The Office Worker And The Gospel Singer: Unlikely Pair Help Each Other Achieve Their Dreams

Christine Boschen says she is not a religious person.

She does, however, believe in a higher power.

Which is why Boshen says she wasn't phased when, one day at her job in an Oakland office building with the State of California, she heard a small voice in her head.

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"I was at work, and I got this real quiet voice inside my head that said you need to take a walk. And I was like, 'okay... right now?' Yes, you need to take a walk."

Boshen says she now knows it wasn't fresh air she was meant to get. There was a person she was meant to meet.

"I see this woman in front of me," Boshen said. "And so I turned and said hello."

From that chance encounter, an unlikely alliance was spawned. Boshen and the woman she met, Taliha Bomani, are now helping each other achieve their personal goals.

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Taliha Bomani is something of a fixture on the streets of Oakland. So much so, perhaps, many professionals on their lunch breaks might look right past her.

But not Christine. And certainly not on that day.

"We are both the type of people who see people," Boshen said.

Christine recently decided her passion is to become a life coach and was actually on the lookout for someone whose dreams she could help come true.

Talia, who writes and sings her own gospel music, was looking for someone to help her bring it to a wider audience and people Talia believes need her message of faith.

"Taliha and I are very similar in the sense that we both have this thing that keeps us up at night," Boshen said, "and that is helping people."

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Boshen and Bomani now meet regularly, offering prayers and songs to passers-by and support for each other.

Boshen has already spent some of her own money to help Bomani make a music video and has organized a GoFundMe campaign so she can record her very own album.

"It's really a warm feeling," Bomani said. "It makes me feel very warm to know that somebody cares this much."

It is the type of story that could only happen in a melting-pot city like Oakland: two people from very different backgrounds, yet each the answer to the other's prayers.

"It's because we see the world through our heart eyeballs," Boshen said. "When you see the world through your heart eyeballs, you don't care about the trappings, you just see the spark in somebody and we're two peas in a pod actually, we're very alike."

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