Creating a Stronger Economy through Leadership Development and Business Grow
Birmingham, AL will unite 23 of the most influential and prolific business professionals, corporate and spiritual leaders, financial experts, and health professionals in the country at the 2014 Ladies of Royalty (L.O.R.) Impact Women’s Business & Empowerment Conference on February 28th – March 1st.
The 2014 L.O.R. Impact Women’s Business & Empowerment Conference will be held at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex, which will feature the “Woman of the Year” Awards Luncheon, honoring seven influential women who are making an impact on a local, national, and global level.
Attendees will receive two days of power packed information which will include six business strategy workshops, compelling Q&A panel discussions, keynote address, business to business network opportunities, strategies to grow in a challenging market, and much more.
“As a leader our individual purpose in life is not to just build big businesses but to be a professional example and a beacon of light to those we encounter.” says Yakinea Marie.
Yakinea Marie Duff, event coordinator and Executive Director of the L.O.R. Women’s Business & Empowerment Network, Inc., is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur who understand the importance of staying relevant and connected through educational and entrepreneurial forums.
For more information about the 2014 L.O.R. Impact Women’s Business & Empowerment Conference or for information on sponsorship and vendor opportunities please visit www.LadiesofRoyalty.com, call (205) 563-6344, or email info@ladiesofroyalty.com .

Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
105 Parker Springs Street, Brighton, Alabama 35020

You are cordially invited to attend our 17th Annual Agape Breakfast, Saturday, February 8,
Nine O’ clock  in the morning. The breakfast is hosted by The Women’s Home & Overseas Missionary Society, Mrs. Delores Senior, President-Parent Body.

By Angela Moore
Imagine being famished!!! Imagine walking into your favorite restaurant while famished and having the ability to order anything off of the menu that’s pleasing to your palate and fit for your consumption. Imagine all you have to do is be seated, place your order, wait on the food, eat and enjoy. Sounds good, huh? Well, imagine what the owner of the restaurant, who is offering up your all-you-can-eat, at no cost meal to you, would think if, as soon as you ordered you cancelled the order, then ordered, then cancelled, then ordered, then cancelled again. Ummm, yep, I don’t think he’d be too happy with that and you’d still be starving.
That’s a lot like life. So many times we choose to cancel our own orders with our own words then we get mad or discouraged when what we wanted isn’t received.
·         We’ll ask God for a good mate then say, “All men are dogs” or “Women just want you for the money”. #cancelled
·         We’ll ask God for a good job then say, “I could never get a job like that because I don’t have experience or a degree”. #cancelled
·         We’ll ask God to change our lives then say, “Well, this is just who I am. I’ve been this way all my life.” #cancelled
·         We’ll ask God for friends then say, “I can’t trust ‘nobody’. I’ll just fly solo.” #cancelled
·         We’ll ask God to draw us closer to Him then say, “God knows my heart. I’m not going to church. Church people are messy and pastors are crooks.” #cancelled
·         We’ll ask God for healing then say, “I’m so sick. I guess I’ll be like this always. My mama was like this too so…” #cancelled
·         We’ll ask God to restore a relationship then say, “He/She won’t ever change.” #cancelled
Do you get my drift? Please ma’am/sir, don’t cancel your own order.

Angela Scott Moore has sported many hats in her lifetime. She’s a former broadcast anchor/reporter/producer, a trained motivational speaker, fundraiser and marketing/PR expert. She spent nine years as a pastor’s wife working in full-time ministry before that union ended in divorce. A majority of her time in ministry was spent empowering women and girls. She’s an avid inspirational blogger and also a philanthropic community supporter who has served with more than 25 local and national organizations over her 15+ year professional career. Currently she’s working in the fields of Social Justice and Human Resources and operates the blossoming, full-service events planning venture Amazing Kreations with her business partner, offering media and event planning assistance at low or no cost to small organizations and businesses. Taking lessons learned from each phase of her ever-evolving life, Angela’s now donning the hat of a single woman on a single mission to use spoken and written words to motivate others to “thrive while they survive.”
Contact Angela Scott Moore about speaking engagements at amazingkreations2@gmail.com, follow her blog at www.angelamooreblog.wordpress.com, on twitter at @AngelaMMoore316 or check out her facebook page for people experiencing separation or divorce at I’m More Than What Happened. 

I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will also lead him, And restore comforts to him And to his mourners. Isaiah 57:18
In life opportunities present themselves and decisions are made. Sometimes the decisions are right and sometimes they are wrong. There are times when your decisions are instantly revealed and some don’t surface until later, but each decision and every opportunity can be used for your good in the end. Even if you lost things, your reputation was damaged, the family split up or anything else that resulted from a period of time in your life when things weren’t what you wanted, hoped or imaged them to be. Well there’s good news!!! God is a restoring God and He can restore you. He can show you how to fix what you messed up, He can touch the hearts of those that said they would never forgive you and He can direct you to people and places you would have never met or gone.
Restore now to them, even this day, their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves, and their houses, also a hundredth of the money and the grain, the new wine and the oil, that you have charged them.” Nehemiah 5:11

If you don’t have any goals, it’s time to set some. God is ready to restore His children and the ones that will be restored are those that are preparing for elevation. You may not have what you need, you may not understand where you are going and you may not even be able to imagine yourself doing anything else but I am writing to tell you today get ready for the next big opportunity. God is ready to restore you – are you ready to be restored?

Restore me Lord,
Minister Deidra Bibb

I cannot but think on our African American forefathers who have long time come and gone, not by consent, but by constraint. Who left behind very few tangible possessions as a legacy or inheritance, but great levels of hope for the future. Reverend Joseph Lowery, when interviewed on TBN declared most recently the progress we have made, but also the mountains we have yet to push down. He also pointed out the degree of regression made as pertaining to our young people. Hastily my mind reflected a proclamation of Dr. Martin Luther King – I have a dream that one day my four little children will live in a nation where they will no longer be judged by the color of their skin but by the contents of their character. God our Father, has brought us across many great rivers, but as a citizen, I agree with Rev. Lowery, we have great mountains to tear down. We have a right to celebrate our heritage, for what the halls of congress declared would never manifest in this country has happened. Not because a man alone said it but because God had declared that the first shall be last and the last shall be first!  He cannot lie!
We had been programmed to believe God gave us nothing, to very little, to bring to the table of social culture. But we, African American descendants, are most innovative and resilient. We have always known how to survive under great pressure. We took scraps and built upon them; for we had respect for the “little”, in that we despised it not. My grandfather would always tell us that a poor man had nothing to waste. We were drilled to hate the bondage that was forced upon us, but to gaze through the window of hope. I contend with the theory to a degree that poverty breeds slum: for, in many cases, what has given rise to poverty is not a lack of opportunity, but a lack of self-motivation and inspiration to move forward.
The Word of God speaks of a man who kills an ox and sits allowing it to rot before he stands to prepare it. It speaks of the man who has chosen to sleep and twiddle his thumbs, doing nothing and finds himself in need. It (Proverbs) speaks of the procrastinator who is always going to do, yet never does. As a mother, grandmother, pastor, and ordinary citizen I often search out the ball, when it was dropped. Where did it roll? Every human in America who works and pays taxes contributes to the aid of the poor and needy who are in the system. It is designed to strengthen weak links, to offer a hand for those who are struggling. But it saddens many of us who watch those who sit on the front porch watching as the employed drive by; for it is the tax payers who afford them social assistance. Section Eight affords them housing, where in time it began to look like the hood they left behind. The absence of integrity and self-worth deprives them of better. Our grandparents could have only desired the luxury of such a temporary boost; while they continued to gaze through the window of hope in their day; for many it was a step down to depend on social services.
Many are asking what would Dr. King say to this generation??? Let’s meet here another day! Join me at the downtown library for  the local Authors’ Book Fair and Expo. (9 a.m. ‘til 3 p.m.), Saturday February 1!
Electra.gethsemaneministries@yahoo.com