America--LOOK WHAT I FOUND...

“Come, they are here. Let me show you.”
We step into the entry for Pastor Jules’ bakery. The entry area is barely larger than my front porch, about 25 feet by 12 feet. I am overwhelmed. I count approximately 76 children in various stages of nakedness. Some laps are holding 2 and 3 smaller children. There are probably closer to 90, for the children seem to keep shifting making it hard to get an exact count. I had with me my back pack with treats for the children. But I had only filled it half full, not realizing what I was coming to witness. I began to hand out ‘Lil Debbie Crackers’ knowing that I did not have enough. But to my astonishment every child gets fed. Every time I reached into my back pack there were more crackers. After every child is proudly holding a pack of crackers, to my human amazement there are still crackers in the back pack. I dump the contents on the table used for kneading Pastor Jules’ bread. I dumped out enough crackers for the children to eat again on tomorrow...Oh the miracle of it. I whisper a thank you that is insufficient for such a sufficient God.

The beauty of a land that has never been told

There is so much more to Haiti than the earthquake and what we are being bombarded with on CNN, and I’m living proof!
What happens when church ceases to be just good preachin’ and good sangin’ and good usherin’? What happens when Samson, Moses, Hagar and Miriam become real people that set real examples for an extraordinary life. When scriptures, God’s love and Mercy sticks---then a missionary is born. The stories about Joseph and his coat of many colors (I love fashion) from the pit to the palace--sounds just like me, from the wrong side of the tracks to the Miss America pageant circuit. My life is proof that the Bible is not just a book of fairy tales. HERE’S TO HAITI is a missionary memoir of wrestling, arguing, questioning then listening, partnershipping, and collaborating with God to make a difference in a nation that until January 12 was truly forgotten. What makes a missionary? How do you know you are called? How do you answer when you are called? Honestly, I knew God had dialed the wrong number when he called me. But he kept dialing and dialing and dialing until His ring tone was driving me so crazy that I finally had to pick up. Like Moses, I stuttered horribly, but also like Moses, God has turned me into the voice of His people. Join Marti Tucker of Premiere Writers plummets me, Janice and Stan (2 other brilliant voices) into a wonderful 90 day tour as one of the Top 4 Emerging Voices of the 21st Century. Heeeeeeeere’s to Haiti!!! The beauty of a land that has never ever been told

WORDS

WORDS
an excerpt from my book SHOUT MAMMY SHOUT!!!: where the thunder hides. I love thunder and a recurring theme in this book which I wrote as a follow up to my book on my experiences as Adomestic violence survivor (WING-PLUCKED BUTTERFLY) is my love of thunder. SHOUT MAMMY SHOUT!!! is my victory voice over victimization.

Words don’t work in a vacuum
Sucked in between two cardboard covers
Words are to be kissed out
They explode on the scene of joy
Vomit in a firework of anger.
The unspoken word is just that--
Unspoken non-speak
Illiterate unreading.
Breeding depressed paranoia
Ungraced esteem
Blinded by silence
Untouched by the complimentary
I LOVE YOU
YOU’RE THE GREATEST
I MISS YOU
COME TO SEE ME AGAIN
CAN I DO ANYTHING FOR YOU
Words aren’t just words
They are power
The Word was with God
From the beginning of time
WHO LOVES YOU BABY
LOVE YOU MADLY
I LOVE YOU THIS MUCH
To speak or not to speak
Whether tis nobler
to shut up
Or to share
It is the best of times
And worst of times
Thunder…
Can you hear me?

THE RIVER WITNESS

I watch the news and it depresses me, I have no one to talk to so I needed to get this off of my chest. Where are the Amber alerts and intense Adam searches for the impoverished children of color and underserved populations?:
The River Witness
(To all of the lost, stolen, murdered and unclaimed children of color)
by Kentucky Yo'
My water churned and lashed
Angrily irritated
Trying not to swallow
The tender morsels of flesh
Trying to toss the dark skin
Back to the river bank
But her humanity was
her enemy
Already marred and scarred
In ways unmentionable
If she would only relax and
Let me gently rock away her pain
But she thrashed around desperately
Not wanting to let go
Twelve years of memory
Swallow-shouted “Mamaaaaaa”
But mama couldn’t hear
Mama was working overtime
Earning the unimportant little extras
She would never see
Rock-a-by river girl, rock-a-bye.
Kerscrunch went the crimson painted screwdriver
Tossed out of the devil red Ford truck
I recoiled just enough to reject the unacceptable refuse
Later found by a young boy gone fishing
Slumber river girl, slumber
I will ever treasure your breath in the secrets of my waterfolds
Rest brown river girl, rest.

REVOLUTION

THE REVOLUTION
I am not a girl
When will we ever grow up?
I am 54 years old
I am a WOMAN.

I was at Applebee’s taking lunch with 2 other women. We were all 50 something in age. The young, bored out of his mind, bad postured, still wet behind his multipierced ears, teenaged waiter appeared from thin air. He clutched his order pad with perfectly manicured black nail polished hands glared at the floor with his perfectly smoky, grey-blue eye shadowed orbs and barked “What can I get you girls to drink?”

My cohorts let out girly giggles, one ordered coffee the other ordered a Pepsi. I said nothing. The waiter puffed out a sigh of intolerant impatience which I easily recognized, being the mother of a 15 year old daughter and having groomed a 24 year old likewise through this same teen phase of life.

Another now harder puff of breath, “And you?” He still had not looked up or met any of us eye to eye. Perhaps he just didn’t recognize who was sitting at his table.
“I would…like…you to not call me a girl. What do I have to do…how much more growing up will I have to experience before you call me a woman or a lady?” He looked up finally and I saw that the dark-sided “emo” revolution in him met the same spirit of revolution in me and he apologized. “I’m sorry, mam, what would you have?”

“Ice tea with lemon.” He vanished as quickly as he had arrived.

Silence…silence…and another dose of silence. I saw immediately that I had ruined our “girlie” outing.

“Honestly, what DO I have to do in order to be considered a woman? What size bra do I have to wear? How many children do I have to have nursed? How many sanitary napkins must I have worn? How many soufflé’s, thanksgiving turkeys, casseroles do I have to have cooked? The minute a boy even sees a hair on his face or his armpit or where the sun doesn’t shine, one hair--real or imagined--people, including himself, start calling him ‘A MAN’. When do I--we--get to stop being girls? When do we get to grow up and be women?
“I like being called a girl. It makes me feel young” the oldest of the three of us said with an unconvincing giggle.

“We always call each other girls. Girls call girls--girls” my other friend whined. At 54 I was even younger than her. I was the baby of the group.

I bristled. “That’s why men don’t take us seriously. All of our lives to them we are just little girls, to be taken care of and carted around like trophies. At the board table with all of the big boy manly CEO’s we are just little girls. And when we command womanly attributes in a manly world we are branded ‘bitches’ not women. But a female dog. Or a ’tough cookie’. A dessert mind you, a dessert!!! You spank, chastise, talk down to girls or you come to their rescue, show them off to your other man friends. A man never treats a GIRL as an equal. We need a revolution, a change of thought about ourselves. Domestic violence will never end until we stand up as well as lay down in the bed as women, not girls. I am the revolution, even if I am a revolution of one.”

POOF, the waiter appeared. He immediately placed my tea before me then served the other two. He turned towards me. “What would you--you…ladies like to order?”

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Who do you think you are? Oprah Winfrey? Angelina Jolie? Madonna? Mother Teresa? No, no, no and no. I am just an ordinary person who stumbled upon an extraordinary circumstance--76 abandoned children living naked like wild animals in the remote mountain villages of Haiti.
Nine years ago God asked me to “GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAINS”--tell of His Love, Mercy and Grace. But now, today, after encountering the multitudes of abandoned, starving and neglected children, God is asking me to “got tell it FROM the mountains”. This is now my quest, to share my testimony in order to bring aide, relief and hope to the helpless. Relief in terms of food, clean water, clothing, and education.
In Haiti I have seen mothers and children who have not eaten for five day stretches at a time. The leaders of the villages beg for assistance. They ask if only a way could be provided for the children to eat twice a week, it would make a huge difference in the mountains.
Clean water is imperative. Approximately 69 out of 100 babies do not make it to the age of two due to unclean water and a lack of nutrition. Malnourished mothers give birth to undernourished and sick babies. Mothers who drink unclean water, produce unclean milk by which to nurse their newborns. Thus the babies die.
The medical needs are astounding. Something as simple as pink eye, because of a lack of medication will guarantee that a child will go blind. Malaria, yellow fever and tuberculosis are common ailments. A lack of vitamin C causes abundant cases of scurvy. Gross iron deficiencies cause weaknesses and dizzy spells to be common amongst the women.
Children are abandoned due to parents who die from aides. Children are left abandoned due to parents who go to the Dominican Republic and Port-au-Prince in hopes of finding work by which to support their families. Because of the desperation of these parents they are easily scammed and taken advantage of. They are often killed or just seem to vanish when they demand payment for labour rendered.
It is my goal to be the voice of the abandoned children. It is my goal to be a voice that will raise funds to provide not just the immediate needs but a voice that will bring a sense of hope. A hope with a strategy to teach the children to become self sufficient and masters of their own destiny.
One summer as I was leaving the mountains of Haiti a little naked abandoned child begged, “Give me something please, Miss, give me something.” The only thing I had left to give him was my pen. As we drove away in a huge cloud of dust the little boy chased after me in all of his naked glory shouting, “BOBO, AMERICA, BOBO!!!” With tears in my heart I turned to my translator and asked what did the boy say. The translator said the little boy was shouting, “KISS, AMERICA, KISS!!!” So I have returned to America to bring you the kisses of a little abandoned boy with a pen from the mountains of Haiti.

To have Yolantha come and share her testimony contact her at yolanthapace@gmail.com

B.A.D. Coalition (Bad, Audatious & Divine)--LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN

Let us inspire one another to GIT GOD'S WORK done. Last night God prompted me to start the BAD (Bold, Audatious and Divine) Coalition. Won't you join me? I'm looking for women. Not whiney,sniveling, pms chained girls. Not 50 year old females that prefer to be called girls cause it makes them feel young. But women. When a boy get's his first extracurricular sprig of hair, he embraces his manhood, even makes everybody call him a MAN, cause he is DE MAN. I shut a group of 4 girls down this week cause I knew I was gonna wretch if they called themselves "girls" one more time. We were aged 32 to 65. I said, "What size bra cup do I have to wear? How many children do I have to have nursed? How many tampons must I have changed, before I am a woman? SILENCE. Utter silence. LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN and this time it wil be led by A WOMAN. (yeah lil Wayne, come and git me)