How Bonnie Brown Learned to ‘Giigle’ at Google

How Bonnie Brown Learned to ‘Giigle’ at Google

By Dan Wooding. Founder of ASSIST News Service

LAKE FOREST, CA (ANS – July 2, 2016) – During this year, we have faced unprecedented attacks on Christians around the world with homicidal groups like Islamic State (ISIS) in the Middle East, and Boko Haram in Nigeria, along with radicals in Iran and Pakistan, all of whom have gone on murderous sprees against our brothers and sisters in Christ.

More than 7,000 believers were killed for their faith in 2015 and over 100,000 were persecuted. But these alarming numbers do not include the innocent Christians slaughtered at the hands of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

In March, the United States Secretary of State John Kerry called the Islamic State atrocities a “genocide” – a term many evangelical Christians have been calling to be used for some time. Kerry said that in 2014, ISIS trapped Yazidis, killed them, enslaved thousands of Yazidi women and girls, “selling them at auction, raping them at will” and destroying the communities in which they had lived for countless generations,” executed Christians “solely for their faith” and also “forced Christian women and girls into slavery.”

The sad news is that 2016 is not looking any better and ANS pledges to keep you up to date and also bring you stories about courageous believers who need the world to know of their plight. But we need your help!

So please go to www.assistnews.net and then to DONATE TO ASSIST NEWS to give today! Your gift of any amount, $25, $50, $100, $500, or more, will help us in our goal of raising $25,000 to keep providing this vital news service free to all our subscribers.

We are coming to the end of our week-long special focus for ANS as we have held our first-ever ASSISTNEWS-A-Thon. Your support empowers us to bring news stories from a Christian perspective and vital updates on the persecuted church. These are stories you will mainly not see anywhere else!

Remember that our persecuted brothers and sisters are depending on us to keep making the world aware of the terrible plight that so many of them are in, and we cannot let them down!

Our final guest contributor to share about how ANS has challenged and blessed them is Bonnie Brown, who is known to her many friends as the “Giigle” lady. You may wonder how she acquired that name, so let me explain.

Bonnie found Christ in 1972 during the Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, California, big tent during the Jesus People hippie revival. Eventually, Bonnie was married and bore two lovely daughters, but sadly it didn’t last and she was left as a single mother taking care of two teen-aged daughters. She started a private Christian school that she ran for a decade without compensation, but even that eventually collapsed.

She eventually managed to get a job as a full-time massage therapist at a startup company called Google in Silicon Valley, explaining, “The Google employee plan had much forethought in incorporating the therapeutic benefit of massage. It's far more productive for the employees than a coffee break.”

Bonnie Brown had the forethought to ask for stock options as part of her pay. Then, on Aug 19, 2004, Google went public and Bonnie's life turned around in an incredible way.

“When I first bought the stocks, they weren't worth very much,” she said. “I actually bought some of them for a nickel. With the IPO (Initial Public Offering), they started out at eighty-five dollars a share and it just kept going up from there. As a person who has options, you have a holding period so you're not allowed to sell for six months.”

“On Valentine's Day 2005, while I was sitting at my computer, that was the day this lockup period was released and the people holding options were able to sell and so I pushed that button and I became a millionaire overnight.”

Bonnie then moved to Nevada and decided to retire, but found that didn't work for her. So she started the “Giigle Foundation” and began helping ministries with the money she had acquired. So now, Bonnie travels the world investigating Christian ministries and when she is satisfied that they are worthy of support, she helps them.

So I asked Bonnie Brown to give her views about our news service, and she said “There are a lot of news sources on the Internet. As time goes by, it is harder to sort through truth and error or dishonesty. I appreciate ANS to give me a truthful eyewitness accounting of events concerning my brothers and sisters around the world.

“There is something very faith-building when I read of the sufferings and joys of others in very distant places, knowing they serve the same God and His faith is planted in their hearts as well. I don't have time to read every story, but I read some of them every week and pray for those I will never meet on this earth, but soon in Heaven.

“I am thankful for Dan Wooding and his commitment and perseverance to connect the body of Christ for encouragement, strength, hope and faith. It has been a blessing to support such an effort.

Take a stand

Will you take a stand with us for our suffering brothers and sisters around the world? Please give generously on this last day of our ASSISTNEWS-A-Thon to help us today.

It is really easy, but the results of your kindness will have a profound effect on those we seek to serve. Just log onto www.assistnews.net and click on the “DONATE TO ASSIST NEWS” button to make you gift. Or, send a check made out to “ASSIST” and mail it to: PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609, USA. (In the USA, all of your gifts are tax-deductible).

Note from Dan Wooding: Thank you all for reading this and, for those of you in the United States, may I wish you a Happy Fourth of July, and we ask all of you, wherever you may live, to continue praying for our suffering brothers and sisters around the world. Let freedom ring for them!

Photo captions: 1) Pakistani Christians protest the blasphemy law in their country. 2) Bonnie Brown. 3) Bonnie being interviewed for a Middle East TV stations by Dan Wooding.

** You may republish this or any of our ANS stories with attribution to the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net). Please also tell your friends that they can get a complimentary subscription to our news service by going to our website to sign up.