5. What challenges do you see young women facing these days in terms of body image and overall self image?

It is prevalent within media – through music, television, dance, etc.– to de-value young women and give the impression that their value is based on physical features.  We at   Fly-Chicks, Inc. reject the notion that beauty is only skin deep.  In fact, we’ve chosen to make a bold statement:  Beauty is not determined by the length or texture of your hair, the fairness of your skin, or the width of your hips.  True beauty comes from within. It is the “stuff” that cannot be sized (36-24-36) or covered with make-up.   True beauty is doing and feeling your best from the inside out.  True beauty is looking in the mirror and knowing your worth. True beauty is finding the strength to stand up for yourself.  True beauty is being real with your friends and taking a stand for what you believe in.  True beauty is being comfortable in your own skin — no matter the shape, size, color, or condition of it!

6. What encouragement can you give to women who feel the need to share their stories, whether through speech or the written word, but have fears about disclosing information about their personal lives?

This is an excellent question because it is something that we encounter quite often.  Our goal is to get women to understand that there should be no shame or condemnation associated with their personal testimony.  In fact, we firmly believe that it is through the sharing of our testimonies that we can further be set free – and most importantly – help to set others free. The most prevalent reason that women feel inhibited about sharing their stories is fear.  Fear of the consequences associated with sharing.   Thus, our goal is to create a safe environment wherein women feel comfortable sharing their stories.  This includes giving them the ability to do so under a pen name or sharing their story anonymously.  Stories are told in a myriad of ways – auto-biographically written, through letters, poems, voice recordings, or words of wisdom that focus on the message rather than the “messenger”.  Something that is key to point out, however, is that every woman whom has participated in this experience has encountered a “freeing” within her own self that allows her to not only move past personal pain, but often acts as a catalyst that allows them to foster avenues of growth and empowerment within themselves that they may not have known was needed.  They have now agreed to continue to write and even act as mentors to young ladies that need guidance and direction on a more personal level.  It’s been a wonderful experience for everyone – and they would not have found this reward without having first overcome their inhibitions by pulling back the first layer of their own personal truth. Revelation 12:11 confirms that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.   We’ve found this to be true in every aspect of the Fly-Chicks, Inc. storytelling journey.

7. Who has been a significant influence in your life and ministry?

Tanya: Aside from my personal relationship with Jesus Christ, my mother has been the biggest influence in my life and ministry.  I grew up in a single parent home with a mom who had a long history that I didn’t know much about until I was a young adult.  Through my relationship with my siblings, we were able to gain strength from the sharing of what we knew about our individual pasts and how our mom’s example influenced our lives in ways that we didn’t even realize.  What a wonderful revelation!  She’d be surprised to know that every aspect of her life story – her struggles in particular – shaped us into the intelligent, strong, and resilient adults that we are today.  My mother has always been a woman of faith, and even in her darkest hours, she instructed us to always maintain our own intimate and personal relationship with God.  I believe that principle alone saved my very life.  If she’s given me no other gift – she has certainly given me the gift of faith, leading by example along the way.   

Tiffani: I completely agree with Tanya. Aside from God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, my mother and father have been very influential in my life and this ministry. I see so much of myself in both my mother and father. They have seen me through the good and the bad. When you’re younger, it’s funny how you don’t think that your parents understand or even care about all of the feelings that you have bottled up inside, but they do care. Sometimes, it’s just hard for them to start the conversation. For that reason, I wish that I had been more open with them as a teenager. They have so much wisdom about life and they have helped me to see situations and people from different perspectives, over the years. They’ve helped me to see the value in keeping the lines of communication open, and that communication is not one-sided, but involves both sharing and listening.

8. What have you learned from your relationship with Christ and how has it impacted your relationship with others and if you could share one message with today’s modern young women, what would you tell them?

What we’ve learned from our relationship with Christ is that, though we fail Him daily, His love never fails.  What a gift.  That is true, unconditional love.  That is an amazing love.  No better love exists on this planet.  This challenges us to love others in the same way – unconditionally and without judgment. 

If we could share one message with today’s modern young women, it would be this: 

You need to understand your own identity, value, and worth.  If you do not know your own value, then you will allow someone else to define it for you – and that would be a travesty.

9. WHOLE Magazine is dedicated to helping women and young girls discover healing, restoration and wholeness in Christ. And our ministry was inspired by Matthew 9:22. During your seasons of brokenness what scripture/s did you find helped you through your healing process?

 Jeremiah 1:5 is our anchor scripture and it reads: “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.  Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.” (NLT)  Essentially, this says that we were chosen by Him before we were even conceived.  He already knew our path, and deemed it so perfect that he appointed us to be His own mouthpiece.  We all have something important to say…something worthy to be heard.  Wow.  How special is that!

 Another one of our favorite scriptures is Ecclesiastes 3:11, which reads: “He has made everything beautiful in its time…no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (NIV)  We interpret this as the epitome of the scripture “all things work together for the good of those that love God”(Rom. 8:28).  There is nothing too dark in your life that will keep you hidden.  He makes ALL things beautiful in its time.  We may not understand why things happen when they do, but eventually we will come to realize that His hand has never left us or forsaken us during the process.  If we hold steadfastly to Him, he will indeed make our paths straight and reveal every aspect of our journey to be a very valuable one.    

10. What are your goals for Fly Chicks for 2013, and any special events coming up?

The key mission of Fly-Chicks, Inc. never changes.  Our goal is to always promote transparency through conversations about real-life situations that we’ve all found ourselves in.   One of the things that is most important to us is the personal connection that we are able to establish with young ladies through face-to-face contact via our “Real Life, Real Talk” chat sessions & workshops and exposing them to cultural activities & events.  All of these activities are created to help bridge the communication gap and help them discover their “authentic” selves.  As a bonus, women acting as volunteers & mentors in the program also tend to discover their own “authentic selves” along the way! There is a special gift that comes from being able to communicate thoughts and feelings effectively, and we like to use all avenues possible in order to help young ladies do that.  There is such a dire need for this to occur that we welcome additional volunteers and mentors to become a part of this important goal.

On November 3rd we will be at Studio 11 Films (http://studio11films.com/) in Atlanta, GA.  This is an acting workshop with Christopher Pearman, father of Raven-Symone, who will take the young ladies on a journey to discover how to tap into their deepest “dream quotient” and live fearlessly in pursuit of their dreams.

On November 8th we will have the opportunity to expand our reach through the launch of our very first National Conference Call.  We are very excited about this and invite young ladies and women of all ages to dial in and become a part of this very important conversation.  We have a surprise special guest with an AMAZING testimony! More information regarding the dial-in number and time can be found at http://www.fly-chicks.com/upcoming-events/ 

More exciting announcements are to come, so check the website regularly for details!

A few weeks ago, I had the honor of chatting with two incredible women. What started as merely the usual following on Twitter and other social networks, turned into an unforgettable divine connection. 

Tiffani & Tanya Phelps, Co-founders of Fly-Chicks,  are a "godly" force to be reckoned with. They have a heart for young girls everywhere.

We live in a society where TV, movies and music tells us that to be beautiful we have to look a certain way. So many young girls suffer because of this stigma. Fly-Chicks.Com was designed to motivate and inspire today's teen.

1.   Thank you for participating in our Spotlight Series! Tell us about Fly Chicks and the role you ladies play within the organization.

We founded Fly-Chicks, Inc. with the goal of being a sounding board and resource for young ladies to help them think beyond the moment and make good decisions. While growing up, there were certain conversations that we wanted to have with our mothers, but those conversations did not happen. For this reason, we wanted Fly-Chicks, Inc to be the catalyst that started those “tough” conversations with young ladies and women. In order to get the ball rolling, we started by sharing personal stories and lessons learned from our journey through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

As we began telling others about Fly-Chicks, we started encouraging other women to share their personal stories in order to spotlight the fact that – no matter the situation or generation – our journeys are all similar.  Each of us have experienced pain, disillusionment, low self-esteem, disappointment, hurt, rejection, confusion and a host of other emotions that can sometimes act to isolate us from others.  Oftentimes, it is in that isolation that we are most vulnerable, and tend to succumb to more negative emotions and behaviors. Fly-Chicks, Inc. was established as a platform to give women and young ladies a voice.  When a person feels “heard”, those feelings of isolation and hopelessness begin to immediately dissipate.

Young ladies especially need to understand that they are not alone. In facilitating transparent conversations across the generational spectrum, we firmly believe that with each true story, word of encouragement, letter of hope, etc. – we are able to achieve the message that each experience we’ve had was needed to shape us into the women we are today.  We should never be ashamed of our experiences, for they are meant to form our character – and more importantly – our purpose.  Essentially, we know because of Jeremiah 1:5, that we were deemed valuable and needed on this earth before we were even formed in our mother’s womb.  God knew each of our paths before we walked them, and He deemed our journeys both essential and necessary in order for us to fulfill our purpose.  We have value because of our experiences, not “in spite” of them.

We began this journey with the creation of the website www.fly-chicks.com, and now have a host of activities, tools & resources that we use to encourage women and young ladies to share their stories, so that each of us can effectively empower and support one another.

2.   I have read many of your poetry and articles about the struggles you both have overcome. What experiences have shaped you into the wonderful women you are today?

Whew!  That’s an easy (and difficult) question to answer – primarily because of what we were just sharing with you a few moments ago.  Every single experience we’ve had has shaped us into who we are today – the good and the bad.  Some experiences we allowed into our lives because of our own distorted view of ourselves and our value, and it is those situations that we’ve wanted to spotlight and encourage other women to spotlight, as well. This is particularly important because there is value in shared experiences. As women, it is imperative that we ground one another in grace and encourage one another in love (Hebrews 10:24-25).  Whether the struggle has been low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts, sexual sin, abusive relationships, etc., we’ve grown to understand and know that each of the experiences we’ve had or heard from other women will serve to help someone else.  The key is transparency. 

Oftentimes, young people make poor decisions because they suffer from the distorted view that no one “understands” their journey -- no one has ever “felt” the way they feel.  We want to change that!  It’s our goal to arm young ladies with the truth.  The truth is that regardless of the mistakes you make in life, you are never alone.  There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9), and all things work together to form the perfect creature that you are in the eyes of God.  We want to use real life examples to prove this. No one’s journey is filled with perfection – but everyone’s journey is necessary to build in us the strength, dignity, and self-worth needed to pour into the life of someone else.

3.   What struggles did you face as teenagers, specifically in regards to body image and self worth?

Tanya:  As a teen, I was tall with crooked teeth and had very flat feet, which led to what my peers described as a “weird, wide walk”.  I was very self-conscious of my appearance, and would often “shrink” in an attempt to accommodate the height of my peers and make myself appear to be “one of them”.  This “shrinking” was symbolic both externally and internally.  Though I was very intelligent, I would often act “goofy” or become very quiet in class so that I would deflect from my mental prowess, out of fear that this would further cause people to make fun of me.  I desperately wanted to be “liked” and often compromised my own standards in order to gain acceptance.  This crossed over into relationships with boys, and resulted in my making poor decisions with my body, which caused even lower self-esteem and began a cycle that was difficult to break.   Eventually, I began to mask my insecurities with food, and by the time I was a young adult, I was more than 50 lbs. overweight.  This was a very difficult time emotionally, mentally and physically.  I didn’t have a father-figure in my life, so I continued to look for acceptance among males.  Over time, my faith began to overshadow my insecurities and I gained strength from having a constant, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.  It was through my faith that I began to gain the inner strength and self-worth needed to overcome the feelings of vulnerability and insecurity that had become the catalyst for my poor self-image.  When I began to see myself through HIS eyes, I understood that my uniqueness was actually my strength.   

 
Tiffani: I battled severe low self-esteem. As a young girl, I couldn’t identify any good qualities about myself, except for being a nice person. But, over time, I started viewing my niceness as a weakness. In fact, if there was a negative thought or feeling to have, I probably had it. I used to believe that I was worthless, stupid, ugly, fat, inferior, and a mistake. I hated everything about me. I can remember being depressed all throughout middle school, high school, and a good portion of my adult life because I didn’t think that I was good enough.  In fact, I was 19 yrs old when I first tried to commit suicide. After my third and final suicide attempt, I could hear God telling me to LIVE. Now, I look back on my journey, and all of the days I questioned God for creating me, and I know that there was purpose in all of my pain. I had to go through those challenging life experiences so that I could tell young ladies and other women that God loves them. His love isn’t like human love. God finds beauty in every imperfection, in every mistake, in every tear, because He knows that there is a greater purpose in all of it.        

4.   How are you empowering other women and young girls to realize their beauty and potential?

The key is to emphasize that true beauty is not external.  True beauty is reflected through what message is permeating through a person’s spirit.  Do you operate in a spirit of Love? What about Integrity? Grace? Honor?  Do you honor yourself with your own words? Do you represent integrity through your actions? Do you operate in grace by forgiving those whom have hurt you? Do you love unconditionally – yourself included?  All of these things determine the beacon of light that shines through you.  Others can see it.  You must be able to see it, too. 

This is why we have the tagline “Spread your wings from within.” This phrase was created as a message of empowerment for young ladies and serves as a constant reminder that a healthy self-esteem starts from the inside-out.   Once you understand your value and worth, you will be able to soar to heights beyond your biggest expectations. How?  Because you’ll realize that you are priceless, and it’s been in you all along!