Every night, Stephanie Godby goes to bed not knowing whether she will see her husband, Benjamin, again. Next to their love for each other, one of their greatest loves remains to their country. It is one of the many deployments during their ten-year marriage.
So October 21st would be extra special—Ben coming home on leave to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary and the chance to surprise him with the renewal of their wedding vows.
Like many who became a victim of the recession and lost their job, Stephanie scrimped and saved to provide not just a special day for herself, but their two best friends, Eric and Melissa, who share the same anniversary. Eric is currently disabled from serving his country in the Navy.
That’s where Angel Helper appeared. AH served as the agent to provide a special day for both couples. A network of wonderful companies and good souls volunteered to give to a military couple for all they give to us.
Mayflower Park Hotel donated two rooms, including the Presidential Suite, for Godby and her mother, who had not seen her son-in-law in eight years. Urban Yoga Spa donated couple massages, pedicures, and a lunch. The Glam Squad came courtesy of Coupe Rokei providing hair and make-up services. Yellow Leaf Cupcake Company lent their baking skills with a cupcake wedding cake waiting in the couple’s room. Galaxy Limousine Company provided services to the hotel and International Limousine donated a limo for the afternoon. Kiantha Duncan worked as the “Angel Helper Agent” who graciously donated her time to serve as Ben’s chaperone on the adventure.
If there is a worthy recipient you know who has a story with an interesting twist that just needs a little light in their life, contact Angel Helper.

After five months, Suena wants to tell her story of what brought her to brink of wanting to take her own life and what miracles have occurred to keep her going.  Dr. John Draper of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will be on air to guide anyone listening who may be depressed or considering suicide.  If you can’t listen live, you can listen to the show in the archive.

Cut and paste the following in your browser to learn more about the show:  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Linda-S-Lawson-/2009/08/19/Suena-Williams-Back-From-The-Brink-Of-Suicide-and-How-Blogtalk-Played-A-Role

Congo Survivor

On August 13, 2004, 166 innocent people in a refugee camp housed in Burundi, Africa named Gatumba, were slaughtered by armed factions. Another 116 were maimed or injured.

That may not seem like a lot—unless you are affected by that number.  Patience is one of them. She lost her father and her two brothers, nine and seven years old, in the massacre.  Look into the eyes of someone you love the same age and imagine losing them to understand.

Angel Helper has adopted her case.   Tune into  Blogtalk Radio’s Conversations With Linda to hear Patience’s story and learn about a remarkable program that provides a memorial service for healing and avenue to reunite Gatumba survivors.  She desperately wants to attend this service, but does not have the means to attend.  Learn how a young filmmaker is leading the cause for  Patience to be a part of this service and how you can help her and others soothe such never-ending wounds.

Come hear Patience and the stories of others on Saturday, August 8th at 9pm Eastern time.  Just click or cut and paste  the following link:   http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Linda-S-Lawson-/2009/08/09/Congo-Show

If you can’t hear the show live,  click later on the same show and you can listen to it in the archives.

Please click here for Suena’s blog update

http://likeaphoenix23.livejournal.com/

Suena is getting better, but we still have a ways to go.

She’s getting the mental health counseling she needs and has food stamp assistance.  However, the most important thing is to keep her in her apartment and send job leads to help her gain unemployment. We have still about $14,000 to raise.  Let this be one person who doesn’t fall through the cracks. Please send any donation to the address listed or Paypal.

Because of your prayers and generousity, Suena is continuing to live.  Let’s give her a solid footing to help her get back on her feet.

Today, the NY Daily News published the story of what has happened to me and of how Linda and I were connected on line through the comments section, regarding their story of the young male model who committed suicide, after posting on his FaceBook page.  When I read the article about Linda and I this morning, I felt frightened and embarrassed at first, and then I felt hopeful — that it would help someone out there who was feeling just like me, to hold on and to not end their life, and also, maybe inspire people to reach out and help others in these terrible times.

There were many very, very kind comments to the story, and then there were some that were so horrible, that it truly depressed me.  I wondered about the dark place those people must be in right now, to write things so hateful and hurtful.  A week ago, reading comments like that would have pushed me over the edge.  Today, they just make me feel very sad.

But what I’ve decided to do is to focus on the positive words of encouragement, the prayers and the poems that have been sent to me – the truly beautiful and blessed people who have shared their stories with me.  They have all kept me going.  You have no idea just how much they all mean to me.  I have been truly uplifted by the kindness of people whom I don’t even know.  People — total strangers, who have said to me, “you are loved” and “we care about you” and “you are not alone.”  Those words still resonate and bring me to tears as I write this.  And I feel so profoundly blessed by them.

And that is what will comfort me and help keep me going as I take my “baby steps” on this long and winding road.

And how did I find the strength to do that?  When a week ago, I didn’t have the strength to wash my hair.

I found it through prayers.  Prayers and poems and positive words of
encouragement sent from total and complete strangers who have shown me
kindness that I have never known.  I had a kind man call me today to
offer me encouragement, ask me to hold on and not to end my life.  He
told me of how he had developed heart trouble and was experiencing
shortness of breath doing simple activities — the diagnosis had been
made and he had a pacemaker implanted.  He talked about how grateful he
was to have come through that procedure, how much he loved his wife,
the joys of their forty-two year marriage, and how proud he was of his
new grandchildren.  And about how happy and blessed he felt to be alive.

He told me that life was a precious gift, and that I do have a reason to
go on living, and that God has a plan for me.  That things are tough
now, but they will get better because God has me in the palm of his
hand and then he prayed with me on the phone.  It was so beautiful and
uplifting that I couldn’t hold back my tears.  I’m in tears again now
just remembering it.

A week ago, I would have heard all of that and still have longed to end my life.  And this week, I feel hopeful
and so blessed for the kindness and prayers and compassion of
strangers.

The world looks so different to me today.  I am still afraid.  I don’t know what will happen to me.  But I no longer
feel alone.   I no longer feel like no one cares.  It is an amazing feeling.  For so long I’ve been afraid to reach out.  Ashamed of the way I was feeling, the position I’m in, and ashamed of wanting to end
my life.  Afraid of being judged for feeling the way that I did. Today
is a far cry from where I was a week ago.

It’s a new day indeed.

Yesterday, for the first time in several months, I did not wake up wanting to die, I did not pray to die before I went to sleep, and I did not wake up angry at God because I was still alive.

But I’m jumping ahead.  Let me start at the beginning.  Last year, I was a happy-go-lucky person.  Living a pretty good life, struggling, but functioning. My favorite hobby was crocheting, enjoyed in a comfortable chair, listening to smooth jazz.  I also enjoyed reading biographies, cooking, cheering for my beloved Yankees, and eagerly awaiting the next installment of my favorite show, “The Young and the Restless.”

I knew that I would do the good works that God had meant for me to do.  For a few months I had freelance work coming in, with more expected through the end of the year — and then the economic crisis put a stop to all of that.  And now, a year later, at 43 years old, with at least a thousand resumes sent out with no response, with more than twenty years of work experience, my savings gone, I am broke, in the process of being evicted and struggling for a reason to go on living.

I am not new to struggling.  It is a part of life.  But this ordeal is the worst of all.  Because not only have I found myself struggling financially, I have found myself struggling spiritually.  And when that happens, you are truly alone.  I believed that God had turned his back on me.  That I was unworthy of love or kindness — and that somehow, God’s plan for me was to go through years and years of struggle and despair, praying everyday for a blessing,  just to end up taking my own life.

I had saved up a bottle of sleeping pills and the plan was for me to wash the entire bottle down with a bottle of rum.  And I HATE rum!  But if it would help me not have to wake up to another day without a job, money for the rent and bills, or a purpose in life, I was willing to make the sacrifice.  For months I would look at the bottle of pills and see them as a blissful way out of the suffering and shame of being out of work and losing my apartment and feeling like a failure.

I had made up my mind that it was time to take the pills and end the suffering.  I had planned it for the next day.  Goodbye notes written, I was done.  That afternoon, I was on the Internet reading news articles — it was the best way to keep my mind from racing.  There is a newspaper Web site that I read every day.  And that day, there was a story about a young man who had committed suicide and had left a note on his FaceBook page.  The article intrigued me because it was about someone who was in pain just like me, who had ended his life.  So I clicked on the article and read it, feeling more confident than ever that ending my life was the right thing to do.  After all, death had to be better than life.  And I found myself envying this man in the article.  I really did.

Afterwards, I scrolled down to the article’s comments section and read them all.  And then I left one of my own, where I said that I had prayed and prayed for a blessing, I’d been out of work for a year and while I believed that God existed, I didn’t believe that he would ever help me.  Why would he help me?  Why would he care?  There were many kind comments — and a few not so kind.  And then there was one that literally pulled me out of the darkness.

Her name was Linda and she left a message which said that I shouldn’t give up and that she knew what I was feeling because she had been there herself.  She also left her email address in her comment.  For some reason, which I still cannot explain, I didn’t hesitate to email her.  And when I did, there was for the first time, a voice on the other side of my despair, shouting back at me to “hold on.”

It was hard for me to listen to that “hold on.”  At that point, I was done.  I didn’t want to feel this pain anymore and was ready to go.  But Linda was persistent.  For so long, I lived one day to the next, hoping for the strength to end my life.  And she encouraged me to live one minute to the next — and that was the best that I could do at that point.  And that is what I have been doing since we connected online a week ago.  Linda, it turns out runs an organization called Angel Helper.  And through her organization, she has offered to help me not only find work, but help me to pay the significant amount of back rent I now owe to stop the eviction process.  This has given me the courage to live again.

Little by little, with Linda’s help, daily support and the unbelievable response of her friends, I am feeling a bit stronger and have been able to think about life beyond the next five minutes.  I’ve even been able to think about life the next day.  I didn’t think I’d be alive to write this today.  I thought that my last words would be the ones I wrote in my suicide note.

What a difference a week and five minutes at a time makes.  God willing, I’ll feel hopeful for a lot longer than that.

Gourmet To Go and the Rotary Club with begin this weekend working in tandem to provide meals for the next six weeks. Stay tuned for a video update of this story.

Gourmet To Go and The Rotary Club are on standby to provide food and delivery at a moment’s notice. Please keep Shirley and Nicholas in your prayers.

She was so happy to receive a call from Angel Helper and asked if we would call back. We tell you this because it doesn’t take much to be an angel in someone’s life and we hope this spurs everyone reading this to stretch themselves to do one extra act of kindness.

We’ll keep you posted and look forward to a video update.