Showing posts with label Family Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family Life. Show all posts

Saturday, 4 May 2013

'Funnily Enough' in the May issue of iBelieve magazine


I had no influence over this portrait of me that's smiling out of the May edition of iBelieve magazine but it made me laugh as it was exactly how I wanted to look when I was little. I must have been strongly influenced by Sindy and Barbie dolls.

I am always packing things up for the post - but never this neatly.

Here is the full page:



This is how I really look:


The magazine cover is much more masculine this month:


I feel hugely honoured to be featured alongside Joyce Meyer, Nicky Gumbel and Sarah de Carvalho.

To subscribe to the magazine, please click here

Friday, 26 April 2013

July's Story



July Letsebe in South Africa

Just eight years ago, July Letsebe was lying on his bed, seriously ill and waiting to die. But thankfully, after discovering he was HIV positive, he was given the right medication, is now healthy, and is helping others to access life saving treatment.
When July first became ill, he refused medical treatment and instead sought the advice of a traditional healer – a common practice in rural parts of South Africa. But after a few months, he was bedridden and barely able to move. He felt desperate.

“I asked my family to help me die, but they refused,” he says.
One day, a team of carers from a local project, the Waterberg Welfare Society, visited July’s tiny shack. When they saw how ill he was, they offered to drive him to the government clinic once a day for medical care. At the clinic, July received life-saving treatment for tuberculosis and also discovered that he was HIV positive. In an incredibly brave step, he decided to reveal his HIV status at a local community event to encourage others to get tested.

“People were shocked,” he says, “I could see the expression of disbelief in their faces.”
As he slowly recovered, July started training to become an HIV counsellor so that he could help other people who are living with the virus.
“AIDS does not actually kill people – lack of knowledge about it does,” says July, who manages Stepping Forward, a Comic Relief-funded HIV project in Vaalwater, South Africa. And, as someone who has lived with HIV for almost ten years, he knows what he’s talking about.
Today, thanks to HIV medication, July is healthy and is making sure that other people in remote rural areas of South Africa have access to life-saving HIV testing and treatment.

For more information please click here

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

An extract from Funnily Enough in the April edition of iBelieve magazine


While Gloria Gaynor tells how she kept the faith in tough times


...you'll find a cartoon of me endevouring to do the same. In reality I could not have used ear-phones, watched TV or tolerated cats as I had gone down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Sophie Neville

If you click on the images you should be able to read my story. I hope it will encourage others to be able to sing out, 'I will survive!'

To subscribe to iBelieve magazine please click here

To reach the Funnily Enough web-site please click here

To read a bit more of Funnily Enough please click here


Tuesday, 16 April 2013

Be strong and courageous...


April 1991 ~ the time when I was taken out of Egypt.

Like the some of Israelites, I wasn't sure I wanted to go, but I went down with the plague and had little choice in the matter. No choice. I lost my job in London after falling ill with CFS or ME (or CFIDS as it's know in the states.)

Despite a few trials, I managed to cross the Read Sea and rather enjoyed wandering around in the wilderness. For me, this entailed spending twelve years in southern Africa, ever travelling and often camping in the desert. I was tempted to cast idols and make a fool of myself but got to actually study the Ten Commandments and rather enjoyed sleeping out under the stars.

On 1st January 2004 I was given the verse from Joshua 1 v 9, Be strong and courageous,  not knowing that this would lead me into the Promised Land. In June that year I met a widower, a man I thought the Lord might want me to marry. I was praying for confirmation when I noticed a ring on his little finger and asked what was inscribed on it.

'Fortiter et Fideliter,' he declared.

'Strength and Courage'. I crossed the River Jordan.

'Funnily Enough' by Sophie Neville

You can read more 
about how I came out of Egypt here