For Shen­nelle Mo­hammed, cre­ativ­i­ty is not a lux­u­ry—it is a call­ing. “Women are very cre­ative, and that qual­i­ty shouldn’t be hid­den,” she says sim­ply, with the con­fi­dence of some­one who has learned to trust her in­ner com­pass. “I’m not afraid to show what I be­lieve in. I’m pas­sion­ate about God, fam­i­ly, good health and unique­ness.”

At just 29, Mo­hammed has al­ready shaped a life de­fined not by con­ven­tion, but by con­vic­tion. A self-taught culi­nar­i­an, wife and moth­er of two young boys, she has built her world around val­ues that an­chor her—faith, moth­er­hood, and cre­ative ex­pres­sion—al­low­ing each to in­form the oth­er.

Raised in San Fer­nan­do by her grand­moth­er, Mo­hammed cred­its her re­silience to the women who shaped her ear­ly life. Her moth­er, who worked two jobs while rais­ing her large­ly on her own, re­mains her great­est in­spi­ra­tion. “My dad wasn’t much in my life and my moth­er worked two jobs to raise me, but she did so very well,” Mo­hammed says. “My moth­er worked ex­treme­ly hard and to­day, she’s a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­woman and that in­spires me. I’m fol­low­ing her foot­steps.”

Mo­hammed chan­nels her faith and cre­ativ­i­ty in­to a busi­ness ven­ture she found­ed in La Ro­maine, San Fer­nan­do–“a Chris­t­ian café with a Tri­ni-Amer­i­can flair”–where food, art and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in­ter­sect with sooth­ing hym­nal mu­sic. The space re­flects her world­view—one shaped by Chris­t­ian val­ues and cul­tur­al fu­sion.

Faith is not a pri­vate as­pect of Mo­hammed’s life; it is the lens through which she sees every­thing. A de­vot­ed Pen­te­costal Chris­t­ian, she be­lieves spir­i­tu­al­i­ty should be lived open­ly and prac­ti­cal­ly. In every sea­son, put God first.

“It’s very im­por­tant to rep­re­sent God, and so, when peo­ple vis­it, they must feel the love and com­fort that He gives. Our spe­cial cus­tomer-cen­tred cross with nails re­minds of what Je­sus did for us, and the walls are taste­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed with prayers/bib­li­cal quotes with one be­ing the I Am wall, so in the event you were not aware of the great­ness Je­sus made you to be, you will find your­self on that wall,” Mo­hammed says.

“On the cross, too, vis­i­tors can place anony­mous notes stat­ing any­thing that’s caus­ing them to have a bad day or if they are at their low­est ebb, and the res­i­dent pas­tor, my hus­band and I, will con­gre­gate at the end of the week in prayer and in­ter­cede on their be­half.

“Je­sus said, ‘Speak good­ness in­to your life,’ and that’s the pur­pose/ob­jec­tive of the I Am wall–an as­pect of the din­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Cre­ativ­i­ty, for Mo­hammed, is heal­ing. Whether ex­pressed through food, art or shared ex­pe­ri­ences, she sees it as a calm­ing force that builds con­nec­tion.

That phi­los­o­phy al­so ex­tends in­to how she nur­tures oth­ers—par­tic­u­lar­ly women who may feel over­whelmed, un­seen or un­cer­tain. Mo­hammed is deeply con­scious of how en­vi­ron­ments af­fect emo­tion­al well-be­ing, es­pe­cial­ly for moth­ers, the el­der­ly, and those car­ry­ing silent bur­dens. “Peo­ple need to feel com­fort,” she ex­plains. “They need to feel love. When they walk in­to a space, it should feel safe—like peace.”

Re­gard­ing women who may be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cult times dur­ing this pe­ri­od. Mo­hammed’s mes­sage is com­pas­sion­ate, “In every sea­son, put God first. The Bible said ‘Put first the king­dom of God and every­thing else shall fall in place’. It’s the hard­est thing you will ever do, but it’s the most re­ward­ing thing you will ever ac­com­plish.”

She of­ten in­volves her young son in artis­tic ac­tiv­i­ties. Art en­cour­ages ca­ma­raderie, she notes. “It slows you down. It re­minds you to be present.”

Moth­er­hood has fur­ther re­fined her sense of pur­pose. Nam­ing her work and cre­ative pur­suits af­ter her chil­dren is less about lega­cy and more about sto­ry­telling.

The Christ­mas sea­son holds spe­cial mean­ing for Mo­hammed, not as a com­mer­cial mo­ment but as a spir­i­tu­al one. Christ­mas is about Christ, peace and love, she said. “It’s about mak­ing oth­ers hap­py and be­ing grate­ful for where you are.” It is a time when her cre­ativ­i­ty height­ens and her grat­i­tude deep­ens.

Asked how she de­fines suc­cess, Mo­hammed doesn’t hes­i­tate. “Suc­cess is liv­ing in align­ment with your be­liefs,” she says. It’s hav­ing peace, rais­ing your chil­dren with love, and be­ing brave enough to be your­self—even when it’s un­com­fort­able.

In a world that of­ten pres­sures women to sep­a­rate faith from am­bi­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty from re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, or moth­er­hood from self­hood, Shen­nelle Mo­hammed stands as a re­minder that whole­ness is pos­si­ble. Not by do­ing every­thing—but by do­ing what mat­ters, ful­ly and fear­less­ly.