Bless Those in Need This Christmas

CURRENT PROJECTS

Alveda will soon be taking part in an Atlanta-area TV program called The Vision. She’ll be one of five or six hosts who will discuss various aspects of Christian living from their perspectives. The show debuts on December 15 with a Christmas special, then will air monthly beginning in January. 

Another endeavor of Alveda’s is a movement called She Leads Georgia, a faith community of women of many different ethnicities, denominations, and backgrounds. The group celebrates the accomplishments of Godly women in all sectors of society. The goal is to collaborate and love one another to bring faith-based solutions to modern-day challenges.   

COOKING AT CHRISTMAS

What Alveda enjoys most about the Christmas season, she says, is spending time with her large family and taking part in various holiday activities during the month. Singing in the Christmas concert at her church is one of those special events. When it comes to food, she’s always excited to prepare special dishes and enjoy those of her family and friends. “For seven generations, members of the Williams--King family legacy, the family of Martin Luther King, Sr. and his wife Alberta Williams King, have been preaching and cooking, providing ministry and hospitality in the midst of tragedy and triumph, trials and victories,” Alveda proudly says. Her cookbook is a collection of the memories of those times blended in with favorite holiday recipes inspired by family members and friends. Some of her favorites for Christmas include:

• Cornish hens with stuffing - (p. 46, photo) with spices and stuffing, these hens make a festive, beautiful entrée. Alveda will demo this one. 
• Sweet potato soufflé (not in book)
• Garlicky green beans (p.35, photo), always a crowd pleaser.
• Green salad (p. 34, no photo) - salad greens come in many varieties, including arugula. “The secret to good salad is texture and color,” shares Alveda. You can add strawberries or tomatoes or whatever is in season.
• Cranberry relish, colorful and delicious (not in book)
• Dinner rolls (not in book)
• Pumpkin pie with whipped cream, another crowd favorite (not in book)
• Winter spiced tea or wassail (p. 57, no photo)

FAMILY LEGACY

Alveda is the daughter of the late slain civil rights activist Rev. A.D. King and the niece of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who was killed in 1968 by an assassin’s bullet. She became an activist herself at the age of twelve when her dad took her to her first march in 1963. “To love everybody and do the right thing,” was A.D. and Martin’s main message, which their families try to do to follow in their footsteps. They preach the message of love and forgiveness. 

Alveda is the guardian of the King family legacy. She does her best to see that the truths which have made the family influential and prosperous are protected and continue to be shared. Alveda highlights the King's core value of fighting for justice because she says it’s the very essence of who they are. Fighting injustice started with Alveda’s grandfather who lobbied hard for privileges for Blacks while pastoring at their church. Her father promoted credit unions for his church members and encouraged people to further their education during the civil rights movement. As Chair of the America First Policy Institute’s Center for the American Dream, she works to remind people of her uncle’s message, “There’s only one race – the human race.”

MORE ABOUT ALVEDA

In her pro-life work, Alveda focuses on the evils of abortion and calls for the civil rights for the unborn. “Every human being must be afforded life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, from conception until natural death,” she believes. “This state of human-being includes family stability, good education, gainful financial security, good health, freedom to worship God, and freedom to respect the human estate of every person. This is the true meaning of human rights and human dignity.”

Alveda also strives to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ through Alveda King Ministries. Through it, she works for the stability and foundation of the traditional family while promoting values and morals. The ministry offers tangible resources for families in need so they can live prosperously to their full potential. “We aim to educate through community events, mentoring programs, media campaigns, scholarship awards, coalition-building, Christian advocacy groups, and other means of positive reinforcement to lead people to Christ in expectancy of life, family, hope and ‘agape love’ in the global community.”  

Discover more about Alveda King's ministry at AlvedaKing.com, her pro-life ministry SpeakForLife.org, and her new endeavor She Leads Georgia at SheLeadsGA.com.

And, a sure way to get in the holiday spirit is to purchase Alveda's cookbook, GG's Home for the Holidays, recipes your whole family are sure to love.

“It was like if you've ever had a mosquito bite and you just continue to scratch and nothing helps. It just wouldn't go away,” Sheila Mack said as she thought back on her affliction.

Sheila was at work when her shins suddenly started itching.

“I had a space heater under my desk,” Sheila said. “I thought it was the heater, so I, of course, stopped using that, and turned the heater off. But it continued to itch.”

In the coming weeks and months, Sheila tried different creams, changed her laundry detergent, and adjusted her diet, but nothing helped.

“Just touching the sheet at night would irritate it,” Sheila explained. “I had trouble sleeping. It would get so bad that I would just itch to the point where my skin would just bleed. It was really discouraging.”

The months turned into years, and Sheila would see a number of dermatologists, allergists, and even an autoimmune specialist. After ten years of tests and failed remedies, she still had no answers and no relief. 

“He said, ‘You know, Sheila, you're just going to have to live with this,’” Sheila remembered the autoimmune specialist telling her. “It was disheartening that they couldn’t find anything. I was really confused about why I had to go through this the rest of my life, why they couldn't find out something.”

In all that time, Sheila held on to her faith, believing God could heal her. 

“I remember praying over it and laying my hands on my shins all the time saying, ‘Lord, you know, take this away. I know you can and trust that you're still on the throne to heal,’” Sheila said.

On Christmas Eve in 2020, Sheila was cleaning her home when she decided to take a break and watch some television. 

“I sat down and happened to see The 700 Club was on. And Terry and Gordon were getting ready to pray,” Sheila said.

“Someone else, I don’t even know what this is but you have some kind of condition,” Terry Meeuwsen prayed. “Your body just itches all the time and it’s just uncontrollable itching like you have to scratch it. You get sores, it’s so uncomfortable; God’s healing you right now, you’re just going feel like a warmth comes over your body from the top of your head to the bottom of your toes as you’re just released from that and your skin goes back to normal.”

“I claimed it,” Sheila exclaimed thinking of the moment she heard the prayer. “I claimed it right then. I am claiming it and giving God the glory. I know that He met me right there on the couch and He said, ‘Sheila, I'm touching your shins.’ The rash is gone. I told my husband right away that morning, I told him.”

Sheila hasn’t had any itching on her shins since. She gives all the credit to God for her miraculous healing.

“I’m back to normal and I just give God the glory,” Sheila said joyfully. “He is good to those who wait on Him. We just have to believe and have faith and realize if He hasn't answered or it hasn't come to pass yet, just don't give up. Don't quit. Keep trusting, keep believing, knowing that God – He's in control. What a gift God gave me that Christmas. To say, ‘Sheila, I love you enough to give you this gift this Christmas.’ I just love Him and I wouldn’t know where I’d be right now without Him in my life and my heart and in my family.”
 

Three-year-old, Melanie, was born with an umbilical hernia, a condition that occurs when a portion of the intestine pushes through a weakened area in the abdominal wall near the belly button. At first, Melanie's mom, a single parent, didn't realize what the lump was. But as it grew it caused Melanie to experience a lot of pain.

Adriana took her to the doctor, who said the only way to fix Melanie's hernia was with surgery. Adriana, who works as a washerwoman and tortilla maker, couldn't afford that. "I had to borrow money just to take her to see the doctor," Adriana, who lives in Mexico, told us. "It has been very hard on both of us."

But thanks to the generosity of Operation Blessing donors, Melanie was able to receive the surgery she needed for free, through our Life Changing Surgery program. A skilled surgeon repaired Melanie's hernia, and within a short time, she was pain-free and feeling great.

"Now my daughter will have a chance to study and go to school without distraction from the pain from the hernia," Adriana said. "I am very grateful to the people who helped us!"

Melanie's story is a testament to the power of people who care, who donated to help those who cannot afford needed surgeries on their own.

How you can help:

If you are interested in helping with Life Changing Surgeries like Adriana’s, you can donate here: Operation Blessing.

“He was like a dog panting. And I kept telling him, ‘If you don’t stop breathing like that I’m going to take you to the ER,’ you know, slow down, take deep breaths. And he just couldn’t,” Stephanie Stryker says. 
 
In September of 2020, Russ Stryker got what he thought was a cold. After several days, his symptoms got worse and his wife, Stephanie, rushed him to the hospital. “He just kept saying, 'I feel like my body’s shutting down.' He was panting, just wasn’t breathing normally,” she says. "I wheeled him in myself. They immediately took him in, intubated him and tested him.”
 
Russ tested positive for Covid-19. Before Stephanie could even process the night’s events, Russ was put on a ventilator. “They basically were saying he, you know, he was dying and there was nothing they could do.”
 
Russ was a beloved high school football coach and teacher in Kingman Arizona. He and Stephanie had three children together. She began reaching out to the school, family, and friends for prayer. Stephanie says, “I got on Facebook and I just briefly let everybody know. He probably had thousands of people praying for him. My cousin lives in Nashville, for example, and she has a church and she has a prayer chain and she’s like, ‘We’ve got him on there.’ You know, and just so many people that did that."
 
Dianah recalls, “I got this call from Stephanie and she said that she had taken Russell to the hospital and at that time the doctors said that they did not think Russell would make it through the night.”
 
Due to Covid restrictions, Stephanie was not even allowed to be with her husband as his condition deteriorated quickly. “He was in a room. Then there was another room outside of that that the hospital staff would go in and, you know, trade out. We went to a room and prayed and prayed and prayed.”
 
Stephanie clung to her faith, but also began to consider a worse-case scenario. “I had my Abraham and Isaac moment where I had to tell God, ‘If you want to take him, I lay him down. What I want is perfect healing. I want him to come out of this, but, you know, I relinquish to your will, whatever it is.”
 
Russ spent the next month in a coma and on a ventilator. In the middle of the night on October 26, Russ coded. He was revived but doctors held out little hope for him. “The doctor calls me again at about 5:30, or 6 that morning and said, ‘His blood pressure is extremely low. We’ve thrown everything at it and we just can’t keep it up. You should come down.’”
 
That morning, Stephanie, her sister, and her friend, Dianah, arrived at Kingman hospital and started a prayer vigil outside his room. “We stayed there for, I believe it was, about seven hours, and we prayed the whole time,” Dianah recalls. 
 
Then something miraculous happened. “I’d put that worship music on and we’d just-- I can’t tell you what it is to look at that monitor thing and see that his blood pressure started out at like 50 over 30, and even lower,” Stephanie says. “And as we prayed and sang, his blood pressure began to climb, and climb, and climb. And that was the – like the first time that I just witnessed, you know, ‘Wow, this is crazy.’”
 
Russ eventually stabilized and was transferred to the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, where he spent another month on the ventilator. In mid-December, he finally began to regain consciousness. 
 
“I had no idea of what the time frame was at all,” Russ says. “I had a feeling that I had missed my football season, but I wasn’t sure, you know, like if Christmas had already come and gone. I just didn’t know how much – how much time had elapsed. Seventy-seven days on a ventilator.”

Russ went home on December 17. It was the best Christmas gift Stephanie ever had. “We all spend Christmas Eve together at my parents. And you know, part of the festivities that we always do is we say what you're thankful for through the year. So many things God did through that experience, both for us and people close to us, and people we’ve never even met. He still performs miracles just as big as they were in the Bible, and my husband is one of them.” 
 
Today Russ is nearly fully recovered and is back to coaching. He loves telling the story of his healing every chance he gets. “There is no medical explanation. I’ve talked to several of my nursing friends,” he says. “It was 100% a God thing and no reason I should be alive other than that God decided that I was going to be alive.”  

“As I get older, I just believe in the power of prayer,” Dianah adds, “more than I ever have.”

“I just believed God would bring him through it. And He did,” Stephanie adds.

“I don’t know why God did it. I have no idea why,” Russ says. “I don’t deserve it any more than anyone else. It’s no different than Biblical times. It’s no different. He was the same then as He is now, you know. He could heal people then. He raised people from the dead then. And he did the same with me.”