The Little Philosopher

There she was, their leader, in the dark hallway adjacent to the gym as some girls cried, imparting mental strength to her team even after a semifinal defeat. The girls were listening to Coach. Then Allie Scribner took over talking.

“I know this sucks and you’re all thinking about your mistakes,” the team captain said. “But right now, you need to think about what we accomplished this season. We went really far. We’ve made people proud of us. This hasn’t happened in forever. We are literally making memories. We’ve been a team this whole season. We’ll stay a team. I love you all equally.”

The spry sophomore produced some jaw-dropping hits, sets and serves all season to befuddle opponents and lead the Lighthouse Christian Academy of Santa Monica into semifinals. The Saints lost in Game 5 to AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School in Canoga Park Saturday.

Allie has cycled through a list of nicknames highlighting her prowess. She’s been called a gunslinger for her serves. She’s been said to fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee (playing off the nearly homonymous Ali). Her performance continued to inspire Saturday: Rally Allie, Aerial Allie. She blocked AGBU three plays in a row.

There she was, their leader, in the dark hallway adjacent to the gym as some girls cried, imparting mental strength to her team even after a semifinal defeat. The girls were listening to Coach. Then Allie Scribner took over talking.

“I know this sucks and you’re all thinking about your mistakes,” the team captain said. “But right now, you need to think about what we accomplished this season. We went really far. We’ve made people proud of us. This hasn’t happened in forever. We are literally making memories. We’ve been a team this whole season. We’ll stay a team. I love you all equally.”

The spry sophomore produced some jaw-dropping hits, sets and serves all season to befuddle opponents and lead the Lighthouse Christian Academy of Santa Monica into semifinals. The Saints lost in Game 5 to AGBU Manoogian-Demirdjian School in Canoga Park Saturday.

Allie has cycled through a list of nicknames highlighting her prowess. She’s been called a gunslinger for her serves. She’s been said to fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee (playing off the nearly homonymous Ali). Her performance continued to inspire Saturday: Rally Allie, Aerial Allie. She blocked AGBU three plays in a row… Read the rest: Lighthouse Christian Academy of Santa Monica bounces out of playoffs in semifinals

Robert Borelli, former mafioso

Despite being involved with the Brooklyn mafia, drug dealing, and losing his connection with his daughter, Robert Borelli made a 180 degree turn that changed the future course of his life.

“As a young kid growing up in Brooklyn, New York, being a small guy, I had to be a little rough kid. You had to learn how to fight,” Robert told DadTalk.

Robert’s neighborhood was tough and, unbeknownst to him initially, it was run by the Gambino crime family.

“They protected the neighborhood and got all the respect from just about everybody in it, including police officers.” Robert continues. “There was mutual respect between the officers and the mafia guys.”

Robert was well-liked by the mafia affiliates, and he often attended their social clubs to run errands.

“At the age of 17 years old, I started hanging out with one of the mob guys’ sons,” Robert says. “His dad often had a big spread every Friday night where all the wise guys from the neighborhood would come meet him and give him respect.”

Robert was impressed by the influence of the men there and was drawn towards the criminal lifestyle.

“My family had a hard time making ends meet. There were financial arguments in the house over rent, and at that age, that was not something I was looking forward to having for the rest of my life.”

Robert’s gravitated towards the mafia life, drawn by the respect, money, and nice clothes offered by it.

“See the people?” a mafia man told him one day as they observed some people at a bus stop. “They are the suckers; they have to go to work, and they give half their money to the government. We’re gonna keep that money for ourselves.’”

But by age 20, he was deep into trouble with the law. He had a murder case and possession of a weapon case. Prison offered the proof that he was good for the mafia because he didn’t “rat anybody out.”

So when he was released, he was ready to operate and scale up in the lifestyle portrayed fairly accurately, he says, by the movie “Goodfellas.”

“I was getting recognition,” Robert says. “I got involved in selling drugs.”

Robert was living a fast-paced life of partying, drugs, recognition and excitement. Robert demanded respect, and he would even resort to violence to get it. He wasn’t only running drugs; drugs were running him. He became a “crackhead.”

But then something happened that would change everything.

“In 1993, a little girl was born, my daughter, Brianna, and seven weeks into having her home, I walked out of her life to get high just for that night,” Robert states. “It ended up not being just for that night, and I ended up staying out getting high.”

Mom didn’t like his newly adopted lifestyle and forced him to stay away from their daughter so she wouldn’t get corrupted.

Finally the law caught up with Robert and he was Incarcerated for a long stint. He missed his daughter, but his wife wouldn’t let him talk to her on the prison phone.

“No matter if you’re a mobster or a crackhead, to walk out of your daughter’s life… Read the rest: Robert Borelli mafioso

Little Mermaid actor saved from divorce by God

Jodi Benson, 1989 voice actor for the main character in “The Little Mermaid,” repeatedly begged her Christian husband for a divorce when the movie came out. Jodi’s career was successful, but her home life was failing.

“My personal life was plummeting,” Jodi says in an article published by the Billy Graham Association. “I had a real crisis of belief.”

Jodi wound up staying with her husband Ray. They got counseling and had two kids. Her home life is now successful, as is her career, and she credits Jesus for everything.

Raised in a single parent household in Rockford, Ill., Jodi dreamed of singing.

“This dream that I had in my mind was so far-fetched from where I was,” Jodi said. “I’m sure everybody just thought I was crazy.”

She attended Millikin University in Dacatur, Ill. In 1983, she earned her debut role in the Broadway musical Marilyn: An American Fable. The next year she met Ray Benson, became a Christian, and got married to him.

Moving to New York, Jodi landed an ensemble spot in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Two years later, she landed the starring role in Smile on Broadway.

Her biggest role, however, came when she auditioned for the part of Ariel. Out of a field of hundreds of applicants, Jodi was chosen. Ironically, she wasn’t excited with the part.

At the time, animation voice-overs were viewed as jobs for people whose careers were winding down. Voice-over actors didn’t even get mentioned in the credits. Benson, who was in her mid-20s, didn’t like the idea her career might be viewed as fading.

No one could have imagined how big “The Little Mermaid” would become. Instead of earmarking her for a dying career, it catapulted her to stardom.

But when she hit the apex of her career, her marriage was hitting its lows. She was focusing on her career, but her family was on shaky ground. She and her husband wavered between reaffirming their relationship or trashing it.

“I begged him for a divorce,” she says. “I had my foot on the pedal on a cliff in California. I was ready… Jodi Benson Christian.

What comes first? Getting or giving?

Police comandos guard missionaries in Pakistan

Surprisingly, it wasn’t the healing miracles or the massive crowds that impressed me most. It wasn’t the amazing hospitality or the open door for the gospel.

What impressed me most was the burly guys with guns. Local authorities spontaneously assigned us a security detail, 10 police commandos with AK-47s and shotguns. They controlled the perimeter, loomed ominously on the platform, and escorted us about town with sirens blaring everywhere we went.

Why did three Americans and one Aussie get such protection? Because Pakistan harbors an unknown quantity of Muslim extremists who think they are doing the will of Allah by killing Christians. In 2002, extremists threw hand grenades in the Protestant International Church in nearby Islamabad, killing five.

Authorities in Faisalabad weren’t messing around.

On a recent trip to Pakistan in October, I found relations between Muslims and Christians are mostly tolerant. Around Christmas and Easter, however, as one pastor said, “there are a lot of problems.” These historically are dates for Islamist extremists to attack churches. I personally did not sense any hostility in five days of ministering in Pakistan.

Pakistan is a complex nation. It has a secular Constitution and affords some serious protective measures not only for Christians (representing 2% of the population) but all religious minorities (Shiites also face persecution from the Sunni majority).

I’m no stranger to danger. I maintained a low profile in Guatemala as a missionary for 15-and-a-half years. We successfully remained under the radar until a bank teller tipped off his crime syndicate associates, and they cornered us at a stop light. Four guys on two bullet bikes cased us. One guy hopped off the bike, banged his handgun against the window and demanded the bags. He knew where the cash was.

They got more than they bargained for. Unluckily in that backpack were records of bank transfers that – I believed – would make them want to come back for more. I was certain they would stage a kidnapping of my children, and I was unwilling to risk further ministry in the nation I had come to love.

Ten years later, the opportunity to go to Pakistan was different. It turns out that I didn’t need to leave my wedding ring at home. Petty crime doesn’t seem to be the much of a problem (unlike Guatemala). The problem? Jihadists.

I was told NOT to publish on Facebook dates and details of our October trip beforehand. I was warned to be very circumspect when asked questions by strangers. I am a teacher visiting for purpose of tourism, I was instructed to say. Nothing more.

I blew my cover anyway. There were two guys outside the pastor’s hotel room, and I assumed they were disciples from his church and conversed breezily with them. Just hours earlier at that same spot, there were disciples, and I didn’t recognize all the faces. Pastor didn’t know the new guys.

Pastor Sarfraz had a stern talk with me: Don’t tell random people the true reason of our visit. “Not everyone is good in Pakistan,” he cautioned.

I was more embarrassed than nervous. I had prided myself on being a smart secret agent for Jesus, a sort of Jesus 007.

Once on a trip to Cuba, I picked out exactly who was a mole and how she was baiting me to criticize the Cuban government but first bad-mouthing it herself. I wasn’t caught off guard. If I were to openly criticize it, no harm would come to me – it would come to my hosts. So, I disagreed with her, praising Cuba’s health and education system. Crisis averted.

Not so in Pakistan. In my naivete, I confessed sincerely that I had come to preach the gospel. That admission, if heard by the wrong people, could be dangerous. I never saw those two guys again, and I don’t know who they were. But nothing bad came of it either.

We were surrounded by elite police at every step outdoors. They walked in front of us, behind us and to the side of us. When I needed to use the restroom, an AK-47-toting, menacing-faced. dressed-in-all-black cop preceded me. He even checked the bathroom before I could go in to see what terrorist might be lurking inside.

No extremist got me. Traveler’s diarrhea did.

The only attack I suffered was a battle waged by either amoebas or too much curry spice in my guts. ☹

The security measures were elaborate. In addition to the cops, there was a group of 20 ushers who formed a ring around us outside of the ring of police. Holding hands to form a barrier against the crowd, they ran ahead of us to clear the way.

A friend in the United States says I was being treated like a rock star. But my mind compared it more to a presidential motorcade. For a few days, I felt like a celebrity. A celebrity missionary.

It was reassuring to count on these bodyguards. Initially, I was a bit nervous about going to Pakistan, and my wife was more than a little nervous.

As the days passed, these cops with mean faces began to smile, relax and enjoy themselves more. We took pictures together and became friends. We played cricket on the last day.

They heard the gospel, maybe for the first time in their lives. Now that they are my friends, I wouldn’t want them to miss the love of Jesus.

When you go into dangerous countries, you either go low profile or high profile. Low profile means you don’t wear flashy clothes or jewelry. You don’t flaunt expensive cars. You try to blend in with the natives as much as possible… Read the rest: Police comandos protect missionaries in Pakistan.

Claramente

To keep from panicking in tense games, Clara Czer says a keyword to herself when she goes to hit or serve. Usually, the word derives from her personal faith.

“I was really nervous,” the junior says. “The only thing on my mind was Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

Lighthouse Christian Academy fended off a public high school 73 times larger Wednesday to advance into semi-finals, but it drew down a cardiac Game 5 in which they were trailing 6-11.

Chaffey High School from Ontario, with 3,300 students, was within four points to win. Lighthouse, population 45, needed to surmount nine points.

“We had to really struggle in the last set,” says Roxy Photenhauer. “All of us agreed it was God. We came back from that time out, and we did not let a ball drop. We really, really, really fought hard because we owed it to ourselves and the rest of our teammates.”

At the end of the day, Game 5 went 18-16. (Game 5 goes to 15, but you have to win by two points.)

It was a scrappy win that saw the Saints lose some of the former fine form. LCA’s main hatchet-bearer Dahlia Gonzalez struggled with long hits. Squandering opportunities, serves went long. Players played through injury and sickness.

It was an agonizing game.

In Game 1, Lighthouse relapsed into a habitual poor form. Throughout the season, the Saints don’t seem to hit the ground running but take a full first game to find their form. Down for the whole game, they lost 17-25.

In Game 2, after both teams staying neck-and-neck, Lighthouse pulled away to seal off a 25-21 victory.

In Game 3, Lighthouse went down 5-11 receiving Chaffey’s strong serves like mortar shells.

But the girls kept their mental strength and rallied to level at 12-12. Elizabeth Foreman, LCA’s tall center, was slicing up the opposition with hits that cut like a warm knife through a cheesecake.

Having come from behind, Lighthouse finished off 25-18.

Momentum was on the Saints’ side.

But the Tigers pounced on their opportunities in Game 4 and pulled ahead in the middle of the game, while Lighthouse committed errors. The set ended 20-25.

Both teams were even with two wins, but Chaffey were riding high in confidence.

In Game 5, the Tigers continued to wreak havoc with its strong serves, pulling ahead 6-11 — a mere four points from victory. But in the time out, a flush Clara rallied the troops: “There were so many times that we were all so defeated. But I was like no, it’s not 15 yet.”

Suddenly, Dahlia, in the serving position, rediscovered her inner HIMARS. As 200 Saints fans shouted “Do it again, Dahlia!” the sophomore aimed and took fire. The Ukrainians take out Russian tanks, Dahlia hunted Tigers.

It became 13-11.

With hearts leaping out of chests on both sides, went 14-13 and then 16-16.

Either side needed two points.

With Chaffey serving, the girls played for 27 seconds back and forth, with both sides being cautious to not make a mistake, until Chaffey hit the ball into the night and Lighthouse got the point and the serve.

Roxie served a sinking ball that forced the Tigers into a dive on the floor. The return for the Saints was easy but instead of smashing the ball, sophomore Allie Scribner played it safe and lobbed the ball over.

When Chaffey returned it, Allie set… Read the rest: Santa Monica Christian school volleyball.

Schizophrenia and salvation

Three voices screamed at Stacy’s Mom all the time. Sometimes, she screamed back.

“She heard these voices for over 40 years,” Stacy says on a Christian Reads and Classics YouTube video. “These voices were horrible they said the worst things to her; they would cuss at her; they would call her names.”

That made for two sufferers: Stacy’s mom and Stacy. Mom was in and out of psychiatric hospitals, so Stacy was left alone, fearful and resentful.

Stacy was born in Baltimore in 1977. Mom wasn’t diagnosed with schizophrenia until six months after Stacy’s birth, and Dad was a functional alcoholic who spent all evenings at the bar. “A lot of my childhood I spent completely alone,” she says.

“They were in no position to have a kid,” she says. “But they did, and here I am.”

Try as she might, Mom never got the upper hand over the voices and the breakdowns.

“She would make me breakfast, get me off to school, and then I would come home from school and she would be gone,” Stacy says. “I knew she was in the hospital. I blamed the loneliness and a lot of bad things on my mom because as I kid, I thought it was her choice to leave.”

They never went to church, but Mom played Christian music, wrote down scriptures and called herself born-again — things that Stacy didn’t understand.

“We had a very strained relationship,” Stacy admits.

“The voices would scream at her. They would cuss at her. They would call her names,” Stacy says. “My mom would hear this all the time. She was literally being tortured.”

Part of the reason Dad stayed at the bar was to not have to be around Mom, due to her unstable condition.

In high school, Stacy got drunk and high to escape her life. At age 18, she moved in with her boyfriend, not so much because she loved him as because he was the easiest excuse to move away from Mom. That didn’t last.

Eventually, she started dating the man who became her husband, a Marine with whom she moved for a time to England. It was he who suggested they start attending church. But the type of church they attended left much to be desired. When she shared about her fruitless search to help her mom, they glibly responded that she “didn’t have enough faith” in prayer.

Frustrated with longstanding unanswered prayer, Stacy “walked away” from God; they stopped attending church.

Because of her psychosis, Mom complained of “phantom”… Read the rest: Schizophrenia and salvation

The Wrath of Dahlia in volleyball

One poor Packinghouse player wore the face of shell shock.

Dahlia Gonzalez sledge-hammered a ball down so hard and at such an acute angle that it landed in the first row.

Her opponent, who had no chance to return it, stood in astonishment for a moment as if the gods had decreed by oracle an evil future.

Welcome to Dolly’s woods.

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Let’s go!
There’s no other way to say it. Dahlia — called Dolly by her closest friends — LEVITATED.

She was on a totally other level Saturday evening at Memorial Park in Santa Monica when Lighthouse Christian Academy sent Packinghouse packing in three straight sets to advance to round 3 of playoffs.

“Dahlia hit her best and served her best ever today,” remarks Coach Jessica Young.

LCA, student population 45, who slinked into playoffs on a wildcard win, is now a victory march to (dare we dream?) the unthinkable.

With two losses in its regular season, how can this be happening?

The girls, mostly sophomores and juniors, have been to go; I was done. And God impressed on her heart: I’m not done with you yet. I love you and I’m not done with you… Read the rest: The Wrath of Dahlia in volleyball.

I’m in Pakistan. Some reflections on conquering fears.

Want to be rich? Be rich in good works.

In Instanbul International Airport, some reflections about Christians getting rich

Re-invest, don’t spend

She flies like a butterfly and stings like a bee

But she’s not Ali, as in Mohammad. She’s Allie, as in Scribner. She just led LCA girls volleyball to first round playoff win in 10 years.

She’s from a different time and a different sport, but she’s a champion just like her fellow top fighter, nearly honomymously named Muhammad Ali.

Oh, she’s a heavyweight, for sure.

Allie Scribner believed in herself and believed in her team to play an almost perfect game against Eisenhauer High School Thursday evening in Rialto.

The sophomore team captain aced serves, chased balls, launched perfect sets from anywhere on the court. She hit with power and blocked with ferocity. She took flight like a butterfly and stung her opponents like a swarm.

And when it came down to the last set and all Lighthouse Christian Academy needed was three serves to win its first second round playoff game in a decade, Allie with ice in her veins didn’t waver.

She aced one, slammed another and crushed a third.

“Allie’s a beast,” said Coach Jessica Young. “I feel like she’s got a lot of testosterone. She never gives up. Allie just made one mistake. She touches the ball every play. She plays smart. She’s looking for holes constantly. She’s encouraging to the team. She gives great set after great set.”

Fellow heavywieght Dahlia Gonzalez made the last block of the game, and the tiny school from Santa Monica beat the high school with 2,200 students. Lighthouse with just 45 students has a talent pool 50 times smaller to draw from.

The girls burst into tears. They slumped over onto the court. They hugged each other in disbelief.

As if culminating a season of practice and games, Lighthouse played its best game ever in Game 4, edging the Eagles 27-25. In Game 5, they nearly lost it on the final stretch, falling a couple points behind until they sealed the victory 15-13.

But the Saints started weakly, losing 11-25.

Thir spikes went long. Their serves were poor. The girls didn’t click. Meanwhile, Eisenhauer played smartly with precious few mistakes.

“We started out really weak. We were missing our starter, Elizabeth (Foreman),” said Coach Jessica. “All the odds were against us today. Roxy’s wrist today, Allie’s wrist, Clara’s foot, now Dahlia did something to her thigh. But we just claim that with God all things are possible.”

By Game 2, Lighthouse started to find its form. The irony is that the winning streak of points was struck by senior Ireland Daniel. She serves underhanded. At times, it appears her lobs barely make it over the net. Opponents snickered and sneered.

Yet they struggled against Ireland, perhaps because they had no practice against the beginner’s method of serving. Ireland sparked the turnaround run to victory.

“Nobody is serving underhanded right now, and maybe… Read the rest: She flies like a butterfly and stings like a bee.

Treat people right. Get rich.

Miraculous volleyball in Santa Monica

It was a game the Lighthouse Christian Academy wanted desperately to win. Not only were they fighting for second place, they were avenging their wounds from last year when Beacon Hill executed a stinging shutdown of Saints prowess.

So when two key players got injured, everyone was biting their lip worriedly.

Allie “Everything” Scribner sprained her wrist, and Clara “Fireball” Czer sprained her ankle. Allie got injured when Dahlia Gonzalez smashed the ball too hard at her hand during practice, and Clara got injured when a boy crossed the lie during a pickup game and landed on foot.

A few voices on the sidelines fumed: What were you thinking?!? Shouldn’t you have taken care of yourself better??? Can’t the boys…

But then something weird — miraculous — happened. Pastor Charlie Foreman, who loves to pray for the sick and injured — prayed. It wasn’t illegal sports doping. But it was, people say, outside of the normal purview of natural events.

It was another kind of PT. Not Physical Therapy. It was Prayer Therapy.

Allie recovered. On Monday against Panorama High School she actually was flinging herself all over the court diving for balls as if she needed to prove her body with a thorough thrashing. She played unrestrainedly and unaffected.

Meanwhile, Clara was sidelined on Monday. But she got prayer on Tuesday just before the big game. The pain… Read the rest: Miracles in Santa Monica volleyball

Marijuana risks psychosis, study finds

As the numbers of cases of psychosis and addiction explode, medical researchers are warning about the dangers of cannabis based on a new study.

“Overall, use of higher potency cannabis, relative to lower potency cannabis, was associated with an increased risk of psychosis and cannabis use disorder,” according to the article published by epidemiologists in The Lancet.

Epidemiologists Lindsey Hindes and Gemma Taylor, psychologist Tom Freeman and the paper’s three additional authors called it “the first systematic review of the association of cannabis potency with mental health and addiction.”

Marijuana has been on a legalization steamroll in recent years in the U.S., with 37 states allowing the restricted medical use of cannabis and 19 states allowing recreational use, as reported by Faithwire. President Joe Biden is using his sway to decriminalize it on the national level.

But a number of studies associate marijuana use with paranoia, schizophrenia and other psychotic episodes. However, they noted no conclusive evidence associated with depression and anxiety, which some users also experience.

The active ingredient in marijuana that alters mental states is THC, which is showing up in higher concentrations.

“In the USA and Europe, the concentration of THC has more than doubled over the past 10 years, and new legal markets have facilitated the rapid development of cannabis products with higher potencies than earlier products, such as concentrated extracts,” the researchers noted.

The authors also explained people who used cannabis with high THC levels were more likely to have a “psychotic episode.” One study even found that people who use the highly potent marijuana on a daily basis were five times more likely to be diagnosed with psychosis compared to those who never use the drug,” Faithwire reported.

For years, marijuana was portrayed as a “gateway drug,” a mild narcotic that was a starting point for drug abusers to get into psychedelics, stimulants or other more dangerous recreational drugs. But a pushback against that depiction arose in the last two decades, with some researchers saying it was alarmist.

Separately, the criminal justice system was asking if it was worthwhile to arrest, prosecute and jail people over marijuana use, with a consensus emerging that marijuana didn’t merit the waste of public resources.

Pushed by his left-leaning base, Biden jumped onboard. “I don’t think anyone should be in prison for the use of marijuana,” he said July 16. “We’re working on the crime bill now.”

Some Christian leaders are… Read the rest: A Christian perspective on marijuana

Report from the brick fields of Pakistan

FAISALABAD, Pakistan — Kids as young as 2 years old are working in the brick-making fields of Pakistan. One man with a free school wants to change that.

Sarfraz Anwar’s father and brother started in the brick fields. To make bricks, they squat and grab a ball of moist clay-rich earth. They form it into a loaf, cover it with dry dust, and plop it into a mould. It is turned over and dropped onto the ground in long rows to bake under the blistering sun.

It’s a grueling job, and most who fall into this line of work never get out. Some get indebted to their employees when they borrow for their weddings (Pakistanis love 3-day ceremonies with much expenses). They spend the next decades of their life trying to pay off that debt, much like a student loan in America — only they become almost like slaves.

But Dad and Umar escaped the fields. They had a vision to work as Christian laborers. First Dad took at a double shift in security to raise money to launch a school for children that could be free. With whatever free time, he pedaled his bike to the brick fields and sprend the message of hope. Read the rest:

Read the rest: Brick fields in Pakistan.

The Russian mafia didn’t carry out the killing

Vitalii Glopina may never know what the three Russian gangsters sent to kill him saw as one raised the knife to stab Vitalii.

“They turned white. They were shaking,” he says on a Virginia Beach Potter’s House podcast. “He threw the knife down. They ran out of there. In that moment, I knew there was a God.”

Well, of course. He had just prayed that if there were a God, to rescue him.

That was the end of atheism for Vitalii, who blamed God for the death of his sister and played out his anger against the injustice done to his family by getting into drugs, alcohol, and easy money.

With his sister growing up in Ukraine, Vitalii had a peculiar hobby, looking for mushrooms. On one occasion, he asked his sister to get out of work early so they could get a headstart on their mushroom enthusiasm. “I felt responsible for her death,” Vitalii says.

On that fateful night, his sister was kidnapped. They found her injured and took her to a hospital where she lingered between life and death for two days. Young Vitalii pleaded with God for her life, and when she died, he vowed to become an atheist.

From 18 years, he pour his life into substance abuse and crime. He joined a Russian mafia gang and made good money as the key man; he was the one who broke into cars and got them started.

He was a brainiac for technology. He got straight A’s in school, but he also had keyed all the rooms and could break in at will to classrooms and offices.

When he graduated high school, he got a scholarship to Romania, where he would learn cybernetics.

He vowed that in the new place, he would turn over a new leaf. His vow to be sober and make good lasted only three days, within which time he found a dealer and the mafia and fell back into his old habits.

Vitalii would show up and get into the BMW7 series vehicles. Sometimes they would steal the car outright, sometimes they would just steal the parts. When the insurance paid for new parts, his team could fill the order through a front company and rebuild the car they themselves had disassembled.

It was lucrative work, but every night Vitalii was hobbled by crippling guilt.

“I had to be stoned to death to be able to sleep,” he admits.

His penchant for heavy substance abuse caused him to wind up with overdoses: three times on drugs, twice on alcohol. A triple dosage brought him to the hospital on Christmas Eve, where he confessed to hospital staff where the drugs were.

The cops raided, and he lost $5,000 worth of merchandise.

All of sudden, Vitalii was indebted to the mafia, and they weren’t… Read the rest: Vitalli Glopina, pastor in Ukraine

The role of hardship on the course to success

Stakeholders — how to get the best out of your team

How the poor stay poor

Saving is not enough. You must also…

I’m going on full-on attack mode

Scary, scary, scary ways to waste $$$

She’s Pho real

Some like it hot.

Lighthouse fans were savoring the Pho on a hot streak on Monday.

After a lackluster Game 1, Lighthouse Christian Academy gave Junior Roxy Photehauer the ball and told her to serve up some spicy noodles. The next five serves were too hot to handle for the Panorama High School Pythons.

“Roxy’s serving was great. Her digs were also good,” says sophomore Frida Macias. “This was one of her best games. She was ready every single time.”

LCA pulled away and cruised to a comfortable three straight wins thereafter.

Roxy typically plays libero. But since LCA was missing a key player due to injury, Coach Jessica Young thought to put her in the normal rotation. It didn’t seem to work as well.

After Game 1, Roxy confided to Coach: “I just want to dive for a ball.”

She changed jerseys and came out with some graceful lunges that looked like Tarzan swinging through the jungle. Panorama had a hard time finding the floor. “We won everything with her as libero,” says Coach Jessica. “She was hungry to get the hard balls.”

Then she came up for serves and fired off some sizzling hot serves.

It was LCA’s first game against a public school since anyone could remember, and maybe the girls were intimidated by the a gym bigger than they’ve seen full of Panorama students cheering their team. The gym — honoring their mascot, the python — bears the words: “Welcome to the snake pit.”

“I think they were slightly intimidated,” says Coach Jessica. “Everybody was… Read the rest: Santa Monica private school volleyball season 2022

How TikTok star Cristina Baker found Christ

From Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Christina Baker’s stepdad sent her with a one-way ticket to Maui, where reportedly her biological dad lived.

After waiting six hours to be picked up at the airport, Dad finally showed up.

“This is crazy that you’re here,” he told her as they drove from the airport. “I need to tell you something. I’m homeless and I’m living in a tent on the beach.”

That is how Christina’s life flowed into uncharted waters.

The bedlam began when her parents divorced. Mom flew straight to Bolivia. To the ache of not having her father, add the confusion of culture shock and language barriers.

“When my parents divorced, it really set me over the edge,” Christina said on a 100 Huntley Street video interview. “I was just drawn to the darkness because I felt that way inside.”

Christina took refuge in the Goth lifestyle with its emo depression.

“My life was totally spinning out of control,” she says. “He basically told me that I needed to leave his home.”

Underage drinking and clubbing caused her to run afoul of her stepdad, who sent her to Hawaii. Maybe he thought she would do better with her biological father, but he was in no place to help his daughter. He had been an oil executive, but drugs drove him to homelessness.

Christina lived with Dad homeless on the beach for some time.

Then she went from house to house sleeping on the couches of friends. She got in touch with her brother, who hooked her up with a local church.

That’s when she landed in the foster care system with Sharon Hess, who gave her a warm welcome and a warm bed at her home in 2001,

“We have two rules. Your curfew is 11:00 p.m. and you need to go to church with us,” Foster Mom told her.

“I just wanted a warm bed to sleep in at that point,” Christina remembers. “I looked around. I’m like, ‘I’m an atheist; I don’t believe in God.’ But I knew that if I wanted that warm bed and somewhere to stay that I needed to go to church with them.”

Sharon and the rest of the family didn’t judge her Goth clothes and makeup. They even let her wear all black to church. Little by little, the Word of God was planted in her heart, after three years in foster care.

“This woman loved me just the way I was,” Christina recalls. “She wasn’t trying to change the way I looked.”

After those three years, she moved to Houston, Texas, where she relapsed into drugs and soon found herself pregnant. She planned on an abortion when her drug dealer’s girlfriend showed her a report that the abortion doctor was being sued by the State of Texas because a 15-year-old patient died in his abortion chair.

“She pulled me and she said, ‘I know you don’t believe in God, but I’m begging you not to kill this child,” Christina remembers.

“His grace met me in my darkest moment. His grace met me in a moment where I didn’t believe.”

Christina became a functional drug addict. She worked and took care of Ethan, her newborn, and did drugs when nobody was watching. That worked for some time, until she got pulled over by police.

While she was awaiting trial on bail, a co-worker invited her to a Bible study. At the meeting, a man named Hillroy gave her a “word of knowledge,” a supernatural revelation about her present state of mind.

“What he didn’t know and what stunned me at that moment was that he didn’t know I was contemplating how to take my life that night,” Christina remembered. She still didn’t believe in God but couldn’t account for the supernatural knowledge of her inner thoughts.

So Christina went to the breakroom Bible study. When she entered, they were praying, which surprised her.

“If there is a God,” she thought, “These people have come face to face with him. It was so personal; it was so intimate; it was so passionate, something I had never in my life experienced or encountered.”

Hillroy read to her from Jeremiah: “This is a matter of life or death,” he told her.

Immediately, a mental picture of a car accident flashed through her mind, something that is a common reality for those who abuse alcohol.

“I was driving home drunk every day, Monday through Monday, from the bars,” she admits… Read the rest: How TikTok star Cristina Baker found Christ

A Bible left on the table saved Deon Howard from drugs

When half his friends carted off to college on sports scholarships, Deon Howard was stuck with the other half, the “knuckleheads,” who hung out at his father’s house taking drugs, breaking crystal tables, punching holes in the wall, and otherwise “disrespecting” his divorced father’s house while he was at work.

“It was so easy for me to have no motivation, no drive because everything was given to me,” Deon says on the Virginia Beach Potter’s House podcast. “If you’re not moving in life, things will stack up on you and you’ll be in a desperate place.”

As an only child of a military family in Augusta, Georgia, “I was spoiled,” Deon says. “I was always on the receiving end of giving, giving. Because of that, I really struggled with being a giver.”

When he was 12, he got 84 gifts for Christmas. That’s right. Eighty-four.

About half of them he opened with his cousins. When he got home, some burglars had broken into their home and stole the TVs. What was Deon worried about? His gifts. None of them were touched.

While half his friends were bound for the NBA and NFL, Deon was bound to get into trouble. He was ineligible to play sports because of grades and poor behavior. He got kicked out of the 11th grade and had to go to a private school, which he called “bootleg,” founded by a PhD guy from Trinidad that “sold” high school degrees.

When Deon was 21, his parents got divorced. He never knew why his mom, a very private person, simply wrote a letter saying she would never come back. Always self-absorbed, Deon assumed she would come back and by the time he figured out she was never coming back, he was too lost in drugs, drinking and partying to worry anymore.

“It was a mess. Things got really crazy,” Deon says. “My house, if you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought my house was a club. My dad wanted me to have some respect for his house, which I didn’t. Hangout spot was an understatement. I was disrespecting my father’s house.”

On any given day, upwards of 40 different cars were parked outside to gather, use drugs and gamble inside. Horse play broke the expensive glass table. “My dad would come to see holes in the walls,” Deon says. They would try to clean before Dad got home from work.

From age 20 to 24, that was Deon’s routine. At the clubs, he loved to dance.

“I loved my mom and dad, but I was out there,” he admits. “We grew up good kids. I had a good, middle-class home. I had no reason. I just had no business about myself. We were bums, these spoiled kids living in their parents’ homes. It’s not that I was missing meals; that wasn’t the case. I was just spoiled. It made me not have an urgency about life.”

He neither sold nor bought drugs; his friends just offered them for free. His occasionally used ecstasy.

The lifestyle began to wear on him. When he turned 24, a friend called and offered him a job in the Navy’s Shipyard in Newport News. The friend said he would “rig” a resume for him, enroll him in a sheet metal class, and he would be making $24 per hour – good money at the time.

Despite failing the sheet metal class, Deon’s connections got him the certificate and the job – at which he lasted 15 minutes before getting fired. He didn’t know the first thing about being a sheet metal mechanic.

“He gives me this paper, and I don’t know what I’m doing. I barely passed high school,” Deon says. “I don’t remember 5/16ths of an inch. So I’m going to fake it until I make it. But I’m about to sink this ship.

“He comes back and looks at it. He takes the badge off me and says, ‘This job is not for you,’” Deon remembers. “Twenty-four dollars an hour! I lasted only five minutes on the job.”

Deon wanted nothing more than to smoke marijuana and return to Georgia, but his friend encouraged him to stay. So did his dad, who pointed out that Deon was 24 – plenty old enough to grow up and take responsibility.

Deon got a job at Danny’s Deli making $6/hour.

The roommates moved out with baby mommas, and Deon didn’t have enough money to pay the electricity bill.

One day when he came home exhausted from work, sitting in the dark, he saw a friend’s Bible sitting on the table. The friend read it randomly from time to time, usually while smoking marijuana. That day Deon was discouraged as he contemplated the Bible and remembered his grandmother who honored and cherished the Bible.

Out of the blue, God spoke “as clear as day.”

Son, look, no matter what you try to accomplish, no matter what you do, no matter what the situation is… Read the rest: A Bible on the table at a drug house saved Deon Howard.

Insistent, annoying roommate kept talking about Jesus

Tom Payne’s roommate annoyed the Hell out of him.

Quite literally.

“Just shut up!” he said in his mind, frustrated that Jeff would argue with Louie, who had gotten saved, and that he had to listen to it in their one-bedroom apartment.

Tom, then 19, had come from New York to Prescott, Arizona, because it was famous as a college party town. “Getting saved wasn’t part of the plan. We were in a prolonged adolescence with the feigned attempt at getting an education,” Tom says on a Don’t Sell the Farm podcast.”

So when Louie got cornered by a Christian and acceded to go with him to church one day, Tom offered to provide the alibi when the Christian accompanied him to service.

“Just hide in the bathroom, and we’ll tell him you’re not in,” Tom told him.

But Louie was a nominal Catholic and used to showing up every so often to Mass, so he stayed true to his word.

That night, when Tom and Jeff stumbled out of the bar and walked home, Tom remarked sarcastically: “What if Louie got saved.”

They found him in his bed reading his Bible. Suddenly, their fears, however they were treated in jest, now became reality.

Louie told them he had gotten saved and invited them to church. Jeff started to argue with him. Tom rolled his eyes.

For the next days and weeks, the litany was unending. Louie invited them to church, Jeff argued, Tom fumed. “He was in our faces telling us about Jesus,” Tom told him. “Fine, we’ll go to Hell all by ourselves. But just shut up. I don’t want to hear it.”

Jeff was arguing with him nonstop. Louie was just devouring his Bible and was answering him. I couldn’t escape it.”

One evening as he lay on the bed trying to not hear the other two argue in the other room, Tom asked God if he was real. “I was laying on the bed with my hands behind my head, and I said, ‘God, I’m not going to do this just because Louie did this. But if you’re real, I’ll serve you.”

The “presence of the Holy God of the Universe came into that room,” he says. “I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t believe anybody had heard that prayer or would answer that prayer.”

Awestruck, he told God: “Ok, just don’t kill me.”

Tom attended a new convert’s class with Louie. He accepted Jesus. “I had already been confronted by the Holy Spirit,” he says. He was delivered from drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. The next day, he started looking for a job.

Finding a job was no easy matter in Prescott, then a town of 20,000. There weren’t many jobs to be had. He wanted to stay with the Prescott Potter’s House, a booming church. His first job to support himself and continue learning about Jesus as a “disciple” was to water plants at the community college. His last job was working on a trash truck.

Tom and his buddies were used to staying up to 4:00 a.m. partying, so when church let out at 10:00 p.m., he didn’t know what to do with his time. Fortunately, some of the brethren went out for coffee and fellowshipped after service.

He came home buzzed on caffeine, and he and his buddies went home afterward and wrote letters to all their friends back in New York that they were going to Hell and needed to get saved. “We bombarded them with letters,” he recalls… Read the rest: Roommate annoyed the Hell out of him.

Chetra the Buddhist monk from Cambodia

At 16, Chetra became a Buddhist monk in Cambodia. “It was my pride to become a monk,” he says.

But just five years later in 2011, he abandoned the monkhood because “I felt so empty inside. I wondered what my life was for,” he says on a Christ Church of Ewell video. “I felt so lost in my heart.”

In 2021, he got a job in a language school that taught Cambodian to foreigners, most of them missionaries. On his first day at the school, he had to sit through a Bible study.

“I didn’t really know what Christianity was,” he says. “I only thought I can’t believe in Jesus because Buddhism was precious to me. I thought Jesus wasn’t God.”

He stayed in the school for six years, attending Christian Bible studies but never believing. He had lots of Christian friends, all of whom were praying for him.

In 2017, a certain girl named Julia was more insistent. On Sunday, he said, he liked to sleep late, waking up at noon, well after the morning service was over.

She invited him to an evening fellowship. “I didn’t have an excuse,” he says. “I didn’t go to sleep so early.”

He sat as far away from the group as possible – in the kitchen. Then slowly he moved closer, to the kitchen door. Still, he was resistant. “Buddhism was my pride, so I couldn’t lose my pride,” he says.

But something happened in 2018 during the Pchum Ben, a 15-day festival in Cambodia that honors the previous seven generations of ancestors which are believed to be released to roam the Earth.

On these Holy Days, everybody has vacation. On Saturday during incense burning and chantings, Chetra started viewing his practices strangely. “Wow,” he observed. “What are these things?” Read the rest: Chetra the Buddhist monk from Cambodia

Freed from porn, formerly atheist hears God: ‘Those are my daughters’

Ironically, his dad, a devout Buddhist, left the family so that everybody “could be happier.”

Ahn Le felt anything but happy. “I felt panicked,” Ahn says on a Fishers of Men Halifax video. “It didn’t make me happy. It broke everything I knew.” He even cried out to the supernatural he never knew: “If there’s a God, please stop this now.”

That’s the day Ahn became an atheist.

“In my mind I said, look at these religious folks. Not even the religious folks can get it together.” His mom was a nominal Catholic.

Meanwhile at school, Ahn learned about the survival of the fittest, a tenet of evolution. “I liked this idea,” he remembers. “I realized there’s no god because you call out to him and he doesn’t answer. You just got to get by. That message resonated with me: I’m going to be so tough, I’ll never be in this position again where I’m being left, where it’s going to break.”

He vowed to find his happiness, to make money and buy the things he wanted.

Soon he discovered pornography, first in magazines and then with the advent of the Internet online in the 1990s. “When I found these magazines, it was like a drug,” he says. “When I got ahold of my first Hustler magazine, I was like ‘Wow.’”

He dove in unabated. But while he desired a beautiful woman, he was too shy to approach beautiful women. “They were like goddesses to me,” he says. “I couldn’t talk around them. I was gazing from afar with just a lust for them. But deep inside I was l like, ‘Why would that girl ever like me?’ I had a low self-confidence.”

The pornography imbued shame in him and brought his self-confidence even lower, he says.

While he had a secret addiction, he projected an image of being a good guy.

In college, he overcame his shyness and began approaching girls, even to the point that he moved in with a girl. “That lust in me destroyed that girl,” he surmises. “She was a Christian. I convinced her not to listen to her mother. I convinced her to move away from her church. She was such a sweet girl, and I just took her and demoralized her.”

Then, because pornography makes you always look at the next and the next and the next, he dumped her after deflowering her. “I took everything pure from her, chewed it up and spit it out,” he admits. “I used her. I broke her heart heartlessly.”

He ignored the promise ring he had given her. “For me, she wasn’t enough,” he acknowledges. “My lust needed more.”

Ahn got into clubbing and one-night stands. “It was never enough,” he says. “It led to depression. I was feeling depression, but I didn’t link it to my addictions.”

Ahn reenacts his reaction when God told him: ‘Those are my daughters.’

Strangely, the girls who most attracted him were Christian girls, whom he would pretend to listen to about God but would be “little by little be grooming them away from the church,” he explains.

“How do you know if there’s a God?” he would say to them. “How do you know if God’s real? What if God was just a man-made idea? What if there was something better we could do for ourselves? What if God helps those who help themselves?”

Systematically, he turned them away from their faith and got them into extra-marital sex. Eventually, he realized that atheism meant there was no need to project an image of being a good person. “I make my own beliefs,” he says. “In college you’re taught, What is truth? There is no truth. It’s all perspective. It’s all relative. There is no true good, no true bad.” Read the rest: Ahn Le, podcaster, ex atheist, freed from porn.

Horchata ice cream? Sign me up!

The entrepreneurial spirit if North San Fernando Valley (specifically, the City of San Fernando).

Will Graham, grandson to Billy Graham

The world may know the name of the late beloved evangelist, Billy Graham, and his son Rev. Franklin Graham, but many may not know about another evangelist in the family, William Franklin Graham IV.

“I was born Billy Graham’s grandson; I will die one day as Billy Graham’s grandson,” the evangelist said on a YouTube video.

William, the son of Franklin Graham, has known nothing other than being the son and grandson of two renowned evangelists. “Not everyone has a famous grandfather or father, but for me, it was normal.”

William, 47, spent his childhood on a farm in Western North Carolina surrounded by cows, horses, dogs, cats, and, at one point, a potbelly pig.

On Jan. 11, 1981, he gave his life to Jesus when he was five at the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church his family attended in Boone, North Carolina, after a communion service. His father told him he could not participate until he let Jesus into his heart.

“I believed that Jesus existed, but I never applied him into my heart,” he said. “So that’s when I gave my life to Christ.”

William went to public school in North Carolina growing up, but it wasn’t until he attended college at Liberty University that he not only fell in love with God’s word but got to see how impactful his grandfather was.

“I’d been to his crusades. I knew he was one of the most famous people in America,” he said. “But something hit me at Liberty.”

It changed for Will one day when he was in his dorm room and a man he didn’t know knocked on his door looking for Billy Graham’s grandson.

“What do you want?” William asked him.

“I’m just looking at your room. I wanna see what Billy Graham’s grandson’s room looks like,” he responded. Read the rest: Will Graham, grandson of Billy Graham

Darren Munzone, Australian rugby player and pastor

Darren Munzone reacted to his wife’s newfound faith in Jesus and belief in the rapture by sneering: “Oh, you’re still here? The UFOs haven’t gotten you yet?”

He could tolerate the fact that she had gambled away their savings of $10,000. But he couldn’t stand the fact that afterwards she became a born-again Christian. “To me it was like she had become a nun or something. I was just not happy.”

He lashed out at her: “If I would have wanted to marry a Christian, I would have gone to church, But I met you in a pub. This is a rip off.”

Born to an Italian immigrant father, Darren always identified as an Aussie because of discrimination against immigrants, he says on a Virginia Beach Potter’s House podcast. He had basically no background in Christianity.

Admittedly, he was the bully of the classroom and got into scrapes frequently. When his mother divorced and remarried, he took out his frustrations by fighting with the neighborhood boys. His penchant for violence went right along with his dream to be a rugby player.

“I got into lots of trouble because of fights as a teenager,” he says. “I rebelled against my mom and my stepdad.” He didn’t talk much to his stepdad except two to three times a year.

For rugby league, he practiced very hard but wasn’t big enough and wasn’t gifted in the sport. Ultimately, a series of injuries sidelined him when was semi-professional, so instead, he turned to coaching, where he excelled.

“I’ve broken all my fingers,” he recounts. “I literally had my ear ripped off the side of my head and had to have it sewn back on. My AC joint in my shoulder – serious shoulder problems. I’ve had two knee reconstructions.

“I was far more successful as a semi-professional coach.”

The woman who became his wife was a nurse, and together they made enough money to qualify for a home loan. But when the broker informed them the term would be 30 years, Darren and Joanne looked at each other and walked out.

Instead of tying themselves down for 30 years, they decided to travel to England and Europe for two years for a work-cation. “I was running away from the broken dreams of becoming a professional sportsman,” Darren says. He played cricket in England.

After one year of living in England, Joanne had a miscarriage, and the subsequent sadness deprived her of all desire to keep vacationing. “She was devastated by that,” Darren says.

They returned to Australia, where Joanne’s depression deepened and widened even though they finally married.

“She blamed herself that we’d come back from our overseas trip a year earlier than expected,” Darren says. “She thought I was angry that we’d cut our holiday. To escape the depression, she started gambling.”

She played poker machines at the local bars. “This went on for some time until she had gambled all our money away,” Darren says.

The depleted savings was not just bad – she sought Jesus because of it after a co-worker invited her to church.

She broke the news about her secret gambling addiction and subsequent losses to Darren, who despite being hooked on money didn’t get too upset. “I was annoyed but I thought we’ll recover from that.” Read the rest: Darren Munzone rugby coach Australia now pastor

Adrien Lamont, CHH star, heard voices

Never mind that driving him towards suicide were demonic voices, schizophrenic episodes, and the opposition of his family. What bothered Adrien Lamont in the Bible conference – where he had gone seeking deliverance – was that there was only one other black person.

Fortunately, she came straight over to Adrien with a prophetic word: “God sees what you’ve been doing and how you’ve been chasing after him, and he’s so proud of you and he loves you and all the people that have done you wrong and called you crazy are gonna see what God is doing in your life in the direction that he’s taking you and they’re all gonna apologize.”

Adrien stayed and received intensive prayer. The deliverance was decisive. Today Adrien is a rising star in Christian Hip Hop, though his music is oriented more to the street than the pew, a rough-edged message of salvation, not cleared for Sunday School.

Adrien Lamont’s father abused heroin and died when he was young, so Mom did her best to raise him. Grandma was the driving force behind church attendance, but Adrien never developed a personal relationship with Jesus.

He was drawn to music and wanted to make it big. As he searched for his identity, he began drinking, smoking weed and using other drugs. He also liked to wear a brand of clothing with occult symbols. Today he says those symbols opened him up to demonic interference.

“I was really involved in satanic imagery and satanic clothing,” he says on Testimony Stories, a YouTube channel that focuses on Christian rappers. “It got to a point where all these things I was surrounding myself, started to affect my spirit. I realize now in hindsight that a lot of those garments and things I was wearing actually had demonic forces on them.”

He had a ring that every time he took it off and put it back on, he felt like a different person.

Connected with the producer, he began his path to stardom in secular rap.

“I remember just getting very high and drunk one day and I remember him telling me about all these satanic rituals and blood sacrifice and sacrificing his daughter,” Adrien says. “Under the laptop we were recording on, there was a Ouija board. I felt like I was demon possessed and that demons were speaking out of me into the microphone.”

On that day, he says he felt Satan’s presence. Words were impressed into his mind.

“He asked me if I wanted to sell my soul to Satan,” Adrien relates.

“Yes, okay,” he spoke out.

The rest of the night, he felt a darkness he had never experienced.

Hours later, he was listening to his recording when his computer “glitched.” Up popped another musician who shared his testimony about how demons came out of him and how he ran to his mother, who had a shotgun in her hand. He was saved from evil.

Adrien couldn’t explain the sudden, mysterious site change on his screen. He knew he needed to leave Hollywood immediately and return to his mom, who was living in Long Beach. Early next morning, he wandered around Hollywood asking for a phone to call Mom. Eventually, he got an Uber home.

Immediately, he… Read the rest: Formerly hearing voices, Adrien Lamont now with CHH

Beat inflation!

My three tips to beat inflation:

1. Bus it
2. Brown bag it
3. Brew it.

What are your favorite ways to save?