NICOLE C. MULLEN:            Thanks for having me.

HOLLY: So I have to start off by talking to you about what I call “the many hats of Nicole.”  You’re a singer, a songwriter, mother, wife,  advocate, I can go on and on and on.  How do you do all of these things?

NICOLE C. MULLEN:   Whew.  With much prayer.  Much prayer and good support system around me.  I have great friends who help me out, a husband who helps me, my mom and dad live next door, in-laws across the street, so it’s not just a single effort, it’s a family affair.  And so I do it with them and with a lot of prayer, like I said.

HOLLY: It works — it all comes together.

NICOLE C. MULLEN:    Yes, yes.

HOLLY: When did you realize you were going to be a singer?

NICOLE C. MULLEN:   I think I’ve always wanted to be a singer.  I grew up wanting to be a singer, an actress, a lawyer, all at the same time.  And every other week all the other ones would change, but the singer would remain.  And I’d been singing from the time I was about 2 years old, but I think around the age of 8 — I’m sorry, the age of 12 is when I thought, “You know what? I think this is what really what I want to do.”  And around that same time is when I started writing songs.

HOLLY: Wow, that’s awesome.  You have your own unique style, style of dress, the way you write songs.  Now, I read that there’s a specific, I guess genre or name you’ve given your style of writing.  What is that?

NICOLE C. MULLEN:  Funkabilly.

HOLLY: So what is it?

NICOLE C. MULLEN:  It’s kind of a hybrid between funk, folk, R&B, gospel, contemporary Christian, just quacky, quirky, you know.  There are things that I like that may not fit into one category, but they’re me, you know, I’m funkabilly.

HOLLY: I like that.  Let’s talk about your new CD, “A Dream To Believe In.”

NICOLE C. MULLEN:            Yes.

HOLLY: How much of that is on this CD?

NICOLE C. MULLEN:  I think there’s quite a bit.  There are different flavors; it’s like  gumbo, or jambalaya, you’re gonna have different elements to make up one particular dish.  And so the same is true with that.  There are songs about renewing your mind. “I need a brainwash, ah, ah, ah, ah.”

HOLLY: That’s one of my favorites, I got to say.

NICOLE C. MULLEN:            All right! There are a lot of different things on there, things about how do we treat each other, how is a man supposed to treat a woman, you know.  I have boys at home, I have a 12-year-old son.  I have a-a 6-year old son.  Last year I was raising two extra boys on top of that, and a 16-year-old daughter.

HOLLY: That song is, let’s see, “Like a Lady.”

NICOLE C. MULLEN:            Yes.

HOLLY: I like that song.  Why did you think that was so important to put on this CD?

NICOLE C. MULLEN:            Because that’s something I think is important for us to tell our young men.  That really, you are a man and a part of being a man is to treat a woman like a lady.  You know, she’s not a dude, she’s not as strong as you are.  And that was intentional in God’s design, and because of that, there are certain ways we are to respond to each other.

HOLLY: Wow.

NICOLE C. MULLEN:  So, it is just was encouraging.

HOLLY: You have another song on here that’s not considered, I guess, what we call a traditional gospel song.  That one is “Start Over Again.”

NICOLE C. MULLEN:  Glory hallelujah.

HOLLY: Now when I read that, I was like, “Okay, she is preaching here.”

NICOLE C. MULLEN:   Yes.

HOLLY: How did that song come about?

NICOLE C. MULLEN:   Because we live in an age, in a time where relationships are so expendable, you know, nothing lasts anymore and that’s sad, you know.  But there comes times, there comes several times in a relationship, I mean, I’ve been married for almost 17 years now.  My parents for 47 years, my in-laws for 50 years; their grandparents for 63 years.  So there’s a lot of longevity, but it’s not because anybody’s perfect, it’s because we’re learning the art of forgiveness.  And so really, when it comes to being married, you know, you have to start over again several times.  Sometimes you feel like you’ve come to the end of that rope, and you can find, really, through prayer and through “I’m just going to stick it out,” there’s a knot at the end of that rope.  And sometimes at the end of that rope is where you start all over again and you have to reintroduce yourselves and fall in love all over again.

HOLLY: So that song is for the couples out there?

NICOLE C. MULLEN: It is.

HOLLY: You’re also a mentor.  I talked about the many hats of Nicole in the beginning.  One of the things is that you started a girls’ group.

NICOLE C. MULLEN:   Yes.

HOLLY: Why did you feel like you needed to do that?

NICOLE C. MULLEN: I think there’s such a need for just decent role models, you know, Lord willing we can get some great ones.  Not too long ago, my daughter, who is now 16, she was probably around, I don’t know, 8 to 10, she said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could do some things with other girls, in the same manner that you and I do it.  You know, like if we’re going to sew, can we not get other girls together?”  And I thought, “That’s great.”  So we started Baby Girls Club, and so we have a group of girls, every week we get together, they’re between the ages of 6 to 18.

HOLLY: Wow.

NICOLE C. MULLEN:   We dance, we sing, we sew, we talk, we do homework.  And it’s not just my way, but other mentors who’ve come alongside of me, our way of pouring back into their lives.

HOLLY: Wow.  What do you think is the greatest revelation you’ve gotten about being a Christian music artist?

NICOLE C. MULLEN:  Probably that it’s so not about us.  You know what I’m saying?  Really, God doesn’t need us.  I mean, I don’t do what I do because God needed Nicole C. Mullen.  No, I need God.  I need Christ.  And so, I think that’s probably the greatest revelation for all of us is that, really, it’s because of His great love.  You know, while we were yet sinners, He died for us.  We didn’t come looking for Him.  He sought us out and then He invited us, He drew us by His love, and so for me, that’s what compels me to tell others.  That’s what compels me to continue to come and sit at His feet.  It compels me to humble myself and just remind myself that it’s so not about you, it’s so not about me.  And it takes the pressure off of me because then I can direct the praise and the glory and attention to Him instead.

I am from Nigeria, that’s where I was born.

I love reading, I also really love music.

My family is made up of five basic members,  my dad, my mom and three boys.

My family decided that me and my brothers would leave our conventional school in Jos, Nigeria asd so we decided that we would start our own school and we decided to start it in our own house and so on.

And so it was just me, my two brothers and one of our cousins to start the school.

We valued the biblically based education of Accelerated Christian Education and we wanted to stick with it.

My calling is in the field of Christian education. When I think about the future of the children of Africa what I want to see is a situation where these children first of all realize that they are valued, and then also realize that they have potential to go out and make a difference in the future, the future of our country, where our nations are going to end up in the future depends very much on what happens with them right now.

If they commit themselves to God’s principles and understand how He has designed the world to work, then it would be easy for them to be successful in whatever God calls them to do.

One of the reasons I came to school here in the US was because I felt the US would provide me with the best opportunity to understand the basic principles of Christian Education.

With all the unique challenges I face as an African  Christ has always been there to help me through and keep that vision of hope, that vision of things getting better before me.

I have such a heart for Nigeria, I want to see my country grow, I want to see my country get past all the challenges it has faced in terms of its identity, of its culture. I want to see Nigeria reach the potential that it could reach.

I believe some of the smartest people are in Nigeria, and I want to see Nigeria become all that it could be. And those kind of things, the passion in my heart for my country, those are the things that are most important to me about being Nigerian.

One of the things I hope for Africa is that we get out from under the bondage of having to receive money from people to improve ourselves. It has been said that Africa has enough resources to feed the rest of the world, it has been said that Africa has enough resources to care for itself.

If we have the resources, if we can do things for ourselves we should do things for ourselves. The Bible is very clear that each man should bear His own burden.

The government is not going to be the one to fix our problems, the western world’s not going to be the one to fix our problems.

We are going to have to figure out what does God want us to do in our own little community and work to change that.

And that is one of the things I am hoping through my involvement in education that I can change that our young people will begin to see that God has given us what we need to be able to be successful in the situations that we are in.

All: Thank you.

Simisola: We are all Africans in the diaspora and we are all products of the brain drain, so I want to ask each of you, starting with Funmi, why did you leave Africa and do you plan on returning?

Funmi Akinyele: I left because when I was in university, there were several strikes by the professors because they hadn’t gotten paid, you know, that sort of thing.  So I basically came to get a better education, if you will.  And I actually do plan to return in some capacity, in the sense that I believe that I am called to sort of create a home for adolescent girls, in terms of helping them — helping to empower them in terms of developing leadership skills and helping them to become who God has called them to be.  And I believe that that’s part of the reason God has me here is to help me learn how to do that so I can go help empower people there.

Simisola: Awesome.  You, Billy?

Billy Ekofo: I was evacuated in 1998 when the current president’s father was marching over in the capital.  I’m actually an American citizen, I just happened to live abroad for the majority of my life.  One of the places I lived was in the Congo.  And so when he came to power, there was a lot of war-mongering and even some fighting and the American Embassy decided that all American citizens should be evacuated, so that’s how I left.

I wasn’t really planning on leaving, but that sort of happened and, you know, I’ve been in the United States since then.  Do I plan to go back?  Yes, in some capacity.  I don’t foresee myself quite living there, because, you know, I just feel like the Lord is calling me to do certain things here in the U.S., but I would like to go back.  I would like to challenge people, I would like to expose some of the fraud, some of the injustice going on, so.

Simisola: Awesome. How about you, Faith?

Dr. Faith Chilongo: Well, I came here because my father went to school here.  He went to medical school here.  He came when he was 16, on his own with a suitcase, the typical story and just worked his way up.  So, we came to support him and be with him.  I have such a heart for Africa.  I want to go back.  I want to do missions.  One of the things we want to do is open up some orphanages, particularly in my country Malawi, but Southern Africa.  And then also do some schools of leadership, not only training people in ministry, but training them to be capable leaders, training up apostolic leaders.  So, I foresee myself living in Africa probably six months out of the year.

Simisola: How about you, Kwabena?

Kwabena Asamoah: Yeah, definitely. I came to United States as a child with my parents.  My father was pursuing graduate work here in the United States and then as we got older we went back to Ghana and then I came back to the United States again to pursue an education, and, I do look forward to going back.

On the issue of brain drain, I think that’s one issue that tends to be over blown because people are always going to pursue opportunities.  And, you know, in order for us to develop, somebody’s got to live in development, taste development, see development in order to bring it back.  And it’s estimated that Africa loses about $4 billion a year due to so called “brain drain,” even though I prefer to call it “brain gain.”

But if you look, there was a recent report by the United Nations, research on resource inflows into Africa, and it estimated between 2000 and 2003, there was $17 billion transferred to Africa from diasporans.  And in 2006, it was estimated to be $20 billion. Now, I might not be a genius, but, you know, if you’re losing 4 billion, but you’re making 20, that’s a pretty good deal.  (ALL LAUGH)

So you know, I think the issue is over blown a little bit, but it is what it is and hopefully, a lot of people are going back and if the Lord lays it on your heart, you should do it.

Simisola: We’ll get back to the brain drain topic, but I do want to give Njiba a chance to tell us why she left.

Njiba Kasonga: I came here in 2002 at 11 and just came to join my family. My dad and my mom were here and everything.  It’s always been my dream since I was young to pursue medicine. For me, it was hard because I lived in a town that was mostly by a hospital and to see people having to travel days and days after days to make it to the one hospital, like, in the one city, and people were dying on the roads, to me, that’s just sad.  So, I plan on going back and hopefully build more hospitals in the areas. That would be my dream.

Simisola Komolafe: Awesome.  There’s this term called “Afro-politan.”  I don’t know if you have heard of it.  It’s internationally mobile young people of African descent in the global diaspora. That’s the definition.  Kwabena, you’ve talked a little bit about that, but how do think this generation of Africans living outside of Africa will impact the nation?  Anyone can feel free to take this.

Dr. Faith Chilongo: I’ll take that real quick. I think it’s wonderful. I have sisters that live in England, and just doing amazing work there, but they’re going back.  You know, like he was saying, there’s so much that is coming out of people leaving.  But even within my country, Malawi, my mom just came back there two weeks ago, she says there’s that group of young people, even in our countries that are growing up and they’re so excited and just really taking leadership and really not taking the things that they’ve seen in the past and wanting to go forward in a new direction.  So, I think it’s very exciting.

Simisola: So you think it will be positive for Africa?

Dr. Faith Chilongo: I think it will be positive. I think it will definitely be a positive.  And, you know, one thing we also want to be careful about is, we shouldn’t make the assumption that the young professionals left behind on the continent aren’t doing anything.  Because actually, there are a lot of young people on the continent who overcome very difficult odds each and every day, and honestly have it in some way a little tougher.  We got it a little easier than they have.

Simisola: So thank you all.  I’m sure you will do great things for the future of Africa.  And to our viewers at home as well, if you’re in Africa or Europe or anywhere you are, just know that you can make a difference in Africa.  So please join the conversation.  Log onto facebook, turningpointzone is our page and-and share your thoughts.  We want to hear from you.

Bishop Long: I’m honored to be here, thank you.

Holly: I want to talk to you today about your latest book, it’s called “60 Seconds to Greatness.”  And when I saw the title, the first thing that I thought about was, why 60 seconds?  You know, we’re always talking about 40 days and 21 days and all of that, why 60 seconds?

Bishop Long: Well, 60 seconds, because really I focus on the value of a minute and the value of the moment.  The most significant things that happen in people’s lives is because they took advantage of the moment.  God is always present, He’s a very present help in a time of trouble.  And understanding that to be in the moment, that’s when you can capitalize on the fullness of life.

Holly: Okay, now if we’re going to talk about greatness, I think we should probably explain what greatness is.  How do you define greatness and how does someone know that they’ve actually achieved greatness?

Bishop Long: Greatness is that “a-ha” feeling, it’s that “where I can exhale to know for this cause, I was born.”  That is the greatest thing that you could ever walk in.  That gives you a sense a peace.  I might not have the biggest car, be in the biggest house — that’s not what I was called to do. But when I get that sense of significance that, you know what, it does matter that I was born, that’s greatness.  Because it’s really the greatness in the eyes of God.  “Did you fulfill what I sent you to do?”

Holly: I’ve heard a lot of people say, “I’ve been able to achieve some level of success in one area of my life,” let’s say it’s family success.  But there are some other areas, you mention 18 decisions in the book, there are some other areas that I may not have achieved that.  How do we find that balance, so to speak, where we’re able to have a level of success in multiple areas of our lives?

Bishop Long: Again, it begins with a decision; it begins with a decision to actually find balance.  You know, one thing that people have to realize, we have to give our mind, our heart, our spirit permission to be able to go after things.  When you say to yourself, “I can’t do it,” immediately you gave your mind permission to find reasons why you can’t.  I’m going to be successful at this.  And I’m successful at this, but I’m not successful,” you gave your mind reasons to justify why you’re not successful at all those things.  But when you open up yourself and say, “Yes, I can,” the slogan of President Obama  in his election campaign was “Yes, We Can,” it just opened up all the great possibilities because no one expected him to be a president when he first announced, you know?

Bu yet, because he kept a “yes” in the atmosphere, all kinds of doors started to open.

Holly: I’m going to ask you sort of a, what we call an angel’s advocate question.  There’s a chapter in your book where you talk about  preparing for prosperity.

Bishop Long: Exactly.

Holly: This is my question for you, there’s a section — and actually I’d like to read that, where you say, “I preach a message of financial and material prosperity because I live in the United States.  I couldn’t preach that aspect of the gospel in some impoverished third world countries.”  What message, in terms of the word — the message of prosperity, then do we give to people in these third world countries?  If this is a principle, does it not apply to them?  What do we say to them?  Do we tell them, “Skip that chapter of the book because your circumstances are different?”

Bishop Long: No — that the principle is for everyone.  The challenge I was trying to get, really state, was I wanted to speak a message to the American and especially African-Americans etcetera, that we came from Africa to a place of promise.  People immigrate from all over the world and come in poor and become enriched in our nation.

There has to be that responsibility to be able to go back and help liberate your brothers and your sisters.  There’s one thing, in Africa there’s the tribalism and all these kind of things that hinder, but Africa, the continent as you know, is one of the richest continents in the world.  And we’re doing everything we possibly can to come help Africans get what God promised them.

He put the minerals, He put the oil, He put the gold, He put all that in the earth.  He said, “The earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof and them that dwell upon it.”  That belongs to the people of God.

Holly: The message then was specifically for those who have and are already in a position to help someone else.

Bishop Long: Exactly.

Holly: What would your message be to someone who’s on the other end of the spectrum, who’s not in that position and they really don’t have a lot at their disposal?  What would you say to them today?

Bishop Long:     Well, I would say to them, number one, to catch your redemptive vision of God.  There’s always “grow where you’re planted, start where you are, see what God is speaking to you.  You were born for such a time as now.  Understand that God is generational. That’s how He identifies Himself, He says, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”  If you never had Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you would never have gotten a Joseph, who was able to go in and become Prime Minister and get favor for the people.

You want to be able to make a minute decision right now that, “I’m going to be the Abraham now of my bloodline. I may not see everything materialize before I die.” When you go to Hebrews 11, you see, “Some died in their faith, yet knowing that it shall come to pass.”  And so with all of that, I would ask them, “Your God has called you, He has raised you, you have great faith.  There are some decisions you could make at this moment that you may not totally benefit from, but your sons and daughters, you plant it in them and they’ll start to build from that.  Psalms 78 talks about four generations and of Jacob speaking through and then starting to talk about the children yet to be born.

There’s a transition that will happen that you’ve started that by that third or fourth generation, you will have raised up a king that has now not only changed your bloodline, but changed your community, changed your country and that’s what I’m saying.

Holly: Wow, that’s very powerful.  Thank you so much for being here.

Bishop Long:            Well, thank you.

MARTHA HAWKINS: Why, thank you.  I’m honored to be here today.

ERICA:            Now, your book, “Finding Martha’s Place,” you call it a journey through sin, salvation and lots of soul food.  As a child, I read that you were inspired to have a restaurant where people can come and relax and just eat and talk.  What  inspired that?

MARTHA HAWKINS: Because they could always do that at my Mom’s house, you know.  My Mom’s door was open for our friends to come and eat and it was so much fun.  And so I wanted a restaurant, but I wanted an old house, so when that person came there, they could feel like they was coming home.  And not only that, it has just been such a reaction with other people to be able to do that.

ERICA: Now, along the journey you had some very dark times.  By the time you were 21 you were a single mom,  hadn’t finished high school, divorced.  How did you feel at that time in your life?

MARTHA HAWKINS: Helpless and hopeless.  You know, looking at my life and calling myself stupid, how could I be caught up in a situation like this, and what was really going on because I wasn’t doing anything that I had dreamed that I was going to be doing at that time in my life.  So, I was just in a bad state.

ERICA: And things got worse.  A couple years later you had three major surgeries.

MARTHA HAWKINS: Yes.

ERICA:            You had your appendix removed, a hysterectomy, which is, for a woman –  (you’re 26 at this time) it’s already a very emotional thing, then you had a kidney removed.

MARTHA HAWKINS: Yes.

ERICA: Then, we go further a couple more months and you suffered a brutal rape. How did all of these events combined change your life?

MARTHA HAWKINS: Everything got packed on top of each other.  Just trouble after trouble after trouble.  And I couldn’t see no way out.  I couldn’t see nothing changing for my life.  And I ended up trying to commit suicide.

ERICA: That’s interesting because when you talk about it in the book, you say a voice spoke to you.

MARTHA HAWKINS:            Yes.

ERICA: And you talk about the domino effect.  Explain what the voice said and explain what you called the domino effect.

MARTHA HAWKINS: Well, the voice kept telling me how helpless and hopeless [my situation was]  that it wasn’t going to get any better, and that was the devil, you know.  And people don’t realize when people commit suicide, it’s a satanic spirit that be compelling them to do it.  Because you’re looking at your life and you don’t see no way out.  And you’re hurting, you know, you’re hurting so bad on the inside and you just want to stop the pain.

ERICA: Thank God your parents found you, or your dad found you.

MARTHA HAWKINS: Yeah, my dad and my son.

ERICA:            And you went to, what you call “the last place you could go,” this particular hospital.

MARTHA HAWKINS:            Yes.

ERICA: What was your turning point?

MARTHA HAWKINS: Getting the Word of God.  Thank God for the Gideons, I got the Word of God and I just started reading it and reading it and reading it.  And I found out that hey, Jesus loved me.  He died for me.  You know if it hadn’t been anyone else but me, He died just for me.  And it revolutionized my whole entire life.

ERICA: Was there a particular Scripture that, when you first read it, that really just kind of impacted you?

MARTHA HAWKINS: Well, Isaiah 61, every time I used to open the Bible, it would just go to Isaiah 61.  Even when I went home on a leave, from the hospital,  the Bible just opened to Isaiah 61.  And I’d throw it — throw the Bible down.  I said, “What’s going on?” ‘Cause I was afraid.  And not realizing that God was letting me know His plan and His purpose for my life.

ERICA: And so when you go through a lot of hurt and disappointment, of course, you know, your son’s father disappointed you, how were you able to trust God?  How were you able to read the Word and believe that there was a plan for your life?

MARTHA HAWKINS: Well, what I realized is a lot of the pain and stuff I allowed to happen because I made bad choices, and God gave me another opportunity, another chance to correct that.  And what happened was, that when I read the Word of God -hearing the voice reassured me that, “Hey, I love you.  I got a purpose, I got a plan.”  And it just — it just made all the difference.

ERICA:            The voice of love you call it.

MARTHA HAWKINS: Love, yes.

ERICA: I love that, the voice of love.  The voice of love told you one day that you were going to be great, beyond your wildest dreams.  Now, this time you didn’t have money.

MARTHA HAWKINS: I was on welfare. Staying in the projects. Yeah, I was in my bathroom and He said, “I’m going to make your name great.”  And I’m saying, “How, how are you going to do that? Lord, how are you going to do that?”  And never imagined the plan and the purpose that He had for my life.

ERICA:            And so how did Martha’s Place, the restaurant come to be?

MARTHA HAWKINS:            Well, I used to tell everybody about I was going to have this restaurant and what it was going to look like and going to have table cloths, napkins, and all that.  They used to look at me and say, “Yeah, mm-hmm.”  I had a bad track record, been in a mental institution, so who was going to believe me?  But for the first time in my life it didn’t matter who believed.  I believed, I just knew that God had told me that.  And so I just went out looking for that place, an old house.  And I used to cook cakes for this guy named Calvin Pryor, and he told me, he said, “Guess what? I got the ideal place for you.”  He said, “But right now it’s occupied.  And when it becomes available, I’ll call you and let you know.”  And two years went by and I was on welfare and I was staying in Cedar Housing Project when I started my restaurant.

ERICA: And the rest is history.

MARTHA HAWKINS: The rest is history.  That was 20-something years ago.

ERICA: And so, what would you say to a person right now who’s struggling with depression, they’ve had issues and bad things happened to them. What would you say to them?

MARTHA HAWKINS: What I realized –it’s just life.  You know, bad things are gonna happen to us regardless of what is going on in our life.  There’s just a season in our life for things to happen, whether they’re good or whether they’re bad.  But what I realized, that you got to latch onto God’s Word and you got to know that that Word is true.  And God is a faithful God.  And a lot of times we are just going to go through something ‘cause it is molding and shaping our life into who and what God wants us to be.

ERICA: Wow.  Well, Martha Hawkins, we thank you so much.  I’m going to get down to Alabama –

MARTHA HAWKINS: You got to.

ERICA: – because I’m going to get some of that food.  And I just want to say personally the book really blessed me.

MARTHA HAWKINS: Thank you.

ERICA:            I mean, when I read it, I told you before, I felt like I can do anything and I just know our audience is going to feel the same way if they get an opportunity to get the book as well.  So thank you so much.

MARTHA HAWKINS:            Thank you.

SIMISOLA: Heidi, thank you so much for joining us on Turning Point.

HEIDI BAKER : Thank you, it’s good to be with you.

SIMISOLA: In 1995, God called you to Mozambique, and He called you to the broken and the poor, one of the poorest nations in the world. What struck me in your book, “Compelled by Love,” is you wrote here, “We came to some of the most grief-stricken, suffering people we could find in the world. A population that had suffered decades of war, disease and oppression. And we came to learn from them about the kingdom of God.” My question is, what did they teach you?

HEIDI BAKER : They taught me about desperation. They taught me about hunger, dependence, humility. I thought I knew something of the kingdom, years ago I was preaching to the multitudes and God spoke to me to stop and sit with the poor, and then stop and sit with the children. And the kingdom of God breaks forth for the poor and the kingdom breaks forth for the children. So there sitting in the dirt with the most broken people on the planet, I learned what it was to be poor in spirit.

SIMISOLA: And I know here you talk about children and how they are your and they teach you about the kingdom.

HEIDI BAKER : Yeah, just watching children who previously were dying, you know in a village or under a bridge, in a dumpster, wherever. And watching how they’re transformed by love, and then they start stopping for someone else.

One of my favorite stories is a little girl named Beatrice and she changed my life forever. This little girl was dying, she was raped, she had a deformed face, scabies, lice, bloated belly, the whole picture. And I looked at her and I just said, “Oh.” I saw beauty in her, and her eyes were bright red, like red from blood red, and there were flies stuck to them, and when I looked her in the eyes, “woaaah,” Jesus just looked right back at me. I saw Him. Whatsoever you do to the least of these my brothers, you do unto me.

And then I watched as God healed her and her face became shiny and bright and it took months. I mean she was in hospital, she was malnourished she was broken. But she stopped for the most desperate child on the base, the most desperate one. This little girl curled up in a ball in front of our bakery stairs, this little tiny girl, and she just held her. The same thing that we had done for her, she did for this little girl.

SIMISOLA: Wow. So it’s the revolution of love: you love one, they love another. That is so beautiful.

HEIDI BAKER : Yes, and it just multiplies. The gospel is simple. Will we be the hands of Jesus, each one of us? And Beatrice taught me how to love.

SIMISOLA: I know you take in children, everyone who comes. Like, you have over ten thousand in your care.

HEIDI BAKER : Yeah, hundreds and hundreds of them. I’m just one of the people working there but, yeah, hundreds of us take in broken, hungry dying children.

SIMISOLA: And tell us, I know I read where Jesus came to you in a dream or a vision where He said, “There’s always enough.”

HEIDI BAKER : Yeah.

SIMISOLA: Can you tell us about that?

HEIDI BAKER : That changed my life. Actually, I was very tired because  the government was in transition and we had 320 kids living with us in a children’s village that they had released to us, and suddenly we were just exhausted because there was so much turmoil. So I was on my face praying and the Lord Jesus came to me and He showed me a multitude and I knew I couldn’t count them, but hundreds of thousands. And I started screaming, “No, No!” Because I was already tired with 320. “NO!” And then He looked at me, those eyes of passion, you know, the eyes of Jesus when He looks at you, and these burning eyes of love. And He said, “I died that there would always be enough.”

And since that day we have said yes to every single child. We’ve taken every single child that’s alone or abandoned or broken. All of us, hundreds of us, we just said yes to all of them.

SIMISOLA: Wow.  Can you tell us, for people who want to touch the poor and the forgotten — where can they start?

HEIDI BAKER : I believe that it’s like the story of the Good Samaritan, the Lord wants each one of us to stop for the one. We’ve complicated the gospel, we’ve made it confusing and we want to just bless somebody else, or send a check but God is saying, “I want you to feel my heart, and I want you to look at one person every day, stop for them.  Let my compassion touch you.” That’s what the suffering is, to feel what God feels for a suffering life, for a broken child, for somebody under a bridge. Maybe someone who is wealthy wearing beautiful clothes, they may be somebody in disguise. But God has called us to be His hands and His feet and His eyes and His mouth. So we are called to stop for the one, every one of us, everyday.

< http://www.irismin.org/>

Angus: We bought a little piece of overgrown piece of bush. We literally felled it by hand, with hand axes. That’s the truth.

But this was not a job for just one man. Despite Apartheids efforts to keep the white and black races apart. Life put a friendship together that would last for the next thirty years. It was with the help of his friend and foreman, Simeon Bengu, that Angus turned 3,000 acres of wild African bush into a working farm.

Angus: There is nothing like hard times to draw people together of different cultures, different races, different creeds. When the fire is on, there is no time to play the fool. And you settle your differences and you get in there together.

Although Angus made a success of the farm, he knew something was missing from his life.

Angus: When I arrived in here in South Africa, I said, “I’ll show them.  I’ll do it again.”  And I did do it. But in the process it nearly cost me my life. And then on the 18th of February, 1979, in a little church here in Greytown. I went along to that church and I met Jesus Christ personally. Me, my wife and my children. And that was thirty years ago and my life has been completely transformed since then.

Despite the challenge of running a large farm, Angus still made time to study the Bible. He spent hours in what he calls his “green cathedral” reading and praying.

Angus: This is my agricultural handbook. This is the book that tells me when to plant maize and when to reap it, when to buy cattle and when to sell it. This is also the book that tells me to love my wife, not to antagonize my children, to respect my elders, to pay my workers a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. This is the book of life.

This lifestyle of prayer overflowed into the lives of those who worked on the farm.  And soon they began to see some amazing miracles. A corn crop, downed by hail, seemed to resurrect itself after three days. As fire ravaged his farm, Angus cried out to God and a rainstorm no one predicted doused the flames. And during a season of serious drought he planted and reaped a bumper potato harvest.

Angus: The powerful thing about a personal testimony is you can either believe me or you can disbelieve me, but you can’t argue because you weren’t there. And I’m telling you it happened, that’s why the farm’s still here.

Yet amidst all these miracles, Angus vividly remembers the day his world was severely tested. The day a tractor accident claimed the life of his brother’s son.

Angus: That was probably about the most tragic moment, single moment I’ve ever had in my life. If I hadn’t been a Christian then, I would have either died an alcoholic or drug addict, or maybe committed suicide. And the devil was telling me, “You killed your brother’s son.” And Jesus was saying, “Angus, I’m sovereign.” I’m talking about somebody that was with me in the middle of the night when my wife was exhausted and she couldn’t keep awake anymore and my family was sleeping, I was wide awake. Jesus Christ became a friend to me that sticks closer than any brother.

During this season of restoration, God reminded Angus of His promises in the past and seeds of hope, faith and vision were planted for the future.

In obedience Angus bought and modeled a bright yellow four wheel drive truck. He named the truck the Seedsower and with his vehicle loaded with Bibles and Christian literature, he would continue doing what God had called him to do: to preach the gospel and share his story of faith and obedience.

Angus: People come to me and they say, “We want you to pray for us for more faith.” I say, “You want more faith? I’ll introduce you to the school of sorrows. That’s where you get faith from.” It does not come from naming it and claiming it. It comes from walking the Calvary Road. And that is exactly what I’ve done.

Even in small villages, huge crowds gather with dramatic healings and salvations accompanying the preaching of God’s word.

Angus: The Lord says, “Don’t say there are four months and then the harvest. But lift up your eyes and look, the fields are white unto harvest, and the workers are few.

Back at Shalon farm, he and Jill created a home for children orphaned by AIDS. He started simply, by moving some buildings the government was tearing down. Whether it is preaching to his own workers, travelling in the Seedsower or providing a home for orphans, Angus says his first priority is following the will of God.

Angus: You see, when you obey God, then God moves. When you do your own thing, God says, “You carry on with it.”

More than 30 years have passed since the day Angus was saved, and despite trials and family tragedies, he has come out with a greater love for God.

Angus: Jesus called me by name and it is my love affair with the Lord, and I am getting emotional when I say this, which draws me to keep on doing what I’m doing.

Apart from the travelling and preaching, Angus remains first and foremost a family man, a farmer, a man of the soil, a man of faith.

Angus: And in Zulu, we have a word, it goes like this, it says, “Normacanjan,” which translated means, “Come what may.” I preach the gospel come what may. If nobody gets converted or if everybody gets converted, I’m still preaching the gospel and that’s what gets me up in the morning. And by the grace of God, and only the grace of God, that’s what is going to help me finish race.

All: Thank you.

Simisola: My first question is for you, Faith. I know that you are a doctor of clinical psychology. Africa, it’s so rich in resources but so many people are living in poverty.  In your opinion, do you think it’s an economic problem or spiritual?

Dr. Faith Chilongo: Yeah, I think that it’s both.  I don’t think we can really separate the two.  In terms of my work and the things that I hope to see in Africa, I think it really comes from a spiritual perspective.  I really believe that there’s such a great inheritance in Africa and that God has such a great plan for the whole continent and I think that’s why we’ve seen such a devastation from the beginning of time.

I think us understanding the reasons why we’re seeing the corruption or why we’re seeing the poverty, is going to be really important.  So, I would love it, even as a people, if we really just encouraged each other to understand our history and understand the prophetic significance to some of the things that have occurred.

And so, I think it’s both.  We really have to look at the economics, but first we really need to look at the history of why we’re here.

Simisola:  So does anyone else have thoughts about that?  How do we move forward from poverty and what are the solutions?

Billy Ekofo:    You know,  coming from the film background, a friend of mine, his name is Mike, told me that proper planning prevents poor production, the 5 P’s.  And I think a lot of that is that we don’t plan well.  In other words, we have this great vision to help our country, to come up with all kinds of plans to implement, but we don’t have any accountability.

And I think that also speaks about the spiritual, you know, that we’re not accountable to God in the first place, therefore we don’t want to be accountable to anybody else.  So, you know, we go through great length about making all these, you know, plans and we have nobody to make sure that the money goes where it’s supposed to go, that the projects get done, so in the end, you end up with again, the powers having all the resources and the people keep dying from hunger or, you know, just being destitute.

Simisola: Now, Kwabena, I know that you’re studying international politics.

Kwabena Asamoah:      Yes.

Simisola: Can you speak to a young person who maybe they see this situation, the economic difficulty, the poverty,  can you speak to them?  Where should they put their hope?

Kwabena Asamoah:            Well, I would say first of all we know that the Bible says in Matthew that with God all things are possible.  And, a lot of the problems that young people face as far as unemployment in Africa is a consequence of our aid-dependent development model.  So that’s a problem.  However, practically speaking, what can a young person do?  I would always say, we need to look back at some of our indigenous structures that allowed our societies to properly function.

If our grandparents and great grandparents were able to prosper way back in the day with certain basic cottage or agricultural base industries, we need to go back to some of that.  It would be great for us to be able to walk into downtown Accra, apply for a job at the Google office, but that doesn’t exist.  And the reality is we need to look back at some of the indigenous structures that allowed us to properly function and go back to maybe some of those cottage industries that don’t require a lot of investment, but still allow for economic progress.

Simisola: That’s good.  For an aspiring doctor or lawyer or professor, Njiba, I want to ask you because I know you’re studying pre-medicine.

Njiba Kasonga: Right.

Simisola: What should other young people do if they want to be a doctor as well?

Njiba Kasonga: Just kind of going back to what he was saying, to go back to the basics, I think we need to apply the knowledge that we have and try to see what works for us.  You can’t be, for example, living in a village and you’re, like, “Oh, today, I’m going to make up this internet world,” when you know you don’t have electricity.  You know.  So the first step would be starting to work towards finding electricity, then go to the internet.

And so if you’re studying medicine, you can use some of the basics that you know, like, okay, trying to go the villages and talking to people, this is what you need to do to be healthy.  And with that, if you work with other students, for example, bringing your ideas together and trying to start something, it would, I think it would definitely grow.  Starting small, it will always lead to something bigger.

Simisola: Start small.  That’s good.   Funmi, I want to ask you; we start small, with small solutions, but , Bono, he’s a famous musician, he said that our generation could be remembered as the first generation to eradicate extreme poverty.  Do you think among Africans this is possible?

Funmi Akinyele: Absolutely.  I think Africans, in general, are some of the most creative and innovative people in the world because of the limitations that we have, and because of that, I think, just like Njiba was saying, in terms of coming together, bringing ideas together, starting small and building together, planning strategically and implementing that plan.  I think that’s going to be very important.  And accountability, just like Billy was saying earlier.

Simisola: Yes.  Well, thank you guys. You’ve brought up some excellent points.

STORMIE OMARTIAN: Yes, yes.

HOLLY: What are some of the most dangerous, a few of the most dangerous traps, and how can they be avoided?

STORMIE OMARTIAN:              Well, the most dangerous and the most common of all is a lack of communication.  It is so important in a marriage.  When people cannot communicate, they begin to feel trapped, or helpless or hopeless.  And one of the other ones is sexual pollution.  And by that I mean the stuff that’s just everywhere.  Because it’s on TV, it’s on billboards, it’s in magazines, it’s just everywhere, and our minds become polluted with it, so that it really messes up our relationship with our spouse, because you have these images always floating through your mind, or you have, conceived ideas in your mind about the way you think things should be.  And it messes up what God wants to do in a relationship.  Things like that are so important.

And just a lack of forgiveness, always being able to forgive.  And I think one of the most important things is having a heart that is willing to say, “I’m not perfect.  You know, so I’m not going to sit in judgment on my spouse.  I’m going to work on me, I’m going to work on my relationship with God, becoming a better person because through the power of the Holy Spirit and not always sitting in judgment on the other person, being willing to pray for the other person to become more like the Lord.

HOLLY: Now let me ask you about that.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:            Yeah.

HOLLY: How do you actually pray through those areas?  Some of the areas you just mentioned, communication, sexual pollution, how do you pray for those areas?

STORMIE OMARTIAN:            Right, exactly.  Well, recognizing that they are there, first of all, and saying, “God, help us to communicate, God.  Help us to open up and talk to one another, and really hear one another’s hearts and not just talk at each other or not, God, please, let there not be a misfire in a relationship, where you – one person says one thing and one person says another, and you’re hearing different things, you know.  And it’s like the enemy comes in and tries to stir up your relationship and cause you to mis-communicate, and being able to pray, “Lord, be Lord over this relationship.  Don’t let the enemy come in and try to confuse us with  what we think we heard.”

And also with the forgiveness thing, “God, help me to have a forgiving heart.  Help me not to sit in judgment on my spouse.  Help me to have a repentant heart, which means that I’m willing to see anything that is my fault in this.  Any place where I’m not perfect.  Help me to see that and not always look at the flaws in my spouse.”

It’s really such an important thing.   And the Holy Spirit can help us do that.

HOLLY: I think that was one interesting point you brought up in your book.  You talk about being willing, having a willingness to repent.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:  Yes, yes.

HOLLY: Now there are probably people watching who are saying, “Repent for what?”

STORMIE OMARTIAN: For what, exactly.

HOLLY: You know, I haven’t done anything wrong.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:  Exactly.

HOLLY: Why am I going to repent?  Why is that so important?

STORMIE OMARTIAN: Right, it’s so important, and I was always saying the same thing, why should I repent, it’s him, you know, he’s the problem.  Why should I repent?

But we all need to be repentant in our heart, meaning that we all need to become more like Him, so we all need to change.  And we all need to say, “Okay, God, show me where I’m not doing things perfectly.  Show me where I’m not right, where I’ve said something wrong, where I have a wrong attitude, or I have something in my heart that’s not right.  Show me, Lord, because I want to repent of it, and because I want to move on and become more like you, Lord.”

You know, so it’s just having that kind of heart.  And being repentant doesn’t mean that you’ve murdered someone or you’ve robbed a liquor store or something.  It just – it means that you’re not perfect.

HOLLY: This is the tough question.  There are extreme cases, let’s see, say where there is infidelity.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:  Yes.

HOLLY: — or repeated infidelity, or consistent abuse.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:  Right, right.

HOLLY: Is there ever a point where it’s okay to say, “You know, I’m through, I’m done, I don’t want to pray any more, I’m not going to pray any more.  I just want to get out.” Is there a point when you can actually say that?

STORMIE OMARTIAN:  Well, there’s a point when you can get out, absolutely.  I don’t know if you ever stop praying, but there’s a point where you get out.  If you’re in any kind of danger, and any kind of physical danger or even mental or emotional danger, where you feel like you’re being beat up in your emotions and in your mind– even if you’re not touched physically.  But any of those kind of cases, where you feel like your life is in danger, you have to get out and pray from afar.  You have to, I don’t recommend anyone staying in any kind of abusive relationship at all.  I don’t think it’s wise.  And I don’t think that’s what the Lord wants.  That’s not the kind of thing the Lord has for us, to be abused in any way.  And so, yes, absolutely to get out – and to continue to pray.  I mean, I would continue to pray for that person, the abuser to be taken over by the Holy Spirit and convicted of what he’s doing in his own spirit, and to see a turnaround in that person, but you can’t make somebody do something.  You can’t make them repentant; you can’t make them turn around.  Only the Holy Spirit can.  So that’s what you pray for, you pray for the Holy Spirit to work in that person’s life.  But you cannot put yourself in a situation where you are going to be endangered.  That’s not what the Lord has.

HOLLY: This is my last question for you.  We have a lot of single viewers, and so this question is for the singles.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:            Yes.

HOLLY: Many of them, especially Christian singles, believe, if I marry the right person, everything is going to be perfect.  I’m ready for marriage, you know, I just want to go into this thing.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:            Yeah.

HOLLY: What can they do right now, while there they are actually still single, to prepare themselves to prevent these 14 traps from destroying their marriages?

STORMIE OMARTIAN:  Well, a lot of people have gotten The Praying Wife, or The Praying Husband, or this book, and begun to pray these things for their future mate which I hadn’t even thought about doing that until all these young singles were doing that.  And I thought, that is a wonderful thing to do, to begin to pray for your future husband to be a godly. Say, for example, it’s a woman we’re talking about, and  their future husband will be a godly man.  That he would have a real sense of the Lord’s purpose in his life, that he would be blessed in his work, that he would have a clear mind, the kind of clear mind that God has for him.  All of these kind of things, you can begin to pray for your future mate in that way.  And it’s very powerful, because I’ve heard of so many women who started praying that way and then when they met their future mate, there were, there were answers to prayer because of that, and I’m sure it’s because they were praying.  So beginning to pray that way, you know, is great.

HOLLY:            Well, I’m encouraged.  And so I’m going to do the same thing.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:            Great, great.

HOLLY: Thank you so much for being with us.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:  You’re welcome.

HOLLY: You’re such an inspiration and I believe that our viewers have been inspired.  Thank you so much.

STORMIE OMARTIAN:   Oh, thank you.  It’s my pleasure, thank you.

Since I saw that story some 10 years ago, I’ve always wondered, did my great- great- -great grandmother or grandfather walk that very trail, or did their journey of tears begin somewhere else? I thought I would never know, until one day I heard of an organization called African Ancestry. Using the miracle of modern-day science, African Ancestry is able to genetically trace the African ancestral roots of Black Americans down to the exact location and people group.  So a couple of months ago, I ordered a test kit from African Ancestry and took a DNA test to trace my maternal linage.

I travelled to the African Ancestry Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland to meet with the co-founder and President, Gina Paige. As Gina and I got acquainted, I realized her passion is not only to help black Americans discover who they are, but also to encourage them to reach out to the continent of Africa.

Erica: Thank you so much for meeting with me to give me my personal results.  But before we get to that, what inspired you to start  African Ancestry?

Gina Paige: African Ancestry is really the culmination of a dream that my business partner, Dr. Rick Kittles, had.  He really just wanted to know where he was from. And once he was able to answer that question genetically, he focused on compiling a database of African lineages that would enable him to answer the question for himself, and ultimately we’ve now been able to do it for anyone who wants to know.

Erica: And so how did he go about, you know, collecting all of this information? Did he travel to each country?

Gina Paige: To collect the samples in our database, Dr. Kittles collaborated with researchers all over the continent of Africa to actually get DNA from indigenous Africans.  He also consulted with historians and anthropologists and linguists to make sure that he was sampling populations that contributed to the transatlantic slave trade.

Erica : Wow.  And so what is your hope for this company?

Gina Paige: Well, you know, our mission at African Ancestry is to transform the way people view themselves and the way they view Africa. And we want them to feel good about who they are and feel connected to a past, but also to become involved, to lobby, to educate, to invest, to give back to the continent because we are part of Africa’s brain trust.

Erica: Well, one thing I definitely came here for was to find out where I’m from. And I have to tell you, before you tell me the results, I have a feeling, and I said this on tape, that I believe I’m from Ghana.  I have no reason, it’s just in my heart, so I just want to know am I right or am I wrong. (LAUGHS)

Gina Paige: Well, let me tell you that we only looked at one branch of your family tree, so we looked at your mother’s- mother’s -mother’s line, and we didn’t find it in Ghana, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have any Ghanaian ancestry.  We’ll have to look at some of those other branches. We found your ancestry among the Balante people living in Guinea-Bissau today.

Erica:  Oh.

Gina Paige: And it’s really quite interesting because the word Balante stands for “those who resist.” So I don’t know if there’s any  of that in your personality, Erica.

Erica:  Just a little bit. No, you know, it’s funny because my grandmother, my great grandmother, my cousins, all of the females are very strong-willed. I’ll put it that way, strong-willed.  And so why do they call them “those who resist?”

Gina Paige: Well, they were very resistant to slavery, and it’s a very small country today, one of the first to be colonized by the Portuguese.  And the Portuguese had a very difficult time moving in because the people were so resistant.  And so that’s how they got that name, “those who resist.”

Erica Linney:  Wow, I’m from Guinea-Bassau.  I’ll have to go visit, because I never heard of Guinea-Bassau.

Gina Paige: I think that you represent a perfect example of why this work is so important because most of us don’t know any of the African countries.  And so you didn’t know Guinea-Bissau even existed, and now your horizon has been broadened. It just gives you a much broader sense of the continent of Africa and your place on that continent as a global citizen.

Erica Linney:  Yes, it does. I think for me, the big thing that really helps is, not that I’m not a difficult person, but I know at times I can be resistant to certain things when I know that it’s not right.  So, at least I know that is just in me and so I understand it and so now I won’t resist being resistant anymore. But, thank you so much.  I really appreciate it.

Gina Paige:  It was our pleasure.  I’m excited that you’re a part of the African Ancestry family now.

Erica:   Yes, woo-hoo.