IT'S TIME!! FOR THE BEST FORUM THAT HONORS MEMBERS OF THE ADLANDPRO COMMUNITY!!!
WELCOME TO **ADLAND'S WEEKLY PARADE OF STARS** # 35
Hosted by Sparkle Tags
This forum is fun, exciting, and is a much needed addition to the AdlandPro community because we are featuring many great and caring people that may otherwise go unnoticed. That is why our forum is a little different than other ones here at Adland that honor members of our community
Our forum features a member of the AdlandPro community each week who is truly a bright and *SHINING STAR*. It is a person that may not necessarily be a "high-profile" person per say, but rather someone that is not only a great friend to many, but also has a good heart and truly cares about others.
********************************************
Let me introduce the most awesome group of team mates anyone could ever have! Not only are they my very good friends, but I also have the pleasure of working with them to bring this forum to all of you, each and every week;
DEBORAH SKOVRON http://community.adlandpro.com/go/debskovron/default.aspx
DONNA S. http://community.adlandpro.com/go/rainbow123/default.aspx
ADEBOLA ONI http://community.adlandpro.com/go/bolaoneal/default.aspx
MOHAMED GANI http://community.adlandpro.com/go/Gani/default.aspx
GEORGIOS PARASKEVOPOULOS http://community.adlandpro.com/go/Genesis/default.aspx
DR. VENERINA CONTI http://community.adlandpro.com/go/venerina1/default.aspx
KENNETH SWORD http://community.adlandpro.com/go/sword2drum/Default.aspx
and myself;
MARILYN L. ALI
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/259882/default.aspx
********************************************
Here are the qualifications that will be used in the selection of each honoree. People that are selected will be recognized based on:
1. Acts of kindness that they show to their fellow man.
2. Must be willing to help others, and treat people in a kindly manner.
3. Have a good-hearted nature, and shows it through all that they do.
4. Must be a positive role model, and set a good example
5. Must be professional, avoids negativity, and promotes success through faith and hard work
So, if you know of anyone here at AdlandPro that are not necessarily "high profile" people per say, and that don't get the recognition that they deserve, let us know. We will be helping to get people recognized that should be *A SHINING STAR. All nominations must be in by Saturday and you please tell us why you believe the person deserves to be recognized.
Please send NOMINATIONS to one the following links;
MARILYN http://community.adlandpro.com/go/259882/Default.aspx
DONNA http://community.adlandpro.com/go/rainbow123/default.aspx
When you get to one of our profiles, click on "Send Me A Message" and then send us the name of the person you want to nominate!
********************************************
NOW IT'S TIME TO FIND OUT WHO IS GOING TO BE OUR NEXT *SHINING STAR*
Hosted by Sparkle Tags
INTRODUCING TO YOU OUR 35TH **SHINING STAR**: MS FELICIA HARRIS
Felicia is a beautiful person, inside and out, and she will help anyone! She has well over 6,000 friends here on her friend's list, and she works very hard with her Network Marketing businesses! She is a delightful person to know. Please help us honor this beautiful lady! :)
*******************************************
Here is what some of FELICIA'S friend's are saying about her;
"She seems to be very intelligent and has many different interests. I am proud to be her friend."
"Felicia, I am proud to have you as one of my friends as there are very few young ladies or men today that know the Lord and you have taken the steps even futher. I praise you for it and you will be rewarded"
"Felicia is a very nice and wholesome person. I'm happy to be on her friends list!"
"I think Felicia is great! I am happy to be her friend!"
"Felicia is a very lovely lady, and I am honored to have her as a friend!"
"Felicia... since I first saw her here I noticed what a great smile she has! She is a beautiful lady and friend!"
******************************************
The meaning of the name FELICIA;
The name Felicia is the feminine form of Felix which is a Roman cognomen meaning "lucky, successful" in Latin
To learn more about the name FELICIA please visit Georgios' forum;
http://community.adlandpro.com/forums/thread/433353.aspx
*********************************************
Here is FELICIA'S bio;
As I promised here is Felicia's bio, and I said it would be a good one didn't I? well, wait until you read her bio!!! WOW, is all I can say...what a fantastic lady she is!!
Being asked to write a bio really caught me by surprise. In some aspects in terms of some dreams and visions it seems like my life hasn't begun yet. On the other hand looking at some precious dreams that I had to release and accept their death, it makes it a bio I'm really not willing to write yet. But I was asked, so here it goes!
I was born in Dayton, Ohio and moved to Indiana before nursery school. So I consider myself a Hoosier (just NOT an IU Hoosier). But I have Ohio roots. My Dad was born in Columbus, my Mom was born in Nashville but graduated from high school in Springfield, Ohio. Many happy times were spent going to visit my Grandmother, PaPa and my Aunt who I really loved who was just a few years older than myself. My Uncle was fun as well but sometimes teased to the near point of torture, but when he smiled you kinda had to forgive him.
No matter how long I live the most important part of my life will be when I made the decision to give my heart to Jesus and accept Him as my Savior. Because of a blessed Godly Mother, I can't remember a time when I wasn't aware of loving God and Jesus. Bible stories came alive for me as I read children's Bible stories with the wonderful pictures. My favorite was the library of books, I think it was 10-15 volumes, the blue background ones that you still see sometimes in a dentist office. They were wonderfully illustrated with great pictures. My grandmother had the entire series and I read every single page while I was young.
It's going to sound funny I guess, but I remember being 8 years old and deciding that I wanted to give my heart to Jesus when I was turned 9 as birthday present to Jesus. By the time I did have my 9th birthday my little brain had completely forgotten my plan. Sometime during my 9th year I remembered, oh yeah this is the year I was going to give my heart to Jesus. I stood up in church publicly proclaimed Jesus as my Savior and my life changed for ever. I remember one kid laughed at me afterwards and one kid gave me a stick of gum!
That Sunday was the happiest day of my life. I just felt so absolutely wonderful inside. My Mom had made the decision to become a Christian when she was pregnant with me because she didn't want to become a parent without God's help. That day I think I drove my poor Mom nuts because I kept on asking her over and over don't you wish you had gotten saved when you were young? LOL But I couldn't help it. I was just so amazed at how wonderful I felt.
I wanted to be baptized so my Pastor sat me down and talked to me to make sure I really understood what was going on. He was satisfied so I was baptized. Again the story gets a little weird. For some reason I thought from watching others that it was a quick dip so while I was under the water, I thought OK, it's been long enough. I started breathing again and discovered nope, I didn't quite wait long enough at all. So it wasn't a moving inspiration experience instead I came up choking rather than being inspired! LOL
The second most important decision in my life was choosing where to go to college. My Mom had been listening to Oral Roberts on the radio and she really wanted me to go to Oral Roberts University. Me, I wanted to go to Notre Dame. The crazy thing is I didn't even know it was a Catholic school, I knew absolutely nothing about it but they had attracted my attention because they were sometimes pretty good at football! LOL
Well Mom decided one summer we would go to visit ORU. (Oral Roberts) That was our family vacation that year. Well that pretty much decided it. I fell in love. What was not to love? The school looked so modern with the Prayer Tower looking some kind of sci fi building. The students were friendly and spoke to me and I could just see myself sitting in the Prayer Gardens beside the fountains.
My senior year in high school, I won a 4 year scholarship from Lincoln Life Insurance Company, for minorities going into business. It covered tuition, books, and travel costs. I could have gone anywhere that I was accepted into but I only applied one place, ORU. I was accepted so that was the end of that.
My ORU years were the best in my life so far. It was a well rounded time thanks to Oral's philosophy. He believed in developing spirit, soul (the mind) and body. The mind part was no major problem, attend classes, study, and I did OK there. I soaked up the spiritual, 2 chapel services a week, with an assortment of wonderful speakers and singers and many guest speakers and singers that came. The physical aspect of the body was a total challenge. Yikes! I had never been a runner and by my second semester I had to run 3 miles in under 33 minutes to pass. We also had to turn in a certain number of weekly aerobic points to stay fit and we were measured for body fat. Getting the areobic points was no problem because I had to practice running to pass that cotton picking 3 mile run at the end of every semester. But it got worse. I had to learn to swim. I wanted to draw the line there, I didn't see how being a fish was going to help anything. But Oral wasn't real flexible. I flunked swimming class 2 straight semesters. I had visions of not being able to graduate because of flunking out in swimming. But the 3rd time was the charm. I swam 3/4th the length of the Olympic pool, treaded water for several minutes and did some kind of crazy survival float thing for 5 minutes or longer.
Tulsa was a wonderful city to live in. It was like a Christian hub where speakers and singers would come and almost everything took place right on campus. Teaching conventions and music concerts made life rich, I had the best of everything. And there was always a caring soul around to pray with, laugh with or talk to.
I guess my fun memory of college was one night when our cafeteria had country western night. If we dressed like a cowboy we didn't have to go with the dress code that night. I don't now, maybe it's because I have Indian blood several generations back, but I've always been partial to Indians, there was no way I was dressing up like a cowboy. So my girlfriend who also had some Indian blood and I went into an art room. We painted ourselves like Indians on the warpath, braided our hair, adding some fake hair in there and went for it. You would think dressing up like fake Indians, eating in the school cafeteria would be enough for 2 young idiots. But it wasn't. Some country cowboy song came on loud and clear and I was ready to go on the war path in revolt. So at my suggestion we got up and did a war dance around the salad bars. I thought we were pretty good though. We didn't scalp anyone. We never have. Not yet anyway! LOL
I also got my love of reading from my Mom. I'd go to the library and try to read every book in my age reading section. I had read through the Bible several times by the time I graduated from high school. I remember seeing Gone With the Wind for the first time as a teenager and found it was from a huge book. I got to the library as quickly as possibly worried that with the recent movie showing that all the books would have been checked out. No worries! LOL That very thick book was still there. I checked it out and read every page. I can read anywhere, in a restaurant, store, plane. I can block out other noises and really concentrate.
I've loved music forever as well. (with the exception of country and hard rock metal which I can't stand! LOL) One of my favorite things is hearing a song that I love where I stop everything and lose myself in the song.
I sang my first solo in the 6th grade talent show I think. I'm not sure when I started writing songs. I just have a memory of walking on the play ground during recess in 5th or 6th grade. I remember asking my best friend at the time rather she wanted me to sing a song from the radio or one of my songs and she said one of my songs.
In 5th grade they tested our aptitude for instruments. I discovered I had no aptitude for wind instruments. (strange as long winded as I am) I started out on the cello. It was a major pain because of the size. In 6th grade I switched to the violin and didn't drop it until 11th grade when the orchestra needed a pianist. I also sang in the choir all 3 years in high school.
I discovered the piano because my Grandmother in Springfield had one. I taught myself to play using one of those books that teach you how to play. One day I came home to discover that my parents had gotten a piano. It was one of the happiest days in my life. I was running around the living room and I cried. I started taking piano lessons in 5th or 6th grade through 12th grade and at least one year at ORU. I had a good aptitude for it. When I was in junior high I accompanied our school choir one year and I played for the Orchestra my junior year. I entered several concerts and could play the songs were my fingers flew up and down the keys. In high school I was the pianist for the Easter Cantatas at our church.
I also loved to sing but I didn't take lessons until sometime after college. I was in a couple of school talent shows and a few contests. One year I did sing and accompany myself on the piano. When I was studying and practicing I was much better at piano than I ever was at singing, but for some reason my heart is with singing. I love playing the piano and losing myself in the music when I'm just doing it for myself. But there is something about singing a song to an audience, that can touch the heart in a way that the piano never could. Maybe it's because with singing and not being confined to a piano bench I can combine two loves at the same time, singing and acting. I like to sing songs that I can act out and be expressive with when I sing.
I guess it was in 6th grade that I discovered I loved to act. I tried out for the lead in our 5/6th grade class play and got the leading part and I suppose a ham was born! LOL I was in the drama club one year in college and I've been in several productions of the Gospel According to Scrooge and The Living Cross. I've played about everything from an angel, a heathen in Herod's court who was an assistant to the magician, Martha the friend of Jesus & sister of Lazarus and a crazy screaming woman in the mob who cried let His blood be on us and our children. The last time I was in a play was 2 years ago this fall. A Christian acting production company did a play screwball comedy from the 30's called You Can't Take It With You. I was cast as this eccentric, probably never successful actress who was a drunk drunk. The amazing thing is I have never had a sip of alcohol in my life. I've never even been around a drunk person. I don't know where it came from but I pretty naturally acted it out which was amazing and funny to me. I even got to sing a couple of times. (but I was "drunk" so I was doing it at totally inappropriate times and wasn't real good at it, it wasn't pretty) But I got to sing parts of two songs from the 30's. It was a blast.
I was still in school when it was apparent that I liked sales. I was the kid that rushed home from school so I could get to the neighbors first to sale them my school candy. I won first prize in 4th grade. It was a stuffed puppy and I don't even like stuffed animals. In 6th grade I was 3rd, in my entire school. That came with a money prize which I liked much better! Except of the fact that I look like my Mom I would have wondered if I was switched at birth. No one else in my family had a sales bone in their entire body!
In 5th or 6th grade I was reading a book where someone knew how to speak a second language that no one else understood. I thought that seemed pretty cool so when a high school student came to teach willing students French I took advantage of that. We French students enjoyed talking to each other in French. One time a class mate crossly told us to shut up and talk in English. Yep, I was correct, talking in another language that others can't understand is definitely fun!
In 7th grade I had to decide rather I wanted to continue in French or take up Spanish. I didn't know at the time that French was considered a beautiful language. I choose Spanish because I thought Senorita sounded prettier than Mademoiselle. LOL I had no idea that so many people around the world spoke Spanish.
I took 5 years of Spanish by the time I graduated from high school and had almost enough Spanish in college for a Spanish minor.
It gave me my most precious college memory. I went to Juarez, Mexico during one spring break and we stayed at an orphanage. Such beautiful children. I even wrote a couple of songs in Spanish and played on the piano and sang my new songs for the kids. When it came time to leave one darling little girl asked me in Spanish for something to remember me by. I knew I was losing it. I did lose it when one team member told me that a little 9 year old boy I had grown attached to was crying. That got me, I was sobbing, my cries echoing down the dusty street and hugging him. I told him in Spanish not to cry and that Jesus would be with him every day. If I had to pick one week to live over again, that is one I for sure would love to relive. It was a magical, wonderful week. One of those rare, special times that actually lives up to exceeds your expectations. That hasn't happened to me very often.
For some reason my heart is part Spanish, my Mom gave me a name that is pronounced Spanish (fa/lee/see/a) and some people have thought I looked part Hispanic.
I discovered a love of sports because my Dad who was a counselor at a high school would take me to the games with him. I have a distinct memory of sitting in the front seat, so excited about going to the basketball game. I look at all the other cars and felt sorry for them because they weren't going to the game! Now I like to follow the NFL, NBA, tennis, ice skating during the Olympics, and national/world championships, and college basketball during March madness. One of my pet peeves is that college football doesn't have a playoff.
My favorite sports moments is Magic winning his LA championships, Jordan winning his Chicago championships and all the special Reggie moments with the Pacers. My least favorite moment is paying $300 bucks to see up close and personal my Colts forget how to play offense or defense for 3 quarters and watching happy Steelers fans in the Hoosier Dome waving yellow towels. All Steelers fans who value their safety should keep their yellow towels a mile away from me for the next couple of years. Just kidding! (not really)
I'm not perfectly well rounded. I like to eat but not enough to want to spend hours in the kitchen cooking. There is always something I'd rather do. I use to spend hours helping PaPa do his mailing for his perfume business, now that was fun. Slaving in the kitchen with my Grandmother and Aunt - NOT fun! So you can guess which one I ended up doing to the dismay of Grandmother and my Aunt. But PaPa spoke up for me, I was a secretary, I wasn't suppose to be cooking he told them. (smart man, one great check mark for PaPa)
I've always loved to travel and sight see. I remember being a real little kid, maybe 4 or 5 and crying in the back seat of the car because we had to leave Niagara Falls. I wasn't crying like a bratty kid having a fit, my little heart was actually broken at having to leave. Mom told me we would go back and we did. Cross country trips across the US and out west were wonderful. The mountains and the Oceans all have their own special beauty. Historic places interest me as well, scenes from the Old West, George Washington's home, the theater where Lincoln was shot.
I've only been to the continental USA, Canada, the Caribbean and Mexico. Someday I would like to go to Hawaii, the Holy Land, Europe and other places. I like learning about other cultures, combining that with traveling is perfect.
When I graduated form college I had an accounting degree. Sometime during one of the summers of college it was birthed in my heart that I wanted to be in full-time ministry. I didn't know where to go with having an accounting degree. I enjoy working with numbers, but I knew that ministry was where my passion was. I had to pick a business major because of my scholarship. I applied for a job with Kenneth Copeland ministries, they didn't have a job opening for someone with my background so I took the job that was waiting for me back in Indiana with Lincoln Life.
I was so into having my little career I was quite excited about buying my little suits. After a few years the thrill was gone! I had stopped wearing the suits, (Years later I still haven't recovered. Wearing suits and panty hose is so not my thing) I was sick of the office politics and knew I didn't want to spend 48-50 weeks of the rest of my life in an office cubical.
By then I was a group insurance underwriter. It was the type of job where you never caught up and you're always behind. I tried everything, going in early, staying late. Working 6-7 days a week. Nothing worked there was always too much to do. You would half kill yourself to just to take your vacation knowing you were going to even more swamped and behind when you came back. Even worse it was the type of job that was boring because it was the same ol' same ol'. A boring job that you are always behind in is a very bad combination. There were several of us all the same age that hated our job and we all got out close to the same time.
I met a lot of nice people working at Lincoln, I pretty much got along with my supervisors, but I just could tell I was not created for this. I didn't want to spend my life doing something that really didn't matter. I wanted to do something that would really help people. So I ended up leaving Lincoln and eventually got a sales job working as a marketing representative for a pictorial directory company. I had a 14 county sales territory and before it was all done had driven way over 100,000 miles. My job was to contact churches, talk them into having a pictorial directory done and in going with my company. I also had to work with them to instruct them in how to get the program set up and organized and make sure I gave them the right number of days for their church and try to handle customer service problems!
It was my first sales job and was 100% commission. When things went great, it was fine, when things didn't go well it was quite horrible. It was my first experience of working from home and I loved being able to set my own schedule, and I lasted for awhile, more than double the amount of years that I lasted at Lincoln Life. But I just ran out of steam. I actually got tired of sales, of trying to book my days and I just ran dry and I lost the motivation to do what the job required.
I knew I was burnt out of the corporate world, and I for sure didn't want another sales job, so I tried finding a work from home job or business. I also tried insurance sales and actually got licensed twice, but somehow it just never worked out. Getting on the Internet for the first time in November of 2000 was an extradinary experience to say the least. I remember thinking this is great, now I've found new and creative ways to lose money online!
Somehow in the last couple of years things started to turn and I started learning to pick systems that worked and I started to make thousands working from home. I've learned the hard way what doesn't work for me, so now I'm trying to help others who are struggling the way I did for several years and show them some of the keys for success that I've found the hard way.
Having a career in the corporate world isn't where my heart is at. I do love working from home and working for myself but it's just a means to an end.
I still have dreams in my heart for ministry and some other dreams and desires that haven't been fulfilled yet. I'm waiting on God to see where my love for music, acting, writing and ministry will fit in, where exactly I fit in, and what doors God will open for me. I've heard wise ministers and teachers share about going through a waiting, lonely, wilderness, testing period that prepared them for what God had destined them for. That's where I am now. The waiting years. Years ago I went in a studio and had a demo tape made of 3 songs I had written. Working on that project was a wonderful experience. I've never done much of anything with the demo tape, but we also recorded several tapes with just the tracks so it allowed me to be able to sing my songs in public for the first time ever. But the last few years have been so crazy that I've been focusing on survival and I've gotten out of practice with the piano, Spanish and have neglected song writing and I haven't done much in the ministry area.
The last 2 years have really been unbelievable. The death of a beloved Mother, the death of my church due to a church split, and even the death of several marriages in my close family relations because they choose divorce. Due to death, divorces, and other circumstances I can't control, I've been cut off or separated from family members that I use to be close to. It hasn't been easy to put it mildly. And in the midst of it all I find this a very strange place to be in, adjusting to living in a world without my Mother. A few weeks ago my Dad told me that he's getting married again to a woman who is only one year older than me. Have I mentioned this before? At times life is very strange. It all just makes me miss my Mom that much more.
A few months after my Mom died a complete stranger came up to me and told me that God had told her to tell me that God hadn't forgotten about me, that even though I felt like I was on a shelf that I wasn't quite ready and that God was preparing me. I'm holding onto that.
I have a card that says, "Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark." That has to be my theme song right now.
I'm grateful that my bio is still being written. Someday when I bow before my King and Savior, it's my heart's desire to have it said of me that I fulfilled my destiny and because I lived on this earth that someone was helped, someone's life was changed because I lived. (I desire that so much that my eyes filled with tears as I wrote it)
I like to close my emails with the word soar. There was an Amy Grant song years ago.
"I'm going to fly.
No one knows where.
I'm going to fly.
Soar through the air.
Unafraid of being me, even if I am the only one who wants to fly."
I'm also reminded of the Bible verse that says those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength and mount up on wings of an eagle.
No matter how bad the storm, Eagles fly and soar above the storm, always seeing the sun.
My determined purpose is to know Him, forgetting the past and pressing on, soaring on His wings of love, beholding the face of the Son.
The only way to get there is to............
Soar,
Felicia
Touch your highest vision & make it part of who you are in every moment
*********************************************
Let's all Congratulate FELICIA on being named one of this week's *SHINING STARS* If you are not a friend of FELICIA'S please send her an invitation to become your friend today! Here is FELICIA'S link;
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/289175/default.aspx
We pray that everyone will continue to support and enjoy our forum! Please take the time to NOMINATE someone to become one of our *SHINING STARS*
Hosted by Sparkle Tags
HAVE A GREAT WEEK!
God Bless Everyone,
From *ADLAND'S WEEKLY PARADE OF STARS* TEAM!