I’m back . . . please watch my Videos

Hi, everyone. Sorry I haven’t written in awhile. I’ve been living in the middle of nowhere, in Central California among the almond orchards, near my husband’s prison so that (when California finally admits it has been 2 years since Covid hit and we’ve all had it and built up immunity) I may visit him. I got a part-time job at California Aeronautical University, teaching student pilots how to write essays, so they can get their B.S. degree as well as their pilot license. Then I got laid-off because there were not enough English classes for me to teach. I’ve been doing a lot of videos for my YouTube Channel, mainly asking Governor Newsom to free my husband Jose from prison. It’s going on 4 years now that I’ve been asking him in letters, calls, emails, submit forms, and official paperwork. Newsom has never once even acknowledged me.

This is my most recent video mentioning Newsom and my incarcerated husband as spring blooms early:

This is the video I did today as I read news about Putin invading Ukraine. I taught English in Russia and visited Ukraine, so please watch:

I got to visit my daughter Jessica recently. I’ve been prepping for the dark things coming, using my “Survival Woman” skills. I am almost finished writing the amazing true love story of Jose and me, and how we met while I was teaching English in his prison. You can read it in chapters (the new Kindle Vella format) on Amazon, here. In fact, you can see all 8 of my books on my Amazon Author Page. Please share!

I love Jose even more and miss him so much. He loves me more too. Ironic that the world falls toward war as Jose is still in prison. Ironic that I lived and taught in Russia.

I love this illustration Jose drew on a handmade card he sent me with so much love. I used it as the cover for “Selah and the Prisoner.“

Cover of my newest book, “Selah and the Prisoner”

Lonna Lisa Williams and Jose Rogel Mendiola 2019

America–Love it or Leave it

Just outside the door of my house in a cute Central California neighborhood, fireworks color the night to celebrate freedom in America. Let’s all remember that freedom comes at a price. 245 years ago, we declared independence from England and its unjust laws and king.  Since then, many have laid down their lives to keep us free.  Let’s say NO to censorship and career politicians–and to anyone who would force Communism on us.  I have lived and worked in Communist countries. Communism has killed millions of people.  To “AOC,” Ilhan Omar, and “The Squad,” I say, if you don’t like the “Star Spangled Banner” or our red, white, and blue flag, just go.  Live in another country, please!  I taught English for 5 years in Russia, Turkey, and China, and then I appreciated America more.  Facebook and our political leaders should not censor us. Race should not cause fights because none of us chose what color (or lack of color) we were born.  Unproven “emergency” vaccines must not be forced on our bodies.  We must uphold Hippa laws to protect our medical privacy.  In 2020 our freedoms were ripped from us by forced quarantines for a virus with a less than 1% death rate–by elite politicians like California Governor Newsom.  Now our economy faces horrible inflation, and many small businesses are gone forever.  Freedom of speech (or anything) is only free if it is for EVERYONE!  Let’s all stand us and save America from those who would destroy us.  Take back California and our country.  America , love it or leave it.  We, the people, must govern.  God bless us, every one!

If you like my Blog, please read my books

🇨🇳So you Want a Little Communism?🇨🇳

🇷🇺Red Square in Moscow, Russia, where I began my overseas journey🇷🇺

In the fall of 2010, I could not find a job in America.  I had been looking for anything for months.  Obama was in power, and our economy was terrible, so I went overseas to teach English in Russia.  Communism began in Russia in 1917, but after almost 100 years it had changed to a Post-Communist government, where rich elites rule the poor, and there is no Middle Class.  After a very long Russian winter and 6 months, I flew to Turkey, which had much better climate and food, and taught for 2.5 years.  That got dangerous because their President Erdogan became a Dictator and outlawed free speech, freedom of the press, certain religions, and protests  (which I had written about as a journalist for a magazine and later turned into a book).  I escaped to China just before some Turkish police officers showed up at my old apartment.  China was, ironically, the most Communist of all 3 countries, yet it had recently embraced capitalism, and I was paid well as a teacher there, but it had its dangers.  Communism had trickled down from Russia to its southern neighbor China and was still very much alive, as some of the persecuted Uyghur People of West China personally told me because I and they can speak Turkish.  I taught 2 years in China.  I taught overseas for 5 years, seldom coming home to America for a visit because I hardly ever had the money.  In fall, 2015, I left China and returned to California for good, glad to be back in a democracy.

🇨🇳Chinese soldiers in Tienanmin Square in Beijing, China (where I also taught English)🇨🇳

🇹🇷Turkish police in Istanbul, Turkey, where I was chased and pepper-sprayed🇹🇷

After what happened last week at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., I am responding here.  It started as a perfectly legal, peaceful protest.  Some who were there estimated that 500,000 people waved flags and banners as President Trump spoke.  Toward the end of the day, some extremists (mostly led by incognito Antifa members) took over the Capitol Building.  According to some videos, a uniformed security officer opened the doors and gates and invited them in.  It didn’t take long for Communist-Leaning politicians to viciously attack all the Americans who were at Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021.  Many of these people, not wearing masks, were later identified by employers and fired from their jobs.  Many have been arrested.  Even some people who liked the idea of protesting got fired.  The “Squad” of Communist-Leaning politicians lead by AOC and Ilhan Omar began a Witch Hunt.

So, you want a little Communism, AOC and Ilhan?  Please at least first watch my video and learn what it was like being an ordinary person living under dictators.  In 2016, President Erdogan of Turkey staged a fake coup so that he could take absolute power and void the Turks’ Ataturk-inspired secular democratic Constitution.  A friend of mine, a Turkish Special Ops Army Officer, was one of the many innocent people who went to prison and then had to escape from Turkey and become a refugee.  Hitler used the “fake coup” tactic in the Reichstag Fire incident in 1933, four months after he was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.  You know what happened under his absolute, demonic rule.  Millions of people died.  That’s Dictatorship and Communism.

🇨🇳A Chinese security officer gives warning at Beijing airport🇨🇳

If you like my Blog, please read one of my books.

On the Road Again (Where IS my Home?)

Me in Russia, Turkey, and China

For the second time in just a few months during this World Pandemic, I have been evicted from a house where I was renting a room.  This house, like the other, is in Bakersfield, California–a sprawling agricultural town in the Central plains, surrounded by vineyards, nut trees, and distant mountains.  Bakersfield is definitely not Los Angeles, New York, London, Frankfurt, Moscow, Istanbul, Abu Dhabi, or Shanghai–cities I have visited during my world travels.  I taught English in Russia, Turkey, and China for 5 years, living under their political systems and economies.  After returning to California, I was homeless in Los Angeles for over a year, living in my car and driving for Uber Eats to make barely enough money for food and gas.  I finally got a good teaching job and then moved to Bakersfield.

Not new to challenges, I survived a rare form of cancer 25 years ago when my son Jonathan was just a baby and my daughter Jessica only 3.  I lost my mother, father, and younger brother (my entire immediate family) when I was too young.  I write these things into my books.  By the grace of Jesus, I have survived them.  But the idea of home is an elusive thing.

My Daughter Jessica visits me in a California motel room, looking like Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz,” who just wanted to go Home

Right now, nothing seems as difficult as trying to find a home.  Should I stay in Bakersfield, in expensive, coldhearted California, during Covid-19?  Everyone here must wear a face mask to go outside, people line up 6 feet apart to be allowed into stores to shop for food, and Starbucks (and all the restaurants) won’t let people inside.  Governor Gavin Newsom (who was just caught in a scandal for disregarding his own Coronavirus Laws) has made new curfew laws that some California sheriffs refuse to enforce.  If we order take-out food, we must pick it up ourselves “curbside,” or have “contact-less delivery” left beside our home.  Eight months ago this began, and now winter is coming.  The sun which shines so brightly hot in Bakersfield summer has been covered up with gray.

My mother as a teenager and little girl, with braids like my daughter Jessica.  Lois Mary Groves was a haunted creature who ran away to meet a military man as a teen but then came home, met my dad, had me, and died too young

Home.  When I was four, I played outside my Grandmother’s stately Southern mansion near the old university where my Grandfather and she had taught and my mother graduated.  I remember the home’s tall white pillars by the stained-glass, embellished front door.  I could wander out that door and stand at the front rock wall that bordered grassy yards.  I was barely tall enough to glimpse the world outside.  Walnut trees lowered branches beside a guest house and a little creek.  My Grandfather, Professor Ernest Rutherford Groves, taught at UNC (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), one of the oldest campuses in America.  He  graduated from Yale University and Dartmouth College.  He received an honorary Ph.D. from Boston University and became famous for Marriage and the Family books, classes, and counseling.  He started the National Council on Family Relations that still holds conferences.  Sadly, he died before I was born.  Gimghoul Castle (part of a secret society my grandfather belonged to) rose stately down our road.  The three stories of our house held treasures from far-away places: cut-glass display cases with hand-painted rose tea sets from England, Colonial sterling silver candlesticks and spoons, African ebony masks hanging scary on the wall, and mahogany tables with lions’ feet that were hand-carved in Holland.

I wish we could live in hotel room like this, my newest one

Attack on America

Chinese Soldiers in Tienanmin Square

That we should kill our country for coronavirus is the Great Lie of our generation. Covid-19 has about the same death rate as seasonal flu but is more dramatic in symptoms. Many of us had Covid-19 early on, and we will all be exposed to it before this is over.  It is an attack on America.  Where did this attack originate?

At San Diego State University (where I got my Master’s degree in English), I minored in history.  One semester I took a course in Chinese history, and then I traveled to China as a tourist.  Years later, after working as a journalist in California, Russia, and Turkey (and writing books about it), I taught high school and university English throughout China for 2 years.  From Jilin in the northeast (near the Russian and North Korean borders) to Shanghai in the east to Beijing in the central east to Hong Kong in the southeast, I saw many amazing sights, learned about China’s culture, and took many videos and photos.

All Chinese high school students participate in communist army drills.  I once met the high school Communist Party leader (in an elevator between teaching English classes).  He was tall and handsome, and I wondered what his job entailed and how much he watched my students.

China has 3 million soldiers in its army.  America can never get the true sense of numbers out of China, for they do not report the truth.  The Chinese have a saying: “I would give a week’s wage to invade Hong Kong.  I would give a month’s wage to conquer Taiwan.  I would give a year’s wage to destroy America.”

A World of Refugees: Davut from Turkey

Davut and I posed in an old-time photo in Turkey

I wrote about my dear Turkish friend Davut before.  I met him 8 years ago when I escaped from frozen Russia to spring-like Turkey.  He was a special Turkish Army Officer improving his English at my second language school.  I was fired from the first language school in the first week–for sharing about Russian Easter traditions.  Some Muslim students complained.  I protested being fired for being a Christian when Turkey’s Constitution grants freedom of religion, and I may have got my job back, but I walked around the corner of Izmit, Kocaeli (near Istanbul) and found a better language school that paid more and gave me more teaching hours.

I still did not have a good place to live.  Some female teachers from the first language school had offered me a bed, but I must have offended them, too, for I was told to leave.  I was sitting on the steps in front of their apartment building with my luggage stacked around me.  I looked and felt like a refugee.  Indeed, I did not have much to return to in America:  no home, no job, no husband.  My young adult children had their own lives, and I was not important in them.

Davut (right) when I first met him 8 years ago in Turkey

Davut and his friends found me there, and he immediately offered me a place to stay in the spare room of his apartment.  I stayed there for months.  He did not even ask me to pay him, but I paid a little that I could afford.  He knew I was lonely, and he invited me to hang out with him and his friends.  We walked through the cobbled streets of old Izmit, stepped into ancient stone churches and tiled mosques hung with tiny lights, drank tea and played backgammon in cafes by the Marmara Sea, strolled through parks lined with multi-colored tulips (“lale” is the Turkish name of the tulip flower which the Dutch imported from Turkey).

Why I Love Starbucks

OK, now for some light-hearted, fun writing.  I love Starbucks.  People tease me for that, often saying, “But it’s so expensive!  You pay $6 for a cup of coffee.”

I try explaining that I do “star dashes” and gather little gold stars on my smartphone that count toward free coffee and food.  Plus, I get anything I want to order on my birthday!  People usually roll their eyes or shake their heads, not believing that it could be fun and not-so-horribly expensive to frequent a designer coffee business.  I don’t go out to dinner at restaurants, I argue.  Doesn’t that count for something?

When my kids were teenagers, we often went to Starbucks in Southern California, sitting together outside under a green umbrella, wearing our summer t-shirts, shorts, and sandals, squinting in the sun.  We talked and planned together, ate the Best in the World Lemon Cake, and got free house brew coffee refills because I have a Starbucks Gold Card.

What I Learned in Prison

I have been living in the California desert for awhile now, renting a room in a family’s home.  My almost seven-year marriage to a Turkish man broke up, and he is living somewhere on the streets of Los Angeles, stuck in his paranoid delusions that everyone is after him.  He leaves voice messages on my smartphone, though I had to get a restraining order against him, and he should not contact me.  I hope he goes home to Istanbul for medical help.  I feel alone, as the desert wind howls across rocks and sand, and autumn sun cools beneath clouds.  Better to be alone than abused . . .

Who would have thought that I, a free-spirited writer who has traveled much across this globe, would land in a regular job, from 07:30 to 16:00 Mondays through Fridays, 40 hours a week—teaching inmates in a prison?  I got the job after a 5-week background check (I had to list everywhere I lived since I was 16), a physical exam, and drug tests.  The prison felt that I was safe enough to enter.

I drive to work across a desert Apocalypse landscape littered with rock queries, railroad tracks, and old industrial warehouses with broken windows and metal pipes.  Homeless people scarcely populate it, pushing metal carts or baby carriages without a baby.  I lost my three-level, wood-carved home in the mountain forest near a lake.  My children are young adults now, and I don’t see them much.

My 2 oldest children have completely shut me out of their lives (and my grandchildren’s lives).  An enemy has much to do with this (an ex-husband who once laid me on a bed and strangled me, which I wrote about in my book “Fire and Ice”).  I don’t know what he’s said or why they listen and refuse to meet so that I may answer charges laid against me . . .

My few friends call me “Sweetie.”  I am not a serial killer or assaulter, some crazy grandma gone wild.  I can not understand how my own daughter, my firstborn, could take away my little remaining family . . . I lost my father at age 4 and my mother and only brother (that I knew about) not long after.  I never had a sister.

So . . . the best part of my life is the “Special Needs Yard” prison where I teach male inmates their high school GED course.  We cover mostly English reading, writing, social studies, and science (my inmate clerk helps with the math).  Most of the inmates are sex offenders who could not be in the general population; some are ex-gang members or ex-cops.  My classroom is the last one on the left, near the moving white-barred gate and blue door that leads to the desert yard.  I must have my special ID and my keys on a chain to enter the prison.  If I lose my ID or keys, the whole prison would be locked down until we found them.  I must wear professional clothes (like black slacks and a collared shirt, sensible shoes, my hair clipped back, with no identifying jewelry showing).  I walk through a metal detector, surrender my clear plastic bag for inspection, and pass through 9 gates.  A young guard in his khaki uniform with silver badge says, “Morning, ma’am,” as he holds the heavy door for me at Central Control’s Sally Gate.  I peer into the dim room filled with camera surveillance screens and many keys.

Darkest before Dawn

“Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning,” Psalm 30:5.

Sometimes it seems as though the night will never end.  I am writing the 4th book in my “Survival” series, “Darkest before Dawn.” I survived cancer, car accidents, loss of my family, abusive men, and teaching English overseas for 5 years–in Russia, Turkey, and China.  What more must I survive?  How can we all survive what is coming?

Have you ever noticed that it really is darkest–and coldest–before the sun rises?  I often have trouble sleeping and have stayed up until dawn.  Just knowing that the sun will rise gives me hope.  Then, ironically, when that yellow orb breaks upon the eastern horizon, I can relax and go to sleep.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.”  In the book of Revelation (written by John), Jesus is “the bright and morning star.”

I often do my writing at night.  If you like my blog, please check out my books.

Jewish, Christian, and a little bit Turkish

I am part Jewish.  I call myself a Messianic Jew AND a Christian.  The 2 seemingly contradictive terms CAN go together.  Jesus was Jewish.  The first Christians were Jewish, like Paul who traveled through Turkey to Rome and planted churches along the way.  John, who wrote the Apocalypse, penned letters to the 7 Churches–all found in Turkey. He was exiled on a Mediterranean island not far from Antalya.  My American life has joined with that Mediterranean country that connects the continents of Asia with Europe–at Istanbul.  Once called Constantinople, that city rises above 7 hills adorned with ancient castles, Christian cathedrals, and Muslim mosques.  Contradictions are part of daily life.  Viva la difference!