“I was adopted and always had a pretty intense identity crisis,” Tricia shares. “I also had experiences of sexual abuse which contributed to my behavioral issues. I had my first DUI in high school.”
With a deep desire to turn her life around and reclaim some “control,” over her life, Tricia enlisted in the military. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best environment for someone with such deeply rooted and unaddressed trauma.
Once she left the military, Tricia began experimenting with heroin and became a full-blown addict.
After a series of stints in jail, Tricia hit rock bottom.
“I had no money and nowhere to go. I was literally sleeping in my car in a Subway parking lot,” Tricia recalls.
On a hope and a prayer, Tricia started calling treatment centers to find a place to sleep. The last place on her list was Hoving Home.
“They had a bed available.”
While her first visit didn’t go as she planned, God used Hoving Home to plant seeds of faith in Tricia’s life. After relapsing and yearning for sobriety, she got on a Greyhound bus and went back to Hoving Home to try again.
“I wasn’t a Christian, so learning about God was very new to me,” Tricia expresses. “But my mentor was very non-judgmental and was a safe space for me to talk about what was going on in my life. It was like a little family. I could see the ways God set up my experience and had a direct hand in leading me.”
Finally having time to address her past trauma and identity issues transformed Tricia’s heart. And she thanks the people who support the program!
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Billie grew up watching adults in her life doing drugs. She was grateful for her grandma who tried to protect her from the negative choices of others in her life.
Thankfully, Billie’s mom became a Christian and turned her life around when Billie was a teenager. Billie started to learn about God and give her life to Jesus, but she didn’t really know how to follow Him. And she couldn’t unsee or unlearn what she saw at an early age.
When Billie was a teenager, she started doing drugs, despite her family’s attempts to save her from the same bad choices they made.
Billie’s drug habit quickly spiraled into an addiction as a young woman.
She was lying and stealing to support her drug habit … even taking the money her mom set aside to tithe at church so she could get her next fix!
But God was always pursuing her.
After stealing from her place of employment, Billie spent time in jail. She lost friends. She lost jobs. She lost hope. The consequences of Billie’s behavior finally caught up to her. Forced to move home, Billie’s mom gave her a firm and loving choice: get help or get out.
Without options, Billie called Hoving Home … and finally had the time and space to learn what it meant to not only believe in Jesus, but to follow Him.
It’s been more than 20 years since Billie graduated from Hoving Home, and Christ has sustained her! She moved to Ireland, met her husband, and had five children. Even after the tragedy of losing her precious daughter, Emma, Billie stood on the promises of the Lord to grieve.
“A lot has happened since Hoving Home,” Billie shares, “And without the foundation I got there, there’s no way I’d still be walking with the Lord.”
“Hoving Home changed my life in so many ways,” Billie continues. “It taught me to deal with things according to God’s Word. The staff and other ladies help you, but you learn to rely on God. You have to rely on the Bible and Jesus. That’s what helped me the most.”
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Most little girls are playing with the newest dolls, learning how to braid, and baking cookies with moms and sisters. But when Tina was seven, her grandfather started sexually abusing her. Two years later, Tina was raped by her oldest brother’s “friend.”
At just eight years old, Tina started drinking, attempting to wash away the shame and pain of her stolen innocence. By her tenth birthday, Tina had tried marijuana, acid, and cocaine.
Tina didn’t know any better. It was a life she learned, a life she was too young to save herself from … especially when no one in her life was protecting her.
For decades, Tina endured the trauma of devastating her body through drug use, having children only to lose custody, and surviving a brutal and violent kidnapping. “He cut me in my chest and was licking blood off of me,” Tina vividly remembers. And she won’t forget … “I still have the scar from it.”
After a life of unimaginable suffering, pain, and torture, how could Tina’s life transform? How could she heal? How could she move forward with any hope?
As 1 Peter 1:3 declares, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he gave Tina new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”. And her rebirth into the world came at Hoving Home.
“The Benton Academy was strategically designed by God to pinpoint everything I was going through at the perfect time. It taught me exactly what I needed and gave me discipline and structure out of the chaos.”
Only God can take a life beaten down by sin and brokenness and restore it to purpose and inherent dignity. “It took me 50 years, so I don’t count God out for anything,” Tina declares!
Tina’s life is a reminder of the power God’s love. Jesus died to redeem the souls of ladies like Tina, so they can know the truth of the Gospel!
As for her scars, Tina knows they’ll be fully healed in heaven, thanks to the scars in Jesus’ wrists. Praise God for His mighty work in Tina’s life!
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“I had a horrific upbringing,” Ann admits. “I grew up with six brothers and one sister in a small fishing town.”
When the life of an addict was the only thing she knew, Ann didn’t have context for any other way of living. It led her to anger, resentment, and a life without boundaries. “I was pretty clueless, really just a little girl in my mind,” she shares. And she ended up in jail.
“While I was incarcerated, the church ladies as I called them, came in to minister to us in jail,” Ann remembers. “There was one lady who shared with me about Hoving Home, so I called and did intake.”
“They invited me in,” Ann says.
As so many women experience, Ann remembers the ride to Hoving Home. She will never forget going up the long driveway and the peace that came over her. Then and there she knew she was in the right place.
Of course, when Ann arrived, she carried a lot of pain from her past. “I had a lot to work through,” she shares. But the ladies at Hoving Home were loving. They were caring. There was structure and there were guidelines. In many ways, Ann just had to learn life.
One of the greatest blessings for Ann was the Learning Center. She read and learned about how to tell the truth, how to understand her addiction and sin, and how to turn to Jesus for help and wisdom. “It transformed my life,” Ann expresses.
Now a grandmother, Ann has renewed hope for her life. She is working in full-time ministry and following God with her whole heart. “I always tell people, ‘When I die, and I get cremated, make sure you take me to Hoving Home and put me in the stream at the end of the hill.”
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Salisha’s journey to the United States is something no child should ever have to endure.
“I was trafficked here when I was five years old from Trinidad and Tobago with my little brother,” Salisha shares. “My adopted dad did his best but he lacked compassion,” Salisha remembers. “I felt abandoned and rejected in many ways.”
When Salisha was seventeen, she found out she was in the country illegally. She had to change her name, and she got married right away. She became a mom but always felt like her life was lived in secret.
After her second child died of congenital heart disease when he was nine months old, Salisha’s own heart was emotionally and spiritual ripped in two. Salisha turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with her pain and fears.
Hitting rock bottom, Salisha tried to take her own life, but God preserved her life. “I was trying to die in every way possible, but I just couldn’t,” she adds.
One day, Salisha shared on social media that she needed help. The mom of a childhood friend reached out to her and got Salisha in touch with Hoving Home. “That’s where I was baptized and reborn to start a whole new life.”
At Hoving Home, Salisha began healing. She soaked up the words of Scripture and talked to God. Her big sister in the program encouraged her to write things down and be still in front of the Lord. God began to restore her life and give her the second chance she always hoped for.
Today, Salisha serves in women and children’s ministry, a call she felt in her life after completing our program. God is slowly restoring her family, and she is thankful for all the lessons she’s learned.
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The first time Natalie drank was when she was twelve years old. And she drank to black out.
“I had sexual abuse in my childhood. It was incestuous. And that made me very angry,” Natalie shares.
Her life of pain and addiction led her to very dark situations … working for a motorcycle gang to selling drugs. She overdosed on Good Friday in 2012.
Rehab introduced Natalie to Jesus for the first time, but not having worked through her past, she turned right back to what she knew until she learned about Hoving Home.
In our program, Natalie was able to learn about a relationship with God, one filled with trust and grace, with healing and hope! Natalie was also surrounded by women who truly cared.
“I’ll never forget the breakfasts Beth would come to,” Natalie recalls. “We were made to feel special. We were served. The meal was also served on beautiful China. We were recognized. I felt like part of a family. Those breakfasts meant the world to me.”
In time, not only did Natalie break free from the grip her abuse had over her, she began to see miraculous changes in her family.
Today, Natalie is the education coordinator and a teacher. She is eager to do whatever God asks of her in this season. She knows her role today wouldn’t be possible without the support and guidance she received through Hoving Home.
And because of that, Natalie is now able to minister to others.
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Kim was abused in the most unspeakable ways as a child.
She learned how to numb the pain early and was only eight years old when she started smoking and drinking. At age ten, she became addicted to meth.
“My whole family knew what was happening,” Kim recalls. “Whatever happened to your moms and grandmas happened to you.”
Kim began selling her body to get drugs or spending time in mental hospitals. “They always medicated me,” Kim says. Even though she had three children of her own, Kim couldn’t care for them. And she walked away from them when they were all under six years old. But deep inside, Kim was weary.
Finally, Kim had enough. She sought help at Hoving Home, and God was waiting for her with open arms.
“I showed up at the doors of Hoving Home, and staff was there to hug me,” Kim shares. “And that was the day I knew I was loved, I was saved, I was safe. I knew that was the day that my life was going to change forever. That was the first night I ever rested.”
After giving her life to Christ, Kim was transformed.
God poured His Spirit and compassion into Kim’s life, and she continued to grow. She graduated from Hoving Home and our Leadership Academy so she could serve in ministry.
And the family she thought she’d never see again; God began to restore.
“My children and I are all closer than ever,” Kim proclaims!
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Jenna remembers a loving childhood. Both parents were involved in her life. God provided them with plenty to care for their needs. Jenna went to church with her family and remembers knowing about the Lord.
When she was nineteen, Jenna followed the influence of a boyfriend and tried marijuana for the first time. It led to drinking and other unhealthy decisions.
“My relationship became mentally and emotionally abusive,” Jenna recalls.
Even though Jenna escaped that toxic relationship, she continued to pursue love in all the wrong places. She got to the point where she couldn’t go a day without drinking. “That’s when I knew I had an issue,” she says.
As she opened her heart to help, God led Jenna to a supportive church where she got baptized and joined a recovery group. From there, she learned about Hoving Home.
Jenna learned how to have a relationship with God and let go of the shame of her past. She had a supportive community around her as she began to walk in faith, and she had tools to overcome the challenges and temptations she once gave into.
The Lord has rescued her from anxiety and depression and her dependence on alcohol. She turns to the Word of God for guidance and trusts the Spirit to guide her in her decisions.
Today, Jenna gives God all the praise for the changes in her life.
She is also thankful that so many in Hoving Home’s loving community gave her a safe space to heal, learn, and grow. Her story has revealed God’s glory.
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When Donna was six years old, she was adopted by parents who were devoted to going to church and teaching their kids about Jesus.
On the outside, family life appeared normal, but on the inside, Donna struggled.
Donna had deep feelings of abandonment. She struggled with accepting love.
Donna escaped to friends’ houses or her room.
In middle school, the most important goal of Donna’s was fitting in. The void she felt in her life began to get filled by drugs and even alcohol. She and her friends hated life and authority. Donna’s rebellion led to deep disrespect to her mom. Inside, she was simply coping … angry at her birth parents … feeling rejected … blaming God for her circumstances.
When Donna was in her early 20s, she gave birth to her son. But she wasn’t in a place to care for him. She spiraled into a cocaine addiction, eventually living in a crack house.
Years passed before Donna’s parents convinced her to enter a detox center. She was so weak; she spent the first couple of days in a wheelchair. But in God’s faithfulness, Donna got stronger, eventually joining a faith-based program for women living with addiction.
Donna surrendered her life to Jesus and received His forgiveness. “He saved me from the deadly, uncompromising grip of addiction,” she proclaims!
After completing the program, Donna earned a two-year Bible school degree in Christian Addiction Counseling. Today, she works full-time in ministry, helping others struggling with addiction!
“My son is now 28 and my parents are aging,” Donna shares. “At first, my mom used to refer to me as ‘Donna’ around my son. But this year, she referred to me as his mom.”
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Beverly was raised in a loving church and gave her heart to Jesus when she was seven years old. But the ongoing influences around her developed a stronghold and warred against her faith.
By the age of 13, Beverly began drinking and smoking to “fit in.” She was constantly straddling the fence between being a Christian and living in sin. Deep down she knew that what she was doing was wrong, but she couldn’t stop. She tried everything she could to fill the emptiness inside, but it was never enough.
Although she got married and had children, attended church regularly, and even taught Sunday School, she was always drawn back to a substance – and she tried many.
Eventually, alcohol cost her everything – a good job, a home, her family. She even went to jail twice due to multiple DUIs.
After trying to get sober at multiple secular rehabs, at the age of 48, Beverly decided that she needed more. She tried different programs but was trapped in a cycle of recovery and relapse.
In 2019, she hit the lowest point in her life – and for the first time seriously considered taking her own life. But God had other plans.
The Lord drew her out of that pit and gave her another opportunity to surrender to Him. And she did. “I needed time to find out who I was, and He gave it to me,” she recalls. “He gave me time to heal.”
In 2022, Beverly graduated from the Hoving Home. She finally discovered who she truly is, and she put an end to the relapse cycle.
Beverly served at Hoving Home, giving back to the ministry that helped her on her journey. Today, Beverly is restored to her family, helping her mother and connecting with her family.
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