Lucy was 88 pounds, soaking wet.
Her cut-off shorts didn’t seem “church appropriate.”
The years of physical and sexual abuse and constant attempts to numb the pain with drugs were visible. Lucy hated that she had to give up custody of her daughter to her mom. But Lucy knew her daughter was in the right place.
That night, exhausted mentally, physically, and spiritually, Lucy figured that her mom and her daughter were at church together. Should she go? Would she be accepted?
With very little hope left, Lucy slipped inside the back doors of the sanctuary. She hoped no one would notice and yet she was desperate for someone to truly see her. But what Lucy saw changed her life …
Lucy’s six-year-old daughter turned around and saw her. “She came running down the aisle, ‘Mommy!’ And she threw her arms into my arms.”
That night, the Lord showed Lucy His love through her family and through His church. He also directed her to the support she needed as the pastor told Lucy about Hoving Home.
When Lucy arrived, she was very overwhelmed. The desire for change was met with the reality of change! But Lucy put in the difficult work to look at her past trauma and coping mechanisms and trusted the process.
Through learning God’s Word and spending time in prayer, the Lord brought healing and new life to Lucy’s heart.
After graduating, God pressed upon Lucy’s heart to help others who have struggled with addiction and hopelessness. A few positions gave her the experience and vision to serve in her current role Founder/CEO of a crisis center addictions intervention center in Camden NJ. Lucy tells others about the hope she found in Christ and the love that is always there waiting. No matter what her past looks like. No matter what shorts she’s wearing. His love sustains her, and that’s all that does matter.
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.
After growing up in a Christian home, knowing God and attending church, Jessica’s curiosity got the best of her when she left home at 18. But she never imagined where her experimentation with drugs and alcohol would take her.
When Jessica says she was in a dark spot, it’s hard to fathom the darkness she shares. Her testimony includes heartache, loneliness, pain, despair, and even a point of being brain dead.
“I was homeless.”
“I slept in abandoned buildings and cars.”
“I was raped.”
“I would bathe in a McDonald’s bathroom sink.”
“I would get beat up.”
“I was drugged and recorded.”
“I couldn’t get out.”
“I was bruised and couldn’t feel it.”
“I was kidnapped.”
“I finally escaped.”
“They tracked me.”
“I overdosed and was left for dead.”
“I was terrified.”
“I tried to take my life.”
“I survived.”
“I cried out to God.”
Still scared but yearning for a second chance and relationship with God, Jessica avoided prison and spent a year in another faith based program. When she heard about Hoving Home and how our program works, she knew, “That’s where I want to be.”
For the first time in her adult life, Jessica had time to rest and the time she needed to heal. She could learn about Jesus’ unconditional, safe love but also discover the choices she needed to make to pursue Him.
“The women at Hoving Home were very caring, but also straightforward,” Jessica shares. “It was like a big loving family, and I found my identity in God.”
Today, Jessica is a nurse, caring for the needs of others. She is no longer afraid with God by her side. “Hoving Home helped me get to that point,” she asserts.
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.
“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!
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.
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.”
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.
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!
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.
“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.”
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.
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.
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.
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.
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.
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!
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.
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.
Want to read more stories like this one? Sign up here to bring more hope to your inbox.
Help provide the life-changing resources that make these transformations possible.