Out of Aces

A few years ago I was working at an insurance company in Des Moines. I started the position temp to hire and was told that within a month or two that I would be hired on full-time. At this point, over a year had gone by and I was still working as a temp and holding onto the promise that I would be hired full-time as soon as a position opened up. Also, at this point, two positions had opened up in my department for the exact job that I did while I was there and they had hired different people instead of me.

On this day, I had just found out that they had hired on full time another temporary person instead of me, again. I was devastated. I had been promised the position time and time again. I had even been there longer...putting in my time, with no benefits or insurance...I was waiting for this and they had broken their promise yet again. This was also during a time when it was extremely difficult to find work. Especially in a marketing type creative position. Creative talent seemed to be a dime a dozen so that's why I was holding on so tight to getting a full-time position with this company. Hoping for some kind of stability in my mostly unstable life.

When I heard the disappoint of me not getting hired again, I tried to contain myself. I finished the project that I was working on and then in the most composed manner I could, I walked to the restroom where I locked myself inside a stall and bursted into tears. I don't know why but for what seems like my entire life, showing emotional weakness in front of anyone was not an option for me. I was supposed to be the strong one. But trying to keep up an act that things don't really bother me, and I can just brush them off, was exhausting... And this time I couldn't hide it. I found myself inside of this stall, completely broken, humiliated, and unable to stop crying. Why had this happened again?! What was I doing wrong?! I thought I was working very hard and putting in overtime whenever they asked. I knew more about our programs than some of the other people they hired. It wasn't fair! My sobs were relentless and trying to hold them in quietly was nearly drowning me. And that's how I felt at this point about everything in my life, like I was drowning.

At this time, I had lost my faith some time ago. But I found myself in that stall questioning the only other thing I could think of... "God, why? God, why?" I repeated over and over again through silent sobs. I felt so completely helpless... as it was now obvious that their promises were empty and I felt so angry, betrayed, and taken advantage of ...I had put in over a year at this place where I watched my hard work and effort get passed up over and over again.  I didn't know what to do..."Help me. Help me." I cried.

We were only allowed 15 minute breaks and I knew at this point that I had been in there at least that long. But I couldn't go out there and face them. I couldn't show the weakness and rejection I felt. I couldn't let them see me like that.

I needed to get out of there! I needed fresh air. So I wiped away my tears and smudged makeup the best I could and walked to my desk where I grabbed my iPod, and clocked out for lunch. I spent almost every break walking outside, rain, snow or shine. I wasn't near any windows where my cubicle was placed and I needed sunlight. So I went outside and walked on my normal route. Our building was in the middle nowhere, in a newly developed area on the edge of town. There were few other buildings close, and they had just finished building a sidewalk to a main street about a mile away. 

I turned my iPod on shuffle and began to walk and breath and try to calm myself. I really wasn't paying attention to what was playing out of the 500 songs on that thing. I was just trying to not think about anything at all.

So here is the part this story has been leading up to. The weirdest, craziest thing happened. I got to the end point of the sidewalk, and turned around and began to walk back.

Suddenly, for some reason, I tune into the music that is playing and hear Kenny Roger's The Gambler playing in my ear. He sings "I can see you're out of Aces" and at that exact moment, I happen to look down in the grass, next to the same sidewalk I had passed by earlier and didn't notice anything.

There is a pair of Aces, lying in the grass... this pair of Aces...

To this day, I keep this pair of Aces on my dresser where I look at them everyday, and am reminded that I'm never out of Aces. Even when it seems like I am, there is a purpose for everything. Had I gotten the insurance company job that I wanted so much at the time, I know I would not be where I am today. And what I thought seemed so devastating... was actually a blessing that was all part of a much bigger plan...

I'll never know how those aces got in the grass next to an empty lot on the edge of town,... or how I missed them the first time I walked by... or how I just happened to pay attention to the words "I can see you're out of Aces" at the exact time that I look down and found the Aces in the grass...

The truth is that "how" doesn't really matter, but believing things happen for a reason, does.

Not in Vain: How three children halfway around the world changed my life

Sunshine warmed us through the windows as we colored pictures together at the small orphanage in Mookgophong, Limpopo, South Africa. We were halfway around the world, in a different hemisphere, completely on opposite ends of the earth than the United States, and it was obvious. July was winter in Africa, but still warm unlike the harsh, snowy and cold winters of Iowa. Winter there was dry season and summer was wet. The seasons were different, the language was different, the climate, culture, and food were different, the animals were different... It was like being in a foreign world. Separated by oceans, and tens of thousands of miles...

But the things that are the same is what brought us together: Warm sunshine, along with the full moon like a spotlight amongst the stars, smiles and laughter, joy, sadness, anger, peace, hunger, happiness, singing, tears, blood, life and death, love and fear, Humanity, Children, The same.
Coloring, the same.




Although it was an orphanage full of heartbreak, it felt homey and happy amongst the smiling and laughing children who were loving the time and attention they were getting from us.
Later I would learn that three of the children came to the orphanage only one month prior to our visit. That their families had given them up and God only knows what kind of neglect they had suffered before that. They would also only be there one month past out visit. But what I didn't know didn't matter. At that moment, what mattered was that those precious children needed our love and attention. It was an unspoken need that you could feel. We all felt it, every where we went, the entire time we were in Africa.



The small orphanage housed nearly 20 children, from infants to early teens. It was a very special day for them because we brought gifts from the states. Handmade dolls and dresses for the girls, and Iowa and Iowa State sweatshirts for the boys. We played together and enjoyed each other's company, and gave lots and lots of hugs, lining up for hugs! They loved hugs! And they needed hugs! We all felt a very strong connection with these children and the heartbreaking reality of what so many of us take for granted, these children couldn't even imagine a life so blessed.

You would never know by the smiles what lived in their pasts. A country stricken with AIDS, poverty, mental, physical, and sexual abuse. Millions of orphaned children who many watched as their mother and/or father, their only providers, died from the horrible sickness of AIDS. Others, neglected, used and abused by the people that were supposed to love them. It makes you wonder how these children, innocent children, can even manage a smile. But they do. 




Last August, a month after our visit, I sat down to write about my experiences in South Africa, but wanted to do some research on the orphanages first. As I searched the Internet, I came across a recent news story about 3 orphaned children who had been kidnapped and brutally murdered, their ankles and feet tied together with their own shoe-laces, and then stoned to death, the little girl raped before she was killed. Two brothers Bafana, age 9 and Hosea, 10, and their cousin Johana, 12. I couldn't believe what I was reading. Something like this happening in this day and age, to children, in a country I had just been to, where I had spent time with orphaned children just like this and saw the longing for love and attention they so desperately needed? It didn't seem real. What kind of evil monsters could do this to orphaned children who had already had a hard enough life? It wasn't fair!

This story made me sick, frustrated, saddened, but mostly fiercely angry. But the worst of it came from the feeling inside. A deep-seeded, sickly feeling. The kind that makes you run to bathroom and gag. Something deep inside told me what I begged wasn't true. The only information I could find about the murdered children was vague, so with a driving, and knowing, force, that I wanted so badly to prove wrong, I spent an entire day researching this crime. Keywording the towns and places I could remember, looking at maps, researching old names of towns to match them with new names, going back through my journal to try and match the names of places and people. When I had finally put together what I didn't want to accept, I wrote the director of the ministry we had stayed with in South Africa and explained my findings and begged him to tell me that this wasn't accurate. His response crushed my heart. "I'm so sorry. These are the children you knew."


 
For weeks I asked myself what I could do with this information. There had to be something I could do. I knew that it wasn't by random chance I had spent time with, held, laughed with, and loved these children. I contacted news stations and newspapers in Des Moines telling them of this situation, and how a ministry started in Iowa, brought Iowans to South Africa to help and spend time with these children. How a food pantry in Iowa, "Meals of the Heartland" that thousands of Iowans participate in, fed these children. I wrote my church asking if anything could be done and I was met over and over again with the same response, thoughts of sorrow and sadness, but no action. I'm not sure what I was expecting anyone to do. I guess I didn't know what to do so I thought maybe they would know. I just knew that something had to be done, that these children, whom I had a connection with from halfway around the world couldn't have died horribly in vain. Something good had to come out of this, it just had to... Friends heard my relentless rants about the situation, and told me there was nothing I could do. I even had a pastor say "You're just one girl from Iowa, I'm sorry but there isn't much that you can do."

Maybe they were all right,... but maybe they weren't. I wondered what I could do to tell these voiceless children's stories as well as all the stories of the voiceless. I knew that I could be a voice and with experience, I could someday tell the stories of people like this who need to be heard. Innocent children, victims, who need help! Most people know that I moved to New York to pursue education and experience in broadcast journalism but most people don't know that these children were/are my motivation. I may have not done something big to change or effect what happened to them. But what happened to them changed everything for me, and in that I know that they didn't die in vain...



While living in New York I found out that they had suspects in custody for this horrific crime. The monsters who brutally killed and raped these innocent children had finally been caught!

Six suspects

ages 12-14

Children...


Shock. Silence. Now what?

Children killing children...
I'm not sure that it gets much worse than that...
Innocent children who are looking for, and longing for, guidance, acceptance, and love and are met with violence, hopelessness, neglect, and abuse at such a young and vulnerable age, that they know no different.

Prayers are needed in South Africa. Help is needed. Positive direction and hope is needed for the children of South Africa and the children of the world.

No matter the geographic location, culture, or race; poverty, sickness, and violence are unfortunately a part of our world... No one is immune to it...
But so is goodness, hope, grace, and love. We see the good conquer the bad when people run towards the violence, towards the sickness, towards the fire and danger, to help.... to make it good again. Together we overcome it.

Everyday we are given two choices. Spread Joy, or spread negativity. The situation in Africa and the time I got to spend with the children at the orphanage, taught me two things: 1. If you have any opportunity to show someone love, for them to see a glimpse of the goodness of God through you, to stop a negative pattern and make it positive, to give them a hug, or to make them smile or laugh,... Do it. Because life is too short not too, and this moment right now, is all we really have to do anything, so make it a good thing. And 2. If you want something to change, complaining and negativity do nothing, but a positive action is what will change it. I don't want to be someone who stands outside of a fire and complains that its burning. I want to be someone who runs into the fire, to help the victims, and help put it out...

For more information about what Blessman Ministries is doing in South Africa or how you can help, visit http://www.blessmanministries.org/.

Adventures in New York

First, I want to say that I had no desire on earth to ever go to NYC. If you know me at all, I'm about as Iowa as they come. Small town, born and raised, summers spent picking corn, even this summer I raised money for a trip by taking seven layers of shingles off a roof with nothing but a pitchfork and a crow-bar. I enjoy quiet walks with my dog in nature, going to bed early, grilling out on my deck, doing yoga in my back yard, watching college football, driving around and listening to old country music, cooking my meals, and wearing sweatpants all day if I feel like it...

But after I got to the city and got over the mortifying shock of paying $7 for a bottle of bud light (that literally had me contemplating getting right back on a plane and heading back to Iowa), I somehow, fell right into place (well, it was more hitting the ground running, than falling into place). I found the people were nice, not rude like they're stereotyped. My theory about the city, and well anywhere you go, is that it is what you make it, and I made New York my home and loved it.  

There's something about the city's electric atmosphere that makes you compelled to GO GO GO! You don't want to miss anything and are inspired to give every opportunity your all with a fabulous sense of confidence and energy that screams "I can be myself and I can do anything!" And needless to say, while being single and 30, New York is a pretty awesome place to be yourself!

Of course, the devastation that hurricane Sandy caused, made things hard. With the transportation system shut down and most of the city out of power, the thriving metropolis turned into an eerie ghost town over night. Something about the city's atmosphere was sadly different, so I took it upon myself to assemble a team of some of the greatest scientific minds available to me, to investigate exactly what was wrong and what we needed to do to get the real New York up and running again quickly!! So we went deep into the subway system to investigate rumors of a river of radioactive pink slime that had leaked into the city...

 

After traveling deep into the subway and then the sewer systems to find the source of this radioactive slime... we realized that something strange was happening to us. We had been immersed in the slime for too long, and well, that's when things got really radical...

Luckily we met a giant rat sensei who taught us ninja and we were able to fight off the evil Shredder and help restore New York back to normal.

Here are a few other things I did: 

Ate frozen sweetcorn in Queens

Helped some friends make a sketch comedy

Found Iowa City in the middle of Manhattan, at the Irish Exit - Iowa Hawkeye Bar

Heard a security guard at the Jets game in Jersey say "fugetaboutit" 38 times

Was nearly kicked out of Yankee Stadium in the Bronx

Danced a jig on The Mall in DC

Posed for pictures with bus loads of Chinese tourists in front of the White House... seriously, there was a single file line of tourists waiting to get pictures with us...

Took on Brooklyn, and Brooklyn won... Luckily there is no actual photo of me, but I can bet it looked something close to this... Late night + Heels + Brooklyn =

Ate the entire cheese platter at a fancy election night party at the Waldorf Astoria, and told a some highbrow political guy wearing a pin-striped suit that he made a great Dick Tracy, but needed a tommy gun to really pull it off

Cried and prayed at the 9/11 Memorial Site
 

Met and became great friends with some of the most wonderful people on earth

When honestly, nearly 70 percent of my time in the city looked a lot like this, in an edit lab in SoHo...

 

No one may actually know the truth of how New York was so quickly restored after hurricane Sandy