John Elliott and Luella May Welcome You to the Twentieth Edition of
Women of Courage
Each week we will honor a woman that has truly made a difference by her
contributions, courage, love, and selflessness. Women honored will be chosen from inside AdlandPro, outside AdlandPro, living in the present, and yes, we will not forget those heroines that paved the way for the freedoms we now enjoy. We will honor women who have shown tremendous courage and fortitude against all odds.
Assisting us in coordinating these awards are four outstanding ladies who are Women of Courage in their own right.
Presenting:
Carla Cash
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/245569/default.aspx
Veronica Davidson
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/vdavidson1972/default.aspx
Joyce Hyde
http://community.adlandpro.com/go/031849/default.aspx
Pauline Raina http://community.adlandpro.com/go/301079/default.aspx
Aparna Ganguli http://community.adlandpro.com/go/blukiwi/default.aspx
Our Sweethearts of Courage
Shirley Caron http://community.adlandpro.com/go/scaronpoet2005/default.aspx
Michael Caron http://community.adlandpro.com/go/192260/default.aspx
And Adlands very own man of Courage
John Partington http://community.adlandpro.com/go/114695/default.aspx
WE PRESENT TO YOU OUR TWENTIETH
WOMAN OF COURAGE
Geketa Holman
Thank you Pauline Raina for nominating Geketa. In spite of your not having a computer readily available, I want to thank you for your hard work.
And Thank you Carla Cash for jumping in and making sure that Geketa was the Woman of Courage for this week.
It gives me great pleasure to write about this very persevering and enterprising friend of mine, Geketa Holman .
Geketa was born on May 6th 1954 in Cincinnati, Ohio to a very young mother, who in turn gave her to her mom to take care of, as she could not cope. Geketa says she is proud to be born on the same day that her Jewish state of Iseal gained independence.
When Geketa's grandpa died, her grandma moved to Kentucky, and Geketa got to go to elementary school there which she loved. However, in 1964 Geketa found herself being adopted by her Uncle and Aunt, who had no children of their own. So finally Geketa had a stable home and family of her own. They went to live in Georgia. Geketa found herself doing all the normal things a young girl of her age would do, going to school, having friends, and then finally at the age of 15 the dating began.
Very soon she found herself pregnant with her first daughter, had to put her life on hold, have her baby, and then resume studies one year later. Now with only a high school education and a 2 yr old, to take care of, life was becoming tough. She worked all kinds of jobs to make ends meet. But being a Go-getter as she is, that was not enough for her. So she packed her bags and left town with her daughter, and returned to her Grandma's place in Kentucky. Once there, she worked nights and attended business school by day. On completion, she got herself a regular job at the court house at Downtown Cincinnati. However that did not last long and she went on to attend University in northern Kentucky, and thoroughly enjoyed it there, but with hanging out with the wrong type of friends, got into drugs and stuff. Life started to become a mess. Geketa's minor at college was Theater, and she had high ambitions for herself and visioned herself to be famous one day.
With the visit of Jackson Browne to her college one summer, Geketa's life took a new turn. She was asked to join the group, and for the next 5 yrs Geketa had a job at his company called Clear Lite, and worked with various bands like The Cars,( they opened for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) Boston, Fleetwood Mac , Heart and the list goes on she says. Geketa never got to go back to University to complete her studies. But she liked doing what she was doing and that was traveling. But the inconsistency of work and income made Geketa reevaluate her situation, and she made a choice to give it all up for a regular job and life for her daughter and herself.
Finding herself in Houston Texas, and still messing around with drugs, Geketa found herself a regular job at a construction company as an analyst and the pay was good. But due to her addiction, she found herself broke most of the time.
It was in the year of 1979 that she met a nice gentleman, who told her about 'JESUS' Geketa admits to not being religious, and having any faith at all in spite of her Jewish heritage. In other words, G-d was far from her life ! But in Feb; 1979, it all changed. As she gave her life to Jesus, and started to believe in who HE was, her own life started to change drastically, she overcame her addiction, got cleaned up and met a nice Christian man [or so she thought]' and was married in 1980. They formed a new company together and started to make lots of money, and went on to have 2 lovely daughters. But all that happiness was short lived, for just after the birth of her 2nd daughter, her husband started the physical and mental abuse…the more Geketa tried hard to make it work the worse it got….so she moved to Freeport, and got herself a divorce. Working as manager for a big chain pizza outlet, life was stable for a while till she met with a nasty accident, which left her unable to work, so she found herself packing once again and moving back to Kentucky .
Once there, she met her present husband and went on to have 4 wonderful sons with him, whom she home schools, they all live in a farm at Owenton, Kentucky surrounded by 132 acres of forest land. Geketas life is still one process of growing, but for now she is happy to be living one day at a time. She enjoys the time spent with her sons, and their activity in the Messianic Congregation, Lexington, where Geketa is a member of their prayer team , and dance troupe. She started her online biz; as a referral travel agent, and now has www.Holmanworldwidetravels.com.
Behavior modification has worked for her. Geketa says that there were many times where she had to deal with loneliness and many bouts with depression, anxiety and panic attacks.She once spent 2 years in the house without leaving. Until 1999 when she found a program that re- teaches cognitive behavior, she had taked every drug on the market till this time none or them worked for her. She retakes this program at least once a year to keep away from any bad habits from coming back. she says she might have come from a dysfunctional family, but that does not mean she has to be dysfunctional. She honestly believes anyone can over come any problem they have, if they learn to eat it like an elephant, one bite at a time, and live one day at a time.
Now do you see why we like to honor Geketa to be our Woman of Courage, because it does take a lot of courage to try to live right, do the right things and want the right things in life. It's a hard battle to be fought in the world we live in presently. So I salute you Geketa for growing to be who you are and staying strong in your faith. You are greatly loved.
Written By Pauline Raina