BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

By that time, Melanie had begun to experience a degree of success at freelance writing. In 1986, she sold her first story to "Guideposts." The next year, she sold a second article to "Guideposts" and in 1988 was one of 12 writers to win the magazine’s national writers competition. Melanie spent a week in New York, where she and the other winners got to work with "Guideposts" editors, as well as some of the nation’s most renowned writers, including the best-selling author and speaker Norman Vincent Peale. Because of her nursing background, Melanie began writing articles for the "American Journal of Nursing," the top nursing journal in the world. “They liked my writing so much that they asked me to move to New York City to be their cardiovascular editor,” Melanie said. “They wanted me so badly they had a lawyer in New York City call my husband, Ken, who was an attorney, and offer him a job! I loved New York City, and was up there almost every year. But we had two young daughters, and I didn’t want to raise my children there. Besides, that wasn’t my dream. I wanted to put the faith message into print.” An Unexpected Meeting With Destiny By 1989, Melanie was living her dream. While she had yet to receive that call from Marilyn Hickey, other things were happening—including an unforeseen date with Kenneth Copeland Ministries. One day a friend of hers from church, Jeanne Linville, invited Melanie to lunch so she could introduce her to Gina Jennings, the editor of the "Believer’s Voice of Victory" magazine. Some years earlier, Jeanne’s husband had died from a brain stem stroke. A longtime Partner with KCM, she’d called him back to life. He lived for another 19 years. “Gina had been editor of the magazine for seven years when her husband received a job transfer to Edmond, Okla.,” Melanie explained. “The ministry allowed her to continue in her position as editor while living in Edmond. Before she left Fort Worth, Gina had interviewed 25 writers for a position on the staff, but had not been pleased with any of them.” After meeting with Melanie and learning her background, Gina offered a suggestion: “Why don’t you try your hand at writing Jeanne’s story for the magazine, and let’s see where it goes from there?” “I interviewed Jeanne shortly after that, wrote the story and submitted it to Gina,” Melanie remembers. “In January 1990, the article appeared in "BVOV" under my byline. It was titled ‘Miracle in Progress.’” That sparked a relationship between Melanie and Gina, and a connection for Melanie with KCM and "BVOV" that has lasted now for 27 years. In that time, Melanie has written nearly 300 testimony articles for the magazine—articles that tell the stories of people from all over the world, and nearly every walk of life, who have faced trouble, and even death, and dared to take God at His Word and believe Him for victory. They have been real people with real needs who experienced real victories at critical times in their lives—people who learned how to trust God and see Him turn tragedy into triumph, defeat into victory, poverty into prosperity. 16 : BVOV

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