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“My Gutsy Story” by Nikki Ah Wong

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Two bags and a yellow motorbike

 

At 49 years old, I was a manager in a non-profit organisation with a great salary, a company car, a phone and laptop. At 50, I became sort of motorbike riding gypsy, with no regular income. I spent the whole year travelling, exploring and living on an average of $100 a week.

It was a magical year.

I have always loved travelling and started at an early age.  When I was three years old, my parents left England for New Zealand, the land of clean, green pastures, rugged hills, and described in my childhood as the quarter acre, pavlova paradise.  I feel exceedingly fortunate to have grown up there.

I took holidays to Fiji, Singapore and England in my late teens. I got married in Samoa, and lived there for a year, sometimes staying in homes with no glass in the windows, no flushing toilet and a shower that was a hose attached to a tree branch.

Even when I had five sons, we managed a trip to Disneyland with a weekend In Hawaii and another week in Samoa.

I loved being a mother but my marriage was always hard work.

Finally, just before I turned fifty, and the second to youngest turned 18, I finally realised my marriage would never be any better and moved out into a flat of my own. I left my husband the house and children so he could continue his home based business. He repaid me by taking the youngest, who was almost 12, to Australia.

I love New Zealand and it surprised me to see so many of my friends and family move to Australia. I thought it was just a bigger New Zealand, with koalas, kangaroos, giant spiders and poisonous snakes.

I wanted to be closer to my youngest, so I decided to follow.

Before I could set a date to leave, an alcoholic I met online began to cause trouble for me. He called the police to report me missing and then sent hate letters to my employer. Soon after, I was made redundant from my well-paid job.

It seemed like the ideal time to go to Australia.

Luckily, I had also met a wonderful Australian man while online dating. He was my physical and moral support as I left New Zealand to follow my son.

I applied for a live in role at a health retreat but it was only two days before my flight that I received a call saying I could stay with them while they processed my application. The retreat was not what I expected and the job I applied for never materialised, but is set me up as an adventurer. Once I had made the leap, I decided to continue.

After the generous gift of a motorbike from my friend, I began to travel thousands of miles on my own up and down the east coast and mid-western highways. I took up scuba diving again after a thirty year hiatus and began hunting for geocaches*[1] in remote and diverse spots.

Nikki and her motorbike

To solve the problem of a place to live, I began to house sit. I moved into my first suburban home with one small bike bag and a backpack and began a new life. I stayed in 15 homes in one year. A dilapidated bungalow in the city, a recently constructed urban ghetto development, a Midwest country town, and several up market homes in inner city Brisbane, including one in a multi-million dollar gated community.

In between, I travelled and explored. I spent a night in a luxury High Rise overlooking the city and many more nights in a pub rooms that were no better than the back of a stock truck. I even slept in a friend’s car.

It has been a wild and adventurous ride and the adventure isn’t over yet.

I have plans to head to Greece, South America and Malta, the land of my birth. I want to visit Spain, Turkey and as many European countries as possible.

I expect to accompany my friend as he sails from New Zealand to Australia and one day I might try International Housesitting.

I have adopted the quote from the movie called Mr Magorium’s Emporium and now refer to myself as a wonder aficionado. While some people find the years when their children are grown are difficult, I love my new life.

I have written a book about my marvellous year and hope my story inspires others to take a chance on a dream and try something radically new, especially in their later years.

There is a whole wide wonderful world still waiting to be explored.

[1] Geocaching is explained in more detail in my book “Housesitting in Australia – Big Adventures on a Tiny Budget”.

 

 *****

Biography – Nikki Ah Wong

Author of  “Housesitting in Australia –Big Adventures on a Tiny Budget”.

Mr Magorium said it best. I am a wonder aficionado. I love life and adventure.

I am a life coach, mentor, house sitter, writer and lifelong learner. I am also a grandmother and the mother of six wonderful sons. I have been exploring the East Coast of Australia on my motorbike.

I am almost ready to release my new book called “Housesitting in Australia – Big Adventure on a Tiny Budget”. It is a story of my transformation from stay at home mother, to a motorbike-riding adventurer.  I am very happy and I want to share that happiness with others.

 *****

Thanks Nikki for this Gutsy change in your life and for sharing your adventures in Housesitting and traveling around Australia. I can think of several people who would love to start a new life, away from the “conventional” life, and this might inspire them.

Sonia

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To submit your own, “My Gutsy Story” you can find all the information, and our sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story” contest page. (NEW VIDEO)

REMEMBER TO VOTE:

Our first poll starts December 1st-December 14th to vote for your favorite “My Gutsy Story” of the month.

Thank you to those who have already submitted your “My Gutsy Story” to Gutsy Living. We  are saving them for future posts and have five sponsors for November. We shall be getting more exciting sponsors in the future.

Please leave your comments and questions for Nikki Ah Wong below, and please share her” My Gutsy Story” with others who need some motivation and inspiration.

“My Gutsy Story” by Jill Fales

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Jill Fales and her children

Remember the feeling of a field trip day at school?  A diversion from the routine in the classroom. A palpable excitement exuding from the students wiggling in line to board the broad steps of the school bus.

The permission slip was the linchpin to any field trip. I remember carefully placing the detached bottom portion with my mom’s signature in my backpack.  I did not want to be one of the poor misfortunates that the teachers warned us about – kids who did not have permission would be left behind to do school work in a class the grade below us.

In a sense, the adventure I am on right now – The Great American Field Trip began with the same first step.

Permission.

This year, the time had come. The kids were old enough. I signed on the proverbial dotted line and gave myself permission to toss aside the map society provides and instead follow my heart.

I began planning our departure for what I named The Great American Field Trip. Driving across America roadschooling our four kids.

This semester, I am the principal, the teacher, the librarian, the learner, the travel agent, the parent and the bus, err…minivan driver.

Think one room school house meets Around the World in 80 Days. OK, not literally the world, but 26 states. We have an eighth grader, fifth grader, fourth grader and first grader. Two girls, two boys. The Class Clown, the Organized Germaphobe, the Smashed Penny Collector, and the Teenager.

School on the Road is a bit different.  There is no front office. No school cafeteria, desks, textbooks, P.E. uniforms,  tardy slips, grades, or bells. Also absent – a safety net of predetermined standards and curriculum.

Every day is field trip day.

We left on August 26, 2011. As we pulled out of our driveway, in Costa Mesa, CA, and joined the drivers on the road I could not help think that many no doubt were headed to do some back to school shopping.

I felt like I was beginning a back to life spree.

More than halfway through our trip now, our GPA’s are soaring.  But just like many things on the road we have created our own definition of the now obsolete Grade Point Average.  In its stead, a Growth Perspective Achievement.

Growth happens when we expand our horizons, are forced to think in new ways. Growing also includes increased patience and empathy.

Perspective is tied to the realization that how we view our world is shaped by our experiences and environment.    Attempting to see the world through other’s lenses has been a corner stone of this trip. As we seek to answer the question, “What is an American?” We realize there are many correct answers.

Achievement encompasses setting goals and achieving them. Taking risks, both small and big.

Unlike the conventional system of grading, there is no quantitative way to measure our GPA.  There is no ceiling. At the end of the semester, I will not be able to reduce what we have learned to an average of numbers or scores.

We are learning what learning really is.

One cannot learn alone just as one cannot teach alone. I am a student just as much as my kids are. We have learned so much from the voices of the past. Those, who despite massive challenges, pursued the promise of a better life, a better country. Their innovation, creativity and perseverance have inspired us.  We stand on their shoulders.  We are visiting the places where they lived, stood, worked or bled. We are reading the words they wrote or spoke.

Some are famous like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Marin Luther King. But most are ordinary people. A soldier on a battlefield who cannot be identified before he is buried.  A Lakota woman, who in the face of losing her family, land, and way of life,  continues to teach her daughters how to weave baskets.

We have many living teachers who have enriched our GPAs. Wayd, our river rafting guide in Oregon. Matt, the Park Ranger who brought Gettysburg to life.  Dwight, the farmer in Iowa who taught us about corn and took us fishing.  The herd of bison in Yellowstone National Park, the majestic old growth redwood trees on the Northernmost tip of California. The World War II Veterans we met at the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C. Susan, who led us on a bike tour through the Tidewater lands in Maryland where Harriet Tubman was a Slave before escaping.

Books have been as important as fuel on this trip. Hannibal, Missouri was a highlight, boyhood home of Samuel Clemens. My kids’ memories of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will not be of cramming for a test. Instead, I hope they will remember listening to the audio book while driving through beautiful scenery of the Great Plains and Midwest.  They will remember pretending to paint Tom Sawyer’s fence in Hannibal and licking an ice cream on the banks of the mighty Mississippi. Like the river, Twain runs deep within them now.

Mark Twain once said:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”

He also said:

“Don’t let school interfere with your education”

I think these quotations speak directly to the heart of our adventure. I hope long after The Great American Field Trip is over, my kids have learned among many lessons, one of the most important: have the guts to give yourself permission to throw out conventional maps and trust your inner compass.

 *****

The Fales Children on

The Great American Field Trip

 Payton Fales

Janey Fales

Sally Fales

Wyatt Fales

Jill Fales may be recognized from one of her two weekly columns Mom’s Voice or as the under cover book reviewer, Paige Turner, in the Newport Beach Independent. Her writing has also appeared in Coast Kids Magazine,  The Coastal Real Estate Guide, and The Newport Mesa Daily Voice.  Jill is the mother of 4 children (ages 6-14). She earned B.S. degree in Human Development, a Masters degree in Special Education.   After leaving formal classroom teaching to stay home with her kids,  Jill began writing. She has hosted children’s book clubs for the last 6 years, and teaches Mommy and Me Sign Language classes. She enjoys traveling.  Prior trips have included Europe, Indonesia, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Honduras, and Belize.  Now she is combining her passions: motherhood, writing, travel, reading, and teaching, as she criss-crosses the country with her four kids on  “The Great American Field Trip”. Jill lives with her husband and their children in Costa Mesa, CA.
You can read about her Gutsy adventure on her blog: The Great American Field Trip.

 *****

Thanks Jill for this great adventure which will inspire so many of us to take the plunge. Your children are adorable and I truly believe you are giving a huge “gift” to your children: something they will treasure for life.

To submit your own, “My Gutsy Story” you can find all the information, and our sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story” contest page.

Our first poll starts December 1st-December 14th to vote for your favorite “My Gutsy Story” of the month.

Thank you to those who have already submitted your “My Gutsy Story” to Gutsy Living. We  are saving them for future posts and have five sponsors for November. We shall be getting more exciting sponsors in the future.

Please leave your comments and questions for Jill Fales below and please share her inspiring story.

 

 

 

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Skydiving at 80 and Rowing 3,107 miles.

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Who goes sky-diving on their 80th birthday?

Who rows the distance between Paris and New York in just over two years at 80?

Doris Walsh does and you know why?

Because after her loving husband of 59 years passed away, four years ago, Doris decided she could either:

  • Stay home and grieve
  • Do something Gutsy.

So Doris decided to start exercising and developed a passion for rowing.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Doris in her cozy home over a cup of freshly brewed coffee. When Doris greeted me, I thought I had the wrong address and glanced at the unit number, just to make sure.  This woman seemed too young and bouncy to be eighty. I kept comparing her to relatives and friends of mine in their eighties, and thought she must be hiding some secret that all of us need to hear about. (Her secret below.)

“Where would you like to sit?” she asked, pointing to three different locations in her clutter-free living area. I picked her dining room table and Doris placed a small dish of wafers, to go along with our coffee. I noticed her fuchsia polished nails matched her lipstick.

Her tidy home and toned body made me realize: this woman takes care of herself and is disciplined.

Doris Walsh was born on February 1st, 1931, in Rosemead, California. She married at 17, and had seven children in ten years. All of her adult children are between 52-62.  She now has 24 grandkids and 17 great grand children.

After some background questions about how many siblings she had, “six” and whether she had a happy childhood, “yes” I wanted to prove something that I truly believed. In order to become “gutsy” in life, you must have traveled as a child, and Doris proved me wrong. She said she was rather shy as a child and never moved around more than a 45-mile radius, her whole life. She does believe that being raised to be “independent” as a child and not “coddled,” is very important though.

Doris believes she has done three major Gutsy things in her life:

  • She went back to school and became an RN (registered nurse) at the age of 56 when she no longer had kids at home.
  • She went skydiving at 80.
  • She started rowing and set goals for herself. Her first goal was 2 million meters, which she reached, 3,107 miles and her next goal is to reach 3 million meters. So far she’s rowed 1,864 miles this year.

Doris rowing and listening to music

Doris says that rowing relaxes and takes away any stress. She listens to music and gets motivated when she hears her husband singing, “Some Enchanted Evening” their favorite song when he was alive.

She has become a rowing champion and was interviewed in the Orange County Register.

“I put on my music and just row away. Since I made my goal, I have cut back and now train 3-4 times a week for an hour. I walk here and back home as well. That’s about a mile.”

Doris has a secret: it’s called discipline and setting goals. She says, anytime she says she’s going to accomplish something, she sticks with it.

It’s obvious that Doris and her husband were deeply in love during the entire 59 years they were married. Her daughter showed up during our interview and said, “My parents were joined at the hip. They were the perfect example of soul-mates.”

Doris told me that Faith, is what gets her through everything in life. She knows that she will join her husband one day.

When I asked her what other Gutsy things she would like to do, she mentioned “Sky jumping.” She said it’s different from bungee jumping, which she refuses to do as it can detach your retina. Doris said there’s sky-jumping in New Zealand where you can jump from a tall building. I looked it up and think this might be what she wants to do next.

Plus, Doris wants to keep sky-diving on every single birthday. The problem is her daughters don’t want to.

Perhaps I should volunteer on Doris’ 81st birthday on February 1st 2012, as I’ve never tried.

The secret is: Setting goals, discipline and sticking with it, as well as exercising as you get older. This is how you can make your life exciting and Gutsy at any age. Doris Walsh is proof. I forgot to mention Doris also walks everywhere, even to the grocery store, and does yoga which explains her flexible, youthful stride.

What do you think? Have you met any older Gutsy people? If so, please share what you admire about them?

Don’t forget our weekly “My Gutsy Story” contest. Great sponsors and prizes. Please read guidelines and submit here.

“My Gutsy Story” by Lauri Kubuitsile

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Running is Not for Cowards

By

Lauri Kubuitsile

That day, I got in a stranger’s car and left-forever. It wasn’t a difficult move. In retrospect I guess it was dangerous, I guess some might have said it was reckless. But it was the choice that brought me here, to this point, to this life I have now. The journey started when I was 16. I was running away from home and it was the most important thing I’ve ever done.

Up to that age my life was divided into sections like an orange. There was the bit where my mother was out of the mental hospital and we lived with her. In that bit we lived on welfare and free school lunches, and when her dark days arrived, she kept us in the house with the windows closed and the doors locked until someone noticed and came and saved us.

There was the bit when we stayed with my father, a long distance truck driver who was gone all week, only home on the weekends. On the weekends he’d hire a babysitter. Sometimes she’d last a week or two, sometimes she’d disappear midweek and we’d have to see how to get through until Saturday when my father came back again.

And then there was the last bit. Maybe the most difficult bit. The bit where my father thought marrying one of the babysitters might solve the problem and instead threw us into a real-life fairy tale with the sticking-to-script wicked stepmother but no happily ever after at the end. My father started coughing in August and was dead by March. I realised quickly I needed to make a decision. I knew without a move, I would be sucked in and lost for ever. I wouldn’t let that happen. I had plans for my life.

So that morning I packed my schoolbag with what I could and got on the school bus, but I never went to school that day. I walked to the highway. I got a lift with a stranger, an old man who had to make a stop on the way to feed some cats. A man who asked me many questions about where I was going that I answered with lies he was able to smile about and accept. I got in his car and set off on the journey leading to my life. The one defined by me. I was tired of being the victim of circumstances I didn’t create. I was not born to be a victim.

I think running away gets a lot of bad press.  Don’t listen to all of the Oprah-speak about how you can’t run away from your problems. I’m proof that it’s a lie. You can. I ran and ran again -and here I am, thousands and thousands of miles away from where I started. I live in Botswana, in a quiet village, with my new family, the one created by me. I hesitate to say I’m happy because for me happiness is not a goal, it’s a by-product. A by-product of living your own life, the one specifically designed for you. In that sense, I did find happiness along the road to finding my purpose.

Running is gutsy too. Don’t accept the hype.

*****

Lauri Kubuitsile is an award winning, full time writer living in Botswana. Her short stories have been published on four continents and she has 14 published works of fiction, primarily for children.  She’s also written six textbooks, two television series and numerous radio scripts. She has twice won first place in Africa’s prize for children’s writing, The Golden Baobab. Most recently she was shortlisted for the 2011 Caine Prize. Her latest books are a YA book, Signed, Hopelessly in Love (Tafelberg, Aug 2011) and a romance novella, Mr Not Quite Good Enough (Sapphire Press, July 2011). She was born in the United States, but is a citizen of Botswana. She’s married with two teenage children. She blogs at Thoughts from Botswana 

*****

Thank you Lauri for sharing this very moving and “Gutsy” part of your life.

As you can see, each story is very different and “Gutsy” in its own way. We shall select one a week and feature it on Monday. Please comment, and the more comments a story receives, the more likely it is to be selected as the “winner” of the month.

At the end of each month, we shall run a poll so everyone can vote for their favorite “My Gutsy Story” of the month.

To submit your own, “My Gutsy Story” you can find all the information, and our sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story” contest page.

Thank you to those who have already submitted your “My Gutsy Story” to Gutsy Living. We  are saving them for future posts and have five sponsors for November. We shall be getting more exciting sponsors in the future.

Questions? Comments? Please share, and Lauri will check back to respond.

Interview with famous photographer Alissa Everett

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When I first read about world famous photographer, Alissa Everett,  in the August 2011 issue of Oprah magazine, I knew I had to interview her. She’s incredibly Gutsy, and decided to turn her passion into her job. Alissa is so busy traveling around the world, using her photography to tell the success stories that we need to hear about: women in Africa, and so many others.

Interview with Alissa Everett

I discovered you and your work through the August issue of the Oprah magazine and was fascinated by your story.

As someone who believes in taking risks in life, what fascinated me was how you gave up the idea of following the career path, (100 hour work weeks), getting a business degree and changed your course to follow your passion.

Sonia: Tell us briefly the process you went through between the time you decided to quit your job and the time you left on your backpacking trip. Was there one critical moment that made you decide to go for your passion? Which countries did you visit first and why? How old were you? Did you travel alone? Were you scared? What did your family and friends say? Any regrets or advice?

Alissa: There actually was a very clear moment.  I was looking through my business school acceptance package, looking for classes I wanted to take.  I remember seeing economics, statistics, calculus, flipping each page faster and faster thinking “I don’t want to take any of these.  What am I doing??”  I had achieved acceptance into a top five business school and was on my way, but on my way to a destination I knew I didn’t want.

I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do so I went traveling to give myself some time and space to figure things out.  I went to South East Asia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Burma and explored, sometimes with a friend, sometimes alone.  I took my camera and began photographing again, something I had neglected for several years.  During those travels I decided that I wanted to pursue my photography full time.

I was a little nervous at first, as this was my first big trip alone, but that quickly faded.  And my family was very supportive.

Sonia: You mentioned you wanted to be a National Geographic photographer as a kid. Did someone try to talk you out of following your passion? Did you ever stop taking pictures?

Alissa: No one talked me out of it, but no one really encouraged me either.  My parents are both professionals with graduate degrees and I really felt I needed to follow that same path.  The only time I stopped taking pictures was when I was in investment banking, too busy to do anything but my work.

Sonia: In 2003 you made a gut decision “to go where the news was happening.” What prompted this decision? Tell us where you went and why? What aspect intrigued you? Was there a moment were you feared for your life?

Alissa: I was in the Middle East in late 2002 and was sure that the United States was going to go to war in Iraq.  I also knew that the whole world would be watching and that if I managed to get in, someone would want to publish my photographs.  I went to cover the war to begin my career.

Sonia: Did your Peace Corps work in Senegal, West Africa, influence you in terms of your future career choice and your desire to return to Africa?

Alissa: Absolutely.  Africa has a way of getting under your skin and always calling you back.  After living in a village in Senegal for over two years, the United States felt like a foreign country and a part of me will always feel more at home in Africa.

Alissa Everett Photography

Sonia: You’ve done so many gutsy things in your life most people would be scared to do. What advice do you have for someone who wants to try something new but is stuck in their comfort zone?

Alissa: You don’t have to go to a war zone to get out of your comfort zone.  Most of us have small things every day that challenge and scare us.  My advice would only be to take those things head on. I make it a point to do anything that scares me even a little bit, for example, public speaking.  When I was a kid, I would stay home from school “sick” on the day I had to give a class presentation.  When O Magazine called and asked me to speak at their annual conference three weeks ago, I was terrified, I reverted to that shy kid, but accepted to conquer that fear and ended up speaking on a stage in front of 5,000 people.

Sonia: I am fascinated by how you want your photography to show us “the under-the-radar stories that have passion, hope, and optimism.” Most of us see only the atrocities on TV, so can you give us specific examples of your favorite up-beat stories in parts of the world like Darfur, or DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) that give us hope?

 

Alissa Everett Photography

Alissa: There are so many amazing stories – I wish the mainstream media would focus more on the positive happening in the world.  A great example, and only one of many, is from my last trip to the DRC. Care Through Action funded a safe house in an area of eastern DRC, along the Ugandan border, an area that is still today very volatile.  We also funded a rotating credit fund.  In this program, women receive an initial loan of $100 and repay $2 a month.  As they repay the loan, once the $100 is reached, the repaid sum rotates to a new woman entering the program.  The women were doing so well, they began paying back the loan plus interest, thus growing the initial sum of the fund.  Rather than distributing the profits amongst themselves, the women decided to take that money and pay for all of the orphans in their village to go to school.  Stories like those inspire me in my daily life and keep me motivated to help more women.  The women in these communities will take care of their own if we empower them to do so.

CTA teaching women to read and write

Sonia: What prompted you to start “Care Through Action”? Who is involved? I read that you focus on helping women with loans that they repay. They are taught skills such as sewing, basket weaving and baking bread. How easy is it for them to make money through selling their goods? Are they protected from all the atrocities we hear about like rape? Does CTA (Care Through Action) help them learn how to read and write? What about the children?

Alissa: Care Through Action was born in 2007 in response to my work in Darfur.  I began exhibiting my work to show a different side to the tragedy, to show the strength and the dignity of the refugees, rather than focusing on their suffering.  I felt a great responsibility to help the refugees in the camps I had been photographing, as well as a responsibility to those who viewed my work to provide them a way to help.

Thus, with Care Through Action, we can discuss difficult subject while finding hope in a solution.  Our mission is to inspire involvement and action – providing donors specific projects to fund that make a difference in people’s lives.

Women learning how to grow their own food

We are currently working in the DRC with survivors of sexual violence.  The biggest issue is that they are abandoned by their husbands and often ostracized by the community.  Through our partner, HEAL Africa, we build safe houses, provide counselors, skills training, and rotating credit funds for survivors of sexual violence.  The women form small cooperatives, choose the training the want (sewing, baking, basket weaving, etc.), and work together, supporting each other both financially and emotionally.  The safe houses become community centers of activity, and often the women begin to include women from the surrounding community who are not necessarily survivors of violence, but are just as poor.

 

CTA funding to help women learn new skills

Sonia: What are your goals over the next 5-10 years?

Alissa: My goal for Care Through Action is to grow our donor and issue base. We envision a global, informed community where the human rights of every individual are protected, connected by images and stories of hope and dignity that nurture the spirit and create empathy for one another.

We want to be a resource for this goal, a place where people who want to help can come to learn more about the most important issues facing women today and provide them with tangible and powerful ways to create lasting solutions at the local level.

Sonia: What can we do to help Care Through Action?

CTA- helping rape victims in the DRC learn new skills

Alissa: Spread the word and donate!

 

Please consider helping CTA

My favorite quotes from Alissa are:

  • “I was a little nervous at first, as this was my first big trip alone, but that quickly faded.”
  • “Africa has a way of getting under your skin and always calling you back.”
  • “You don’t have to go to a war zone to get out of your comfort zone.”
  • “I make it a point to do anything that scares me even a little bit, for example, public speaking.”
  • “I wish the mainstream media would focus more on the positive happening in the world.”

Photos (c) Alissa Everett. All rights reserved.

” Thank you so much for answering these questions Alissa. I hope you enjoyed reading this interview with a fascinating woman. I have donated to help women get loans so they can learn new skills and help other rape victims and their children start a new life. “

 

Remember to please submit your own, “My Gutsy Story” whenever you’re ready. One new one will be featured every Monday on this blog and you can read the guidelines and sponsor prizes offered. More sponsors added all the time. Thanks. 

 

 

 

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