Current Stories to View:
Current Stories to View:
In February 2023, Mark was reading the story, The True Princess by Angela Elwell Hunt, to younger classes while substitute teaching in Charlevoix Michigan. This story was one of a few that my own 3 girls loved hearing while growing up. I started to think what other stories were clean and pure and inspired my girls to be the same. There were very few around. There were many other stories that I remembered so I would write them down on the inside covers of this book. Before long I had pretty much filled up this book. Once I began writing them down, more and more came to me. So I started writing more stories in other notebooks. Before long, I had over 1,500 stories without fairy tales that were never put into a book. I wanted to pass along these stories because they were short, sweet and full of powerful messages to shape minds. I wanted to leave a legacy of what life was in the past to help shape our future and for their life to come. Getting people to think about how they are living their lives and reaching their true value of what God wants them to be.
Kid’s attitudes towards others and themselves changed after hearing my stories. The stories were promised if they worked well, the class finished their classwork and behaved in class. This was a great motivational tool to handle the class while subbing. More and more stories were then brought to my attention from family, friends, and even strangers. My daughters suggested that instead of writing books right away, that it was faster to build a website and to have people just tell their stories. But to have a roughly 3 minute limited per story then more onto the next one. This would keep people’s interest level longer.
I began collecting stories with emails to add to my collections of stories. Their stories inspired others to come forward and for me to dig deeper and to write more down.
True stories fascinated me the most so this is what I’ve gone with for this website. Positive stories inspire others to be positive. Clean stories then can be shared with any age group. I want to build up the goodness in people so that they can shine their brightest.
I began by writing out 200 stories of my favorites over the next several months. Each story would have a special jingle to motivate the listener to strive to be a better person. My stories would include a written, audio and visual version to reach different audiences. My stories could consist of 1st, 2nd or 3rd hand stories. It was brought to my attention that people would love to forever go to this website to see or hear past relatives telling stories. Wouldn’t it be neat to hear stories from my youth or stories by a great grandpa or a grandmother?
My preference is for a storyteller to look at a small note card, if needed to, but to just tell a story from memory with every snort or chuckle. It would be more powerful than to just reading it from a prepared paper. It is more authentic in their own words. A special reader would read the stories of those who are uncomfortable telling their stories. These stories will touch not just their relative’s lives, but the lives of many more readers. People will come to know them vs people just taking their stories to the grave. Each storyteller will receive a copy of their story for themselves. Backup files will store multiple copies and will never be shared or sold to another party or person.
Each storyteller will also be compensated with the following:
It is my hope to see the storytellers someday in Heaven and to see the glory of how our stories changed lives of others here on Earth!
With Love,
Mark C. Gengle