Growing up in a broken home led Marie to look for love in all the wrong places.
“My dad was an alcoholic who was very verbally and emotionally abusive,” Marie remembers. “He destroyed us with his words and with his actions.”
All the while, Marie’s family went to church, trying to keep up appearances that everything was fine.
“Love was protecting someone who was toxic,” she remembers.
Marie couldn’t believe in a God who would allow her to endure such pain. She was especially confused when her father was confronted with his sin and began to repent.
“He was drinking night and day, and then he wasn’t,” Marie shares. “He didn’t want to be involved in my life. And then he did want to be involved.”
Marie didn’t know how to handle her pain … so she began to rebel and escape the only way she knew. Marie began drinking, too.
Quickly, she spiraled into addiction, suffered from eating disorders, and got involved in a dysfunctional relationship.
When Marie felt hopeless, she tried to end her life by overdosing.
Thank God she was spared! When Marie asked her mom to come get her from the hospital, her mom gave her the phone number to Hoving Home.
At Hoving Home, Marie had a safe space to acknowledge her painful past and encounter a loving God. Marie learned she was worth Jesus coming to earth and sacrificing his life for hers.
Marie gave her life to the Lord at Hoving Home and graduated from our women’s program in 2015.
Since that time, she’s been enjoying a life of reconnection with family and faith in God’s direction. She’s pursuing a college degree and is thankful to have so many years of health and sobriety.
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Murphy’s father died in a car accident when she was only three years old.
As a result, Murphy was raised by a single mother most her life.
“I have a wonderful, loving mother who raised me to believe in God,” Murphy shares.
But sin doesn’t discriminate … and Murphy’s temptation to put her faith in men and drugs lured her into decades of drug abuse and prison time.
For more than twenty years, Murphy lived inside the vicious cycle of addiction, shame, regret, and abuse. There wasn’t any sign of turning her life around, until God literally met her in her pit of despair.
At 3 a.m. while at her drug dealer’s house, Murphy felt a pull from the Holy Spirit to leave her surroundings. Immediately, she looked up the phone number to Hoving Home, called, and did an intake then and there.
In God’s providence, Murphy entered our New York program. A couple weeks later, Murphy learned that her daughter was part of our New Jersey home.
“I didn’t know she was in the program,” Murphy shares in awe.
Since joining our program, Murphy has received Christ’s forgiveness and is amazed by the connection with her daughter.
“I didn’t believe reconciliation with my daughter was possible, and I know it will only get better,” Murphy shares.
Murphy has had time to deal with the demons of her past and learn how to move forward with God’s Word anchoring her decisions. She is in amazed at God’s kindness of helping her and her daughter know His love that surpasses knowledge. They are working through a season of healing and bask in God’s redeeming grace!
Murphy is a walking example of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. When we are attuned to His guidance, He leads us in paths of righteousness and healing.
Praise God with us for the work HE has done in Murphy’s life!
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Growing up, Brigitte didn’t believe in anything.
“I just didn’t have any faith,” she recalls.
Brigitte didn’t go to church or have anyone teaching her about faith. But she also felt like she didn’t need anything to help her.
But a lifestyle of depending on herself got Brigitte into trouble quickly.
“I thought using drugs wasn’t so bad,” Brigitte remembers. “But things started getting real when I got arrested.”
Thankfully, Brigitte was humbled by her reality. As she was losing everything around her, she started finding the Lord. She entered programs and began to seek some form of faith, but when she left, her lifestyle didn’t change.
“It’s a cycle,” Brigitte affirms. “Every time things started getting better, I’d go back to my addiction problems.”
The cycle finally broke for Brigette when she was welcomed back to Hoving Home.
“I had so many issues, troubles, and court cases, but I just put everything aside and drew into the Lord,” Brigitte shares. “I didn’t understand how to set goals, but I did it anyways. It was a lifestyle change for me.”
Brigitte has been walking with the Lord for 15 years now! Her transformation is a testimony to the power of God to free us from our despair and our destructive choices.
Through great perseverance and hard work, Brigitte earned a license in cosmetology and works in a salon. She has a roommate who loves Jesus, and they help each other in their faith life. Thanks to the second chances God gave her at Hoving Home and your generosity, Brigitte is a genuine believer.
Looking back, Brigitte now realizes, “He’s been there every step of the way.”
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Breonna’s journey of addiction began when she was just 16 years old.
“As a child, my father was never around, which left a huge void in my heart,” Breonna shares.
In her dad’s absence, Breonna cherished her relationship with her grandfather. When she lost him to cancer, Breonna dove into a deep depression and she started hanging around the wrong crowd.
Older men began to lure Breonna into dangerous situations and introduced her to heroin.
“The night I tried heroin for the first time, the man turned to me a said, ‘This is the best feeling you’ll ever have in your life.’”
Breonna’s experimentation quickly spiraled into addiction.
At eighteen, Breonna became pregnant with her first child while she was addicted to heroin. The doctor, understanding the danger her situation posed, recommended that Breonna get an abortion. But her mother looked at her and said, “No. Our God doesn’t do that.”
The Lord spared Breonna’s daughter and showed Breonna the power of a mother’s love.
Breonna went to detox and tried a different program. Breonna began to experience the strength of God’s fierce love for her but did not fully surrender. While Breonna was invited to come to Hoving Home’s Lioness and the Lamb Home for women and children, she didn’t follow His leading right away. After getting pregnant with her second child, Breonna knew she had no other choice.
“I would do whatever it took to give birth to a healthy baby, so I left everything to come to Hoving Home.”
Since entering our women’s program, Breonna has surrendered her life to God. He has restored her relationship with her parents, given her peace, and removed anger, anxiety, and addiction.
Today, as a strong mom and grateful follower of Jesus, Breonna is serving at Hoving Home. She enjoys helping women like her overcome their past and step into a bright future filled with peace, hope, and security in Christ.
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It’s hard for Dorothy to remember a time when she wasn’t running.
Searching for attention. Seeking acceptance. Looking for love from a father she never knew.
“I rebelled from an early age,” she admits.
It led her to destructive choices and eventually drugs and addiction.
Dorothy also ended up in abusive relationships.
Devastatingly, Dorothy was powerless to overcome her dependence on drugs. Six years ago, the most difficult challenge began when Dorothy tried meth.
In the darkest place she’s ever been, Dorothy finally found clarity. “I accepted that I was on drugs, I lost my kids, I was living in a trailer in a desert.”
There in the trailer, Dorothy saw a book called Unshackled and started praying for deliverance from anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, and the taste of drugs.
Dorothy found a rehabilitation facility which eventually led her to Hoving Home.
“Coming to Hoving Home is the best decision I’ve ever made,” Dorothy shares.
In addition to learning how to walk with Jesus, Dorothy has gained wisdom and direction in her parenting and how to manage her anger. Next, she plans to move to our Completers program and earn her GED to provide a stable life for herself and her kids.
“I am thankful to the Hoving Home, because I have great mentors who encourage me,” Dorothy shares. “They give their whole hearts into seeing our lives being transformed through Christ.”
With the help of caring friends like you, Dorothy finally found the true acceptance she’d always been searching for. She found rest and peace in Jesus!
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We see the ruthlessness of drugs every day at Hoving Home.
For Ciara, the tragic decision of simply “trying” drugs led her down a three-year plunge into addiction. Even though she grew up in a loving, stable home, the tragedy of being exposed to drugs threatened to destroy Ciara’s life—and it did for a time. 
Heroin took Ciara to very dark places. She would do anything to get her next fix. The toll was emotional, physical, and spiritual.
All the while, God pursued Ciara, even speaking to her during a detox attempt.
“He told me he wanted me to change my life,” Ciara remembers. “that what I was doing was taking me far from my family and leading me to death.”
Within 24 hours of hearing God’s voice, Ciara learned about our Las Vegas Hoving Home from her mom, and they drove over to our Home.
Unfortunately, our Las Vegas program was full when they arrived, but apparently God had other plans!
As Ciara and her mom were getting ready to leave, in a God-ordained moment, John Benton happened to be stopping by. He told Ciara our Pasadena Home had an opening. She didn’t wait a moment before getting back in the car and heading to L.A.
“My mom drove me there immediately,” Ciara shares. “And I took the next 12 months 100% seriously.”
God honored Ciara’s commitment by freeing her from withdrawal pain.
Just like Jesus threw off the chains of sin, he rescued Ciara from the chains of addiction withdrawal.
With time to focus on her faith without interruption, Ciara poured herself into Scripture reading and devotions. “It really transformed my heart,” she says.
All the while, Ciara prayed for God to choose a husband for her.
After completing the program, she took a job at a department store and there, at work, God answered her prayer with a kind, gentle, God-loving man. They got married and today they’re raising two beautiful girls and growing more in faith as a family!
Ciara eventually earned her degree and now works as an early childhood education teacher, too.
“I’m thankful to the Hoving Home, because they gave me a safe place to get to know God. It was just me and God,” Ciara explains. “The hours I spent studying the Word and better understanding how to become like Jesus was most impactful.”
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Katie will never forget playing outside of her home as a little girl and hearing that still small voice of the Lord.
She was only six years old, but she vividly remembers accepting the grace of God that day.
As she got older and struggled in school, Katie began allowing what other people thought of her to form her identity. She discovered talents in singing and acting, so the stage became her home away from home.
After moving to New York City to perform, Katie caved to pressures to look a certain way, be a certain dress size, and seek the approval of any audience. To keep up appearances, an eating disorder progressed to an addiction to cocaine.
After her boyfriend died unexpectedly, Katie acted like everything was okay. But deep inside, her heart and faith were shattered.
In a moment of providence, when traveling home to see her parents one weekend, Katie’s mom washed her pants and discovered Katie’s secret. Katie had to come clean and truly wanted to get well. So, her parents drove her to Hoving Home.
“There’s something about that place,” Katie shared about driving up to our Home.
Eager to rekindle the faith of a child, Katie opened her heart to the structure, schedule, and expectations of the Hoving Home program.
“It was perfect for me,” she shares. Not only did Katie find purpose beyond performance, she was reintroduced to the Jesus she met as a little girl.
After finishing our year-long program and becoming our very first Emerging Leaders graduate, Katie was able to return to the stage with a new identity in Christ. She met a wonderful husband, and they have two beautiful children.
She knows it would be impossible if not for Hoving Home.
“I love who I am!” she affirms.
“Every life is so important,” Katie expresses. “Every single penny given to Hoving Home goes to help the life of someone else. Nothing in my life is as important as the time I had there.”
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Growing up, Emily’s family didn’t pray or talk about God.
Her mother had lupus and other debilitating health challenges, leaving Emily feeling sad, lonely, and many times afraid for her mom. She vividly remembers one time as a little girl walking into her mom’s room to find her unresponsive, unsure how to help or what to do.
As she got older, heartbreakingly, Emily turned to drugs to escape the pressures she felt at home.
From her teens to early adulthood, Emily became a functioning addict. She enrolled in college and worked a full-time job, all while enslaved to addiction. God even spared her life multiple times after overdosing.
God was working in Emily’s heart, even though nobody had really told her about Him. Deep inside, Emily knew she needed help, or she’d end up dead.
The only thing Emily hadn’t tried was a Christian program.
She called her aunt, the only Christian she knew in her family, for advice. Her aunt got in touch with Hoving Home, opening a new door in Emily’s story of redemption.
Without a churched background, Emily didn’t know the Bible or the “vocabulary” of Christianity. It was a difficult transition at Hoving Home, and many times, she felt out of place. But Emily was desperate for a transformed life!
At Hoving Home, she spent hours studying God’s Word to meet Jesus for herself, which radically changed Emily’s heart.
God also answered Emily’s most earnest plea—to be free from her addiction. Over the months at Hoving Home, God showed Emily His plans for her life. It wasn’t to escape the hard things in her own life. It was to serve the people around her with the hope she received from God!
During her time in our program, Emily worked under the guidance of Sue Hinton, our former Intake Coordinator, and learned the process of welcoming women in crisis into our home for the first time.
Today, Emily is the kind voice on the other end of our phone, compassionately listening to cries for help and calmly directing women toward the next step. After Sue retired, Emily took over the role as Intake Coordinator at Hoving Home!
Emily’s loving husband and three precious children keep her encouraged and strong at home. God has also restored Emily’s relationship with her mom along the way. Emily continues to help her mother with her health challenges, now from a place of compassion and understanding.
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Amberlee grew up going to church. Home life with mom and dad was stable until her grandfather died and her parents subsequently divorced. She stopped going to church—or thinking about God.
Amberlee looked for acceptance through relationships, even abusive ones, and started using painkillers to numb her sadness.
She’d jump to new relationships hoping for change but end up in the same vicious cycle of addiction. Along the way, God blessed Amberlee with three children, but she wasn’t in any condition to care for them.
Rock bottom came when Amberlee was arrested for stealing to buy drugs. By God’s grace, Amberlee learned about Hoving Home in jail.
In the height of the pandemic, Amberlee came to our doors, ready for change.
“I literally feel like I gained my soul back,” Amberlee expresses. “It was beaten down so bad.”
Amberlee finally had space to address the root causes of her addiction and move toward healing with Christ at the center.
“I didn’t know you could have a relationship with God,” Amberlee shares. “Now, Jesus is my hope and guidance through life.
Today, Amberlee is a Hoving Home graduate and works at Unshattered, a sister ministry. She’s learning marketable job skills and growing in her confidence and purpose.
After a difficult past of losing custody of her children, Amberlee is patiently awaiting God’s timing in rebuilding relationships with her children. She knows it will take time to regain trust, but believes the Lord will open hearts at the right time.
As she awaits, Amberlee is giving her whole heart to the Lord.
Amberlee joins the Hoving Home outreach, evangelizing to stay rooted in her own story and give back in ways others have given to her.
“I am grateful for the people who showed me the love of Jesus,” Amberlee shares. “Even if people who give to Hoving Home don’t realize it, their support changes every girl in that Home in a great way.”
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Growing up, Mariah went to church, Sunday school, church camp, you name it. She was actively involved in learning about Jesus as a little girl.
When adolescence hit, Mariah remembers a dark cloud coming over her life.
She felt it during bullying experiences at school. Internally, a gradual wave of depression crept in, leading Mariah to doubt her worth … or even her desire to exist.
Mariah attempted suicide for the first time at the tender age of 13.
Mariah went from self-harm to complete self-destruction through excessive drinking, progressive drug use, and eventually prostitution.
Multiple times, Mariah thought she should be dead, but God continued to spare her life. She didn’t think she would live past 18.
A wake-up call finally came when a man planning to purchase Mariah for a “job” saw her, emaciated, bruised, and scarred, and said, “I’m not paying for this.”
But Jesus was willing to pay the ultimate price to redeem Mariah’s life!
In an act of providence, one of Mariah’s childhood best friends gave her information about Hoving Home. Mariah courageously weaned off her drugs and medication prior to coming. And when she did, God welcomed Mariah with open arms.
When Mariah joined our program, she was overwhelmed by the freedom to learn who Jesus truly is. She soaked up time in the Word. She prayed with women when her past haunted or triggered her. She prayed for God’s protection when the spiritual warfare raged in her heart and mind. Like He does, God answered and delivered!
It’s been over 10 years since Mariah graduated from Hoving Home!
In a true act of rescue, the Lord has taken Mariah’s brokenness and turned it into ministry to others. She started working for a partner ministry and visited Africa on mission trips multiple times. She even wrote a book about God saving her life!
Today, Mariah is married to a wonderful Christian man, and they have four precious children. God has truly brought beauty from ashes in Mariah’s life – and she is eager and obedient to share His work in her life!
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