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Gone Fishin'

~ …“Come after me, and I will make you fishers for men!”

Gone Fishin'

Category Archives: Poetry

An End-Time Poem

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Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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14 To the angel of Messiah’s community in Laodicea write: “Thus says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Originator of [YeHoVaH’s] creation: 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. Oh, that you were either cold or hot! 16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spew you out of My mouth. 17 For you say, ‘I am rich, I have made myself wealthy, and I need nothing.’ But you do not know that you are miserable and pitiable and poor and blind and naked. 18 I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white clothes so that you may dress yourself and so the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed, and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. Therefore, be zealous and repent. ~ Revelation 3:14-19

NOTE:

The bracketed word in verse 14 is my emphasis.

The “Who Do You Think You’re Kidding?” poem in the above image is an end-time poem about the Laodiceans that exist right now. They are carnal babes in Yeshua whose apathy and trust in their wealth and their desires for money-oriented things have caused them to become spiritually poor, blind, and naked.

A word to the wise should be sufficient.

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Softening with Time

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Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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calcified, comedy, consciousness, corridors of time, dreamlike, emotional events, episodic memories, explicit memories, foolishness, ghostly, inaccessible, melt, recall, repressive future, sadness, self-knowing awareness, sentimental value, surreal, temporal lobe, tragedy

But the Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name [in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf], He will teach you all things. And He will help you remember everything that I have told you. – John 14:26, AMP

Your betrayal nearly hardened my heart
Calcified instead fond episodic memories –
Consciously collected personal events
Stored in temporal lobe.

Imagining possible future experiences 
Not achievable since episodic memories’
Self-knowing awareness is inaccessible, 
Incapable of roaming at will.

Needing to believe my dreamlike ghostly 
Existence isn’t endless just a juxtaposition –
Tragedy and comedy placed side by side to
Accentuate both my sadness and foolishness –
I seek the answers to these mysterious and 
Unexplainable human psyche extremes that
Pull and stretch my mind’s corridors of time.

Hoping to sidestep eternal unawareness,
I pray for a softening with time my mind’s 
Repressive future until it allows petrified
Explicit memories to melt.

Let me consciously recall every pleasant 
Highly emotional date, place, experience 
Containing sentimental value so that my
Hope for a future is restored. 

-	composed March 18, 2021  

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Aunt Eleanor Wade Goins . . . In Loving Memory

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Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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Aunt Eleanor, compassionate, evangelist, fruit of the Holy Spirit, godly woman, in loving memory, one of 12 children, prayer warrior, preacher, soft-spoken, sweet, tribute, visionary, Yeshua-like

But the fruit of the Ruach is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Messiah have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Ruach, let us also walk by the Ruach. Let us not become conceited—provoking one another, envying one another. – Galatians 5:22-26, TLV

It has been years since I last saw Aunt Eleanor, which was on January 20, 2007. She was back in Wilkes-Barre on that day to say her final goodbyes to a sister who helped raise her – my Mom, Lucille Wade-Drayton.

The last thing I heard my Mom say about Aunt Eleanor was how powerfully she prayed for Mom. This prayer happened some weeks before Mom died peacefully in Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center. So, what stands out the most when I think about my Aunt Eleanor, is that she was an evangelist, a pulpit preacher, and a prayer warrior.

She also was very sweet and soft-spoken, and these two things I realized about her when I saw her on January 13, 2007.  While I was sitting in Mount Zion Church’s multipurpose room – where the family had gathered before my Mom’s homegoing service started – Aunt Eleanor came close to me, commented on how much I looked like my Mom, told me she had heard some great things about me during her frequent talks with my Mom, told me how sorry she was about my loss, and gave me a big hug and a sweet kiss on my right cheek.

Most of what I know about my Aunt Eleanor I learned from my Mom because my aunt lived in Chicago while I was growing up in Wilkes-Barre, so I rarely saw her. Nevertheless, I do have some things that I liked the most about her because they are things we have in common.

The first thing I like about Aunt Eleanor is how deeply she loved YeHoVaH. As I already mentioned, she was a preacher and an evangelist; however, what I recently learned is that she preached the Gospel of Yeshua every 4th Sunday, and she evangelized on the streets wherever she went, up until the end of her life. That information inspired me, as I am a preacher and evangelist, too.

Like me, Aunt Eleanor also experienced the loss of a child. She lost her son, Franky, in 2013, and I lost my son, Ade, in 2017. But what is most important is that none of her losses kept her from doing what YeHoVaH called her to do. It is my prayer that someone one day will say the same thing about me.

“Godly Woman” is the poem that I have dedicated to my Aunt Eleanor who was a godly woman. I finished writing this poem just a few minutes before I posted it here. This poem is my tribute to an aunt I rarely saw or spoke to, yet I know more about her than I know about my aunts I did see and did talk with more.  The poem I wrote is as follows:

            Godly Woman
 
 
Some people you can know for years,
Yet not know the real them;
Other people you can know of but never
Spend much time with them,
Yet know their spirits and their souls.
 
Aunt Eleanor is an old soul who displayed
Wisdom and special talents in her youth;
Her sage-like qualities put her in a world
Of her own – peerless vision mom noticed
About her when she was just a teenager,
Exhibiting a special talent – an empathetic
Flair to connect with people – spirituality
Too hard to ignore, as was her giving gift.
 
She consoled others even when she hurt,
She lifted her head and walked in turmoil;
She spoke constant words of wisdom – not
Malice, or envy, or gossip, or resentment;
She rejoiced in YeHoVaH with a grateful
Spirit and joyful one that inspired women
Like me – her niece – who saw in my aunt
Strength to carry others’ burdens, courage
To take the fall for someone else’s misdeeds,
Love to pray powerfully and compassionately
For others with heavy-laden heart, gentleness
To admire other women and compliment them
Genuinely, humility to admit she was wrong or
Admit she needs help, peace to help her endure
Evil words and actions from haters, kindness
To be friendly and considerate to everyone,
Faithfulness to be generous enough to bless
Others with the things she needs, patience
To wait on YeHoVaH’s Promises, joyfulness
To praise and worship YeHoVaH in times of
Trouble and comfort, and self-control to love
Her enemies and her neighbors as she loved
Herself – and to serve others.
 
Aunt Eleanor’s life typifies that godliness that’s in
People who are so full of The Spirit’s Fruit, Power,
Authority they’re  able to spiritually and faithfully
Walk on water, raise the dead, and feed thousands.
 
-      Composed September 1, 2020

Rest In Peace, Aunt Eleanor!

Lastly, the funeral services for my aunt, Eleanor Wade Goins, will be next Friday, September 11th, at Taylor Funeral Home located at 63 E. 79th Street in Chicago, IL 60619. The wake is at 11am, and the homegoing service is at 12 noon.

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No Mud . . . No Lotus!

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Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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adversity, bloom, blossom, covets, dirty water, fence, flexible, green meadow, heartache, lotus flower, lotus pond, murk, pain, petals, phenomenal beauty, re-created, reborn, rises, soulmate, strong, struggles, thick mud, unsoiled

After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace—who has called you into His eternal glory in Messiah—will Himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. – 1 Peter 5:10, TLV




If he didn’t want you,
Forgive his green-eyed stares
Watching you from a
Distance now as your blossoming
Lotus petals open in
Spite of the mud he thought
He smothered you in –
Pain so deep and dark washed
Off by murky dirty water
That ironically re-created you unsoiled.
 
He’s threatened by the
Beauty that broke through the
Heartache his rejection
Prompted – an ill-fated decision
Resulting from his lust
Of flesh and eyes that failed to
Discern the grass is only
Greener wherever it is watered –
So, he left instead of
Working on turning green the meadow
He now covets, after
Devaluing and dismissing your potential.    

Jealousy, a soul-devouring
Sickness, lays dormant until he sees
How you emerged spotless
On the outside and strong on the inside
While outwardly he fakes
Feelings meant for you and inwardly pines,
So afraid to use the remedy
He once used – surrendered pride and joy
For pride and joy he thought
Looked better on the other side of the fence.

He refuses to grab hold of
Hard to express feelings that are eating a
Hole in his sad soul and in
His ever-bleeding heart that knows you’re
His true love and she is
His first aid quick fix that never helped him
Heal self-inflicted wound –
Hastily divorcing then remarrying because
He promised her, yet forgot
He promised you first ‘til death do we part.
 
If he didn’t see you as
Soulmate then, just forgive his
Blindness and egotism
That make him want the new you
Who remarkably grew
Through his mud toward the light,
Warmth, and splendor
In the grass he was searching for  
When he settled for an
Imitation – a forlorn decision that 
Foreclosed any possibility
He’d realize your anchored strength
And flexibility often look
Fragile on the surface but are why you
Rose through adversity and
Blossomed so strongly and stunningly.
 
 
 
-     composed August 17, 2020

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Nadine’s Song

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Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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chanson, divorce, downbeat, keyless, lyricless, misery, modern tragedy, noteless, song, sorrow, soul sings, soundless, tuneless, upbeat, whirlwind of emotions, wounds

Alongside Babylon’s rivers
    we sat on the banks; we cried and cried,
    remembering the good old days in Zion.
Alongside the quaking aspens
    we stacked our unplayed harps;
That’s where our captors demanded songs,
    sarcastic and mocking:
    “Sing us a happy Zion song!”  – Psalm 137:1-3, MSG


A keyless, noteless, lyricless
Chanson is known only by its
Annual wedding anniversaries –
Twenty-two sequential somber
Returns out of fifty minus one.
 
August thirteen’s forty-ninth
Return reopens invisible chronic
Wounds then heightens their pain
While displacing summer nuptials’
Joy – much like how a Blues style
Syncopation de-emphasizes strong
Beats and accentuates weak beats.
 
La-la stopped meaning ‘love you’
Three decades, three months after
Delfonics earned a place on Soul’s
International map with baby talk –
A young male’s frequent utterance.
 
Life has repositioned love’s dynamic
Downbeat – relocated to an upbeat
Spot known as the joke’s on me –
Where misery’s stereophonic sound
Drowns out all hope of loving anew.
 
Sorrow is the song my soul has
Sung each year for a score plus
Two years – after my divorce,
Which unleashed a whirlwind of
Emotions that mark my life as a
Sad survivor of a modern tragedy.
 
-      composed August 13, 2020

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I Can’t Breathe

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Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in National Tragedy, Poetry

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asphyxiation, black mothers, capital punishment, chokehold, choking, domestic terrorism, executed, injustices, liberation, sisters and brothers, strangulation, suffocating, systemic racism

but they allow the cares of this life and the seduction of wealth and the desires for other things to crowd out and choke the Word so that it produces nothing. – Mark 4:19, TPT

There will be such an increase of sin and lawlessness that those whose hearts once burned with passion for God and others will grow cold. – Matthew 24:12, TPT

I am suffocating
In America’s excruciating
Capital punishment
Racist environment
Knee on neck violent
Positional asphyxiation;
Modern-day abomination
Has policing technique trending
While black lives keep dwindling.
 
I can’t breathe
Pinned to ground
In lethal chokehold –
Publicly executed.
 
Excessive force
Used in untold cases
Where black lives
Not resisting arrest
Still lost their lives.
 
Can’t breathe black mothers,
Nay, all sisters and brothers
Are waiting to respire
Once injustices backfire,
Triggering an exorcism
Of systemic racism –
Domestic terrorism –
Topped off with a strangulation,
Ensuring black lives’ liberation.
 
 
-      composed June 16, 2020

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Special Clay

01 Friday May 2020

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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an earth pigment, blackness, clay, curse of Ham, figment of imagination, justification, lie, Potter, racial hierarchy, reddish brown, sienna, slaves, special clay

But now, [YeHoVaH], You are our Father.
We are the clay and You are our potter,
We are all the work of Your hand. – Isaiah 64:8

Color me sienna,
Ferruginous earth –
Reddish-brown pigment
Eliminating figment –
Invented fiction
Faux prediction
Cursed affliction.

Ham’s descendants,
America’s tenants,
Allotted magnitude –
Blackness, servitude,
Racial hierarchy idea
Perceptual diarrhea –
Principal causation
Of slavery justification.
  • by Nadine Drayton-Keen; composed May 1, 2020

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Vision’s Normal Sharpness in 2020

02 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry, Spiritual

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20/20, discernment, foresight, hindsight, insight, new decade, new season, New Year, normal sharpness, prudence, righteous judgment, vision, wisdom

25 He replied, “I know nothing about that one way or the other. But I know one thing for sure: I was blind . . . I now see.”

26 They said, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?”

27 “I’ve told you over and over and you haven’t listened. Why do you want to hear it again? Are you so eager to become his disciples?”

28-29 With that they jumped all over him. “You might be a disciple of that man, but we’re disciples of Moses. We know for sure that God spoke to Moses, but we have no idea where this man even comes from.”

30-33 The man replied, “This is amazing! You claim to know nothing about him, but the fact is, he opened my eyes! It’s well known that God isn’t at the beck and call of sinners, but listens carefully to anyone who lives in reverence and does his will. That someone opened the eyes of a man born blind has never been heard of—ever. If this man didn’t come from God, he wouldn’t be able to do anything.”

34 They said, “You’re nothing but dirt! How dare you take that tone with us!” Then they threw him out in the street. – John 9:25-34, MSG

As the new year and new decade begin, they also activate a new season – one in which our vision will have the potential of functioning with normal sharpness (perfect discernment, righteous judgment, and godly spirituality). Starting this month, let us repeatedly make a conscious effort to not let only our hindsight be twenty-twenty. Let us strive to make sure that our foresight (prudence, wisdom, insight) also has normal sharpness.

I composed the below poem in 2000. I first posted it as a blog entry on January 9, 2009, and I first published it in 2017 in a collection of poetry titled My Spirit’s Musings.

Approximately 20 years after I composed this poem, almost 11 years after I blogged this poem, and practically 2 years after I first published “Vision” in a book of poetry, I am blogging it again. Additionally, “Vision” is included in my Moody Woman poetry anthology that will be published this month.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  HAPPY NEW DECADE!  HAPPY NEW SEASON!

UPDATE:

I published Moody Woman: A Collection of Poetry on January 12, 2020. This book is my fifth published book – my third poetry anthology. This book — in paperback and eBook formats — is sold on Amazon.com. Right now, both formats are available to purchase.

There are limericks. free verses, lyrics. sonnets, couplets, concrete poems, and haiku poems in this anthology. Additionally, Moody Woman is comprised of material composed over six decades — from the 1960s and forward.

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Stubborn As Mule

11 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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annual Feast days, Atonement, birth, blasphemous, celebrators, Christmas, death, discipline, Easter-Sunday, First Fruits, goad, Good Friday, hol-i-days, Holy Spirit resisters, lies, moedim, myths, paganism, pain, Passover, Pentecost, resurrection, stiff-necked people, stubborn, Tabernacles, Traditions of Men, Trumpets, unaffected, unaltered, Unleavened Bread, unmoved, unwilling, YeHoVah, Yeshua

I composed this poem on December 8, 2019, after seeing so many Christmas postings in my Facebook newsfeed that professed Christians posted. It is hard to believe that – in this twenty-first century – so many who declare they are Christians are still kicking against the goads (are still refusing to hear YeHoVah’s Voice about not following/not keeping the traditions of men). They have closed their souls and their ears to His Truth – choosing to be unfaithful to His Will and His Ways. Perhaps the real problem is that they are Christians instead of Netzarim (faithful servants/disciples/saints of Yeshua).

By stubbornly refusing to obey YeHoVaH, Christmas celebrators and believers are driving their individual goad in deeper and deeper. Choosing to be unfaithful to YeHoVaH’s Divine Truth, by rejecting the Holy Spirit’s teaching/revealing, causes the necessary pain that comes from His Discipline, which eventually will happen to them, if it hasn’t already begun. Selah . . . .

Why would you be so stubborn as to close your hearts and your ears to me? You are always opposing the Holy Spirit, just like your forefathers! – Acts 7:51, TPT

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New Poetry Anthology: Coming Soon

13 Wednesday Nov 2019

Posted by Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen in Poetry

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anthology, belief-governed, changing disposition, collection of poetry, difficult people, emotional manifestations, emotions are gauges, feelings are not guides, healthy moods, inside weather, literary moods, map out, March, mood swings, moodiness, Moody Woman, temperamental differences

Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul?
    Why are you crying the blues?
Fix my eyes on God—
    soon I’ll be praising again.
He puts a smile on my face.
    He’s my God.

When my soul is in the dumps, I rehearse
    everything I know of you,
From Jordan depths to Hermon heights,
    including Mount Mizar.
Chaos calls to chaos,
    to the tune of whitewater rapids.
Your breaking surf, your thundering breakers
    crash and crush me.
Then God promises to love me all day,
    sing songs all through the night!
    My life is God’s prayer. – Psalm 42:5-8, MSG

March is my birthday month, and I was born on the 6th of this month. Now, everyone who has ever shared descriptions of early March-born individuals’ temperamental differences with me has always said early March-born individuals are as follows: the most difficult people to understand and the moodiest people. These two truths about my nature, as well as other truths, are why I equate my temperamental differences – my changing nature or mood swings – to Mother Nature’s changing weather. Just like Mother Nature’s weather can be stormy, dreary, cloudy, sunny, hot, warm, cold, freezing, cool, rainy, dry, humid, windy, and so forth, the same is true about my “inside weather” – my soulish nature’s weather. However, the main difference between my soulish nature’s weather shifts (changing dispositions) and Mother Nature’s weather shifts is that there usually aren’t any clear warning signs – no accurate forecasts – that will let people know when a change in my “inside weather” will happen.

Now, I have always believed that God gave us our feelings – our various emotions – for us to use as gauges and not as guides. What I mean is that God designed us in such a way that it is our beliefs that should govern our feelings/emotions. For sure, it is our beliefs that map out our thinking, and we eventually express what we believe and think through our emotions. These emotional manifestations of our beliefs and our thinking are our “inside weather” – our mood swings. Since our moods don’t come out of nowhere, we who are believers in Christ must never allow our moods to alter what we believe. If we truly believe we live by faith, then this belief should govern our emotions and keep them from manipulating us and others.

Thankfully, my moodiness (unpredictable mood changes) never manifested as angry outbursts that happened several times a week. For sure, my moodiness never involved uncontrollable verbal rages and physical aggression. The kind of “inside weather” changes I experienced never made me psychotically depressed – depressed to the point that I contemplated suicide. To the best of my knowledge, I also never manipulatively used my “inside weather” – my mood changes – to control others. In other words, not one of my so-called “bad moods” was ever intentionally leveraged as a weapon used to force others to do what I wanted them to do. Some people might have felt like that was what my moodiness was doing, but I never calculatedly bullied, oppressed, or forced anyone to oblige me by doing my bidding.

Compared to the more depressive and crueler kinds of moodiness, mine has always been rather mild. In fact, the best definition of moody, as it pertained to what my family and friends called me, as well as pertains to what I refer to as my “inside weather,” has always meant the varied ways I expressed my feelings.

Writing became my main way of communicating how I was living with my accepted truth – my moodiness helped make me a difficult woman to understand. Since I was a child, poetry was the one writing form I have repeatedly used to show my changing feelings. However, over the years, whenever someone whose opinion I respected didn’t like a poem I had written, I would stop believing in myself as a poet and, as a result, I would stop writing poetry. My longest period in which I wasn’t creating any poetry was from 1969 to 1978.

By the late 1980s, when I was working on my Ph.D. degree at Howard University, someone encouraged me to enter some of my poems in a contest. That someone was my African-American Poetry class’ professor. She encouraged her entire class to submit at least one poem to the Howard University’s Poetry Contest (sponsored by The Academy of American Poets). Because I felt that none of my poems that were more than two stanzas would stand a chance, I submitted a quatrain that I composed in 1984. I selected that poem because I was sure it wouldn’t win, as I did not consider this poem to be one of my better ones. Surprisingly, that poem (“Pebbles”) received an honorable mention, and that honorable mention made me believe in myself as a poet, again.

Fast forward to 2017. That is the year I started compiling the poems that are in my soon-to-be-published Moody Woman anthology. In this poetry collection, there are many poems that have never been published – poems I composed in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. These poems are mixed in with other poems I composed during the twenty-first century – most of which also have never been published.  

Every poem in my soon-to-be-published Moody Woman anthology reflects the particular mood I was in when I composed each one. In this collection of poetry, I poetically describe my romantic, melancholy, humorous, mysterious, spiritual, peaceful, cheerful, and chaotic moods as though they are natural. In other words, my poetry is being used to express my “inside weather” – my mood swings. Therefore, every poem in this collection most definitely is my way of rejecting the widely accepted notion that moodiness is an unhealthy pathological condition.

I will update this blog posting with the date when my Moody Woman anthology becomes a published book, and I will note where it can be purchased. It is my hope that everyone who is a poetry lover who also reads this posting will at least consider purchasing my collection of poetry. However, if supporting my work by buying my book isn’t possible, everyone’s sincere and kind prayers will be greatly appreciated.  Shalom . . . . .

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Rev. Nadine Drayton-Keen

Sanctified Child

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