(The old radio person in me always manages to rise to the occasion and offer opinions and comments, sometimes unsolicited, to a discussion. I almost babble but I quickly remind myself that in the presence of executive leadership, it’s better not to.)

I offered my suggestions and a certain look came over my face as I exited the conference room. Imagine a person squinting, their brow furrowed, their mouth slightly agape, their walk tentative. I get this look when my brain gears are set in motion. It’s often interpreted as a) anger, b) confusion, c) exasperation, d) impatience, e) all of the above. The look is none of these. It appears when my mind races at 80mph and the rest of me can’t keep up with my thoughts so my face freezes looking like a, b, c, or d.

Not mad/confused/exasperated/confused. Just thinking.

Willliam came up to me to probably rescue me from “my look” and offered some pretty sage advice on helping me get my brain gears shifted into creativity mode.

He said:

Why not invite a group of people to help you brainstorm and ideate? Just get their thoughts on how to move/promote a project. They don’t have to necessarily be part of the departments directly involved but just pick their brains and see what they think about the project.

Why did I not think about that? My morning show partner and I, together with our production assistant, used to do these kinds of sessions. Since we were in radio, marketing and promotions were second nature to us. (We came up with some pretty crazy stuff!) I’ve evolved into a Lone Ranger over the past decade, so I’ve learned to ideate with myself. The good is that I love most of my ideas; the bad is that I love most of my ideas.

I think I’ll implement my colleague’s suggestion. Not only will it help with my one-woman brainstorming sessions but it’s a great way to get more people involved outside of their boxes. The more quiet staff might actually enjoy being involved in something outside of their regular routines. Not that staring at spreadsheets or taking phone calls all day isn’t riveting. But you never know what gems lie beneath the exterior of a numbers-focused or customer-service oriented individual.

Do you have a group of people you bounce off ideas with? 

God is good and sees your situation. Take comfort. He knows.

“You are the God who sees me, ” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” Genesis 16:13

My @tumblr story was picked as one of their favorites! WHAAAT. http://t.co/M6cKhK03—
Kyera (@kyerabee) May 09, 2012

And to think I introduced her to Tumblr in May 2007. Yup, she will far exceed me in every way.

Grace came over to “confess” that she needed to get better at social and that she was trying to figure out the best strategy to go about creating a plan that wouldn’t seem like she was promoting herself.

It’s all I needed. The door was opened so I walked right in.

“In this day and age, you can’t afford to not talk about your ministry,” I began. “The power of sharing your story is in your hands. What better way for your partners, and potential partners, to get to know you more than by giving them snapshots of your day on Twitter and Facebook?”

Grace nodded, her eyes showing I made a little bit of sense to her. “But I’m uncomfortable with the idea that I’m talking about me and what I’ve done.”

“Think of it as you not talking about you, but about what God is doing in the lives of the students you’re reaching out to, how their stories are unfolding, and how you’re just the messenger.”

Grace nodded.

“In my honest opinion, I think if social networking were around two thousand years ago, we’d see all of Jesus’ disciples on Twitter and/or Facebook. They’d probably use hashtags and tweet things like, ‘Whoa. Amazed. #HeFedFiveThousand’ or ‘Peter walked on water! #Stoked’”

Grace smiled. “I need to think about it some more.”

#AriseDurham is trending!!! Yay, @thelmabowlen! http://t.co/VFiFJJlu—
Kyera (@kyerabee) March 24, 2012

It was fear of the future and the unknown that pushed me into a relationship with my Lord and Savior. The Gulf War had broken out, and I was deathly afraid of the future. I think becoming a parent made me fearful. “What kind of world would my daughter grow up in?” constantly raced through my mind and kept me up at night.

One Fateful Afternoon

One afternoon, my boss at the radio station I was working at called me into his office and asked me two questions that changed the course of the rest of my life — “If you were to die today, where do you think you would go?” and “If you were to stand at the gate of heaven and God were to ask you why He should let you into His heaven, what would you say?”.

We spent an entire afternoon with me asking my boss question after question about Jesus, the far from perfect born again friends I knew, and where I would spend eternity. Three hours later, I knew that salvation was something I needed and asked my boss in between tears, “Where do I sign on the dotted line?” I left the station that day with a silly grin on my face and a warm fuzzy feeling all over my body. I was loved truly, madly, deeply to the point of death by Someone who paid the price I never could, my fear of the big scary unknown future, gone.

That was almost twenty-one years ago, and it wasn’t my first encounter with a Jesus freak telling me I was a sinner who needed salvation. It was probably my fourth. Or quite possibly my twelfth, including the times when as a child I went to Sunday school at my dad’s Protestant church at Easter. I was seventeen when I clearly remember being told about Adam and Eve and the fall of man and God’s plan for redemption. Seventeen and afraid I was pregnant. I wasn’t so my revelation of salvation was only a temporary solution.

Surrounded by College Students

I got to travel to Raleigh-Durham to cover and attend Campus Harvest, our annual student conference. This year, Campus Harvest expanded to Austin and LA but Jay, our videographer, and I were only sent to the conference’s home base. It was my second time in Raleigh-Durham for Campus Harvest, and I must confess it’s my favorite Every Nation conference.

(I must’ve looked out of place sitting next to people half my age. I’m always told I don’t look like I’m in my forties but throw me in a group of college students, and they can tell I’m not one of them! Ego. Shot.)

My favorite part of Campus Harvest is worshiping God with the students. They have no hang ups and are unashamed to jump and dance. It’s refreshing. The one thing that kept coming to my mind over the two day conference was: more college students need to go to a Campus Harvest, even once.

I kept wondering if I had been to a Campus Harvest-like conference when I was in college, would I have dropped out pregnant at nineteen? Or would I have encountered a God who would have given me purpose beyond my sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle? Would I have surrendered my life to Jesus? Or would it be the first of several conferences that would bring me closer and closer to a revelation of God?

I’ll never know.

The one thing I do hope for is that more and more young adults will be statistics like me when faced with questions of where they will spend eternity. May I one day be an old lady in the rafters of King’s Park International Church, watching heaven touch earth and thousands of young lives at Campus Harvest who will know the answer to the question, “If you were to die today, where do you think you would go?”

I got an inquiry in my inbox through my About.me profile on how to get started in voiceover. The person wanted any tips I could give. As I was answering the email, I figured I’d turn it into a blog post!

I’ve had to eat a lot of humble pie when it comes to voiceover. It’s just an entirely different ballgame here in the US. Competition is stiff. And for someone who works a full-time job, it’s not a priority for me at the moment to start at the bottom of the rung. That being said, the following tips I came up with are all part of my experience and personal journey, which I love sharing.

Here are my tips in no particular order in case you’re trying to get started in voiceover.

Do I want to try and make it again? I honestly don’t know. It’s something I’ve laid down on God’s altar. It’s not a priority for me now because it will be a huge time commitment. Competition is serious here and at the level I was at in Manila, I would need to join the SAG-AFTRA and get an agent if I wanted to play in the big leagues regionally and nationally. Lofty dream, I know.

I do keep hoping though that I’ll meet someone who knows someone who knows someone who will like my demo on Voices.com and take a chance on me to do a local ad. Who knows?

Maybe I should pull a Ted Williams and stand on a corner with a sign.

Anyone else have tips to add to this list?

When our group of eight, known as Team Diggity, met for the first time the first week of March at Granger Community Church, we were strangers in a room who had one thing in common — we were all communications managers with titles like director and coordinator. Our job descriptions, similar; our organizations, different; our tenures, varied. The longest in his role, twelve years; the youngest, one month.

I thought it was a stretch when coaching facilitator and author of “Less Clutter. Less Noise.,” Kem, announced within our first fifteen minutes together that we “would become friends whether we liked it or not.” While my first impression was that I was in a room with competent, confident communicators, their turning into my friends didn’t feel likely. I thought we’d be acquaintances on Facebook and Twitter, and in our private Google site, at best.

My mind was radically changed over dinner our first night when Kem had us tell our stories where our faith journey began. We went from an entire day of finding out who we and our organizations were, to vulnerably talking about how and where our most intimate and eternity-shaping relationship began.

Because we have only two days together each coaching session over three months (March, April and May), our sessions are packed with speakers and discussions. We’ve gotten to read books and meet and question their authors, and we’ve gotten to hear about our victories and struggles — and the cast and characters that are part of our stories — at work. Think group therapy/counseling versus seminar/classroom. Kem facilitates the sessions versus teaches. She asks thought-provoking questions and we provide our insights.

We’ve been learning from each other versus learning exclusively from Kem. But it takes a Kem to adeptly facilitate our discussions. Her constant questions —”What do you think about this?” and “What I’m hearing is…. Would you agree?” — has made our coaching not about her, and all about us. We challenge each other; we inspire each other; we encourage each other. Kem drives our conversations as we discuss and answer questions, and discuss answers to questions.

The time flies over the two days that we’re together, and then suddenly we’re all on flights or car rides back to our homes and organizations, braver, smarter, and hopefully wiser from picking each other’s brains and hearts. We go back to our offices and sit at our desks with more clarity and courage to be better at what we do, staying tethered to each other’s thoughts and insights via our Team Diggity email correspondence as comrades and yes, friends.

May cannot get here fast enough with our final two days together.

Drove a 21' truck with a 15' trailer more than 800 miles, 650 of which in the rain, to Nashville. Exhausted, stoked, grateful, speechless.—
Thelma Bowlen (@thelmabowlen) April 03, 2009

The Grace and Mercy Nightmare

Now that enough time and space has elapsed since Orlando, I’m comfortable now candidly describing what life was really like for us in Florida. It was a nightmare. Yes, you read that right. It. Was. A. Nightmare.

A Grace-filled, Mercy-marked nightmare to be exact wherein the highs were high and the lows were low.

When I landed in September 2007, I had a job waiting for me at our DC church. I changed my mind and had to say no to the job because my priority was getting Kyera to the US. I ended up with my best friends Michael and Janet in Tallahassee and found part-time work doing housekeeping at Governor’s Square mall for a season. I ate lots of humble pie as I scrubbed toilets and cleaned tables at the food court. (Mean teenagers would spread ketchup all over the tables!)

Joey, the Club Concierge

A job interview in Orlando led me to reconnecting with an aunt and a season under her roof while I didn’t get the job I interviewed for and remained unemployed for four months. I cannot thank her enough! (I passed the time attending free classes at the Orlando Public Libraries where I got to brush up on everything from MS Excel to Photoshop.) I finally got a job as a club concierge at Loews Hotel the Royal Pacific Resort, followed by a promotion at a sister property and a subsequent demotion. (The staff of twenty-somethings hated me and made sure I knew it. They made my life hell. Humble pie, again.)

My aunt had remarried at this point so K and I had to find our own place to live. Thank God for Section 8 Housing! The downside though of living in financially-assisted apartments is the type of neighborhood where they’re typically located. Our humble abode was in the heart of Orlando’s infamous, always-in-the-news streets —  Americana Blvd, Texas Ave and Orange Blossom Trail (OBT, to locals.). I would pray hard on nights I worked the afternoon shift as I got off the bus past 11pm and walked alone on the dark streets where people were held up and even stabbed.

But there’s no safer place to be than in the center of God’s will, so I put my complete trust in Him each step I took along the two barely lit blocks I walked.

It was tough though. If not for Kyera getting part-time work, we would not have made it. Dollar Menu items at fast food chains became our staple, along with hotdogs and rice/bread for dinner every night when my hours at the hotel got reduced from forty to twenty-four per week. Our Filipino friends probably don’t realize how much we appreciated getting invited for dinner and being sent home with leftovers. It was such a huge treat for us!

One of our biggest highs which we’re profoundly grateful to my former boss, Edwin, for is getting Rocco. Our Yorkie brought us so much joy in the midst of our sadness and despair when we felt things would never change for us.

When police cars would show up at our apartment complex after shouting matches and the sound of flesh hitting flesh, we’d huddle together — Kyera, me, and Rocco — and pray that God would keep us safe by sending angels to stand guard outside our door.

It was Rocco who kept either of us company when one of us was out working. He rode in our Lumina perched on the armrest as Kyera drove me to work at 5:15am and acted as her three-pound bodyguard as she returned home and hurried back in the dark to our apartment. Rocco was our rock.

Thelma, the Communications Coordinator

And then Nashville happened. It was completely unexpected. Three years ago, out of the blue, my former boss sent me a message on Multiply to say that there might be an opening in Nashville for me. I detail that miracle in this post.

Re-reading that entry on my other blog reminded me of God’s faithfulness to me despite my whining and complaining and doubting. I’m in a job I’m madly in love with, in a city I’m happy to call home, in a home I never imagined I would own. I have no reason to gripe at all about anything ever again. But I still manage to. Sigh.

But like I said on “Exits and Entrances”:

We truly, never deserve the goodness He lavishes. Everything is icing on the cake of His Mercy.

What adventures has God got you on or brought you through?