her sentences. Her optimism rekindled that wonder that all children experience before the duties of adulthood and appropriateness take over. She had a trove of wisdom that she freely shared. ‘How did this woman come to be,’ I asked myself before I eventually found the courage to say the words aloud to her. She was surprised that I was surprised. She thought that many had suffered through similar challenges. I agreed that all of us suffer through challenges but not many people start from so low to ascend to so high. I know a good story when I hear one.

I kept telling her this until she decided to tell the whole story in a book “From DOOMED to DOCTOR 280 Chestnut Street: Born in the Crack but Didn’t FALL Through.”  (In fact, she shouted me out in the acknowledgements!) On the very street, Chestnut Street (which has since been changed to to James P. Brawley Drive), where she experienced most of her childhood abuse is the very street where she received her doctorate degree years later at 48 years old (I was there cheering her on 🙂 )! It’s amazing how God can use the details of our lives to demonstrate that He has brought us from a mighty long way. And she says God is who redeemed her tests into a testimony. She is using her story to mentor other women who have experienced similar challenges.

If you would like to meet her and get a copy of her book, join her at the One Love Spiritual Center, 180 Lakepoint Lane, Fayetteville, Georgia 30215 (Lakemont Subdivision) TODAY at 3 p.m.  She is the featured Women’s History Month Speaker!

But if you don’t live here in the A but want to read her story, her book “From DOOMED to DOCTOR 280 Chestnut Street: Born in the Crack but Didn’t FALL Through” is available on Amazon! And if you like to know more about Dr. Bonita, go to her website fromdoomedtodoctor.com.

Any thoughts?