Growing up, Cassidy remembers feeling sad. A lot.
As a young girl, Cassidy’s undiagnosed depression was impacting her self-worth. She felt like she had to carry her sorrows alone so she didn’t inconvenience anyone around her.
In God’s providence, He guided Cassidy to a best friend who knew Jesus. One day, Cassidy noticed Scriptures on his coffee table. It was Isaiah 41:10 which says. “Do not fear, for I am with you … I will help you and strengthen you.” God’s promises spoke to her heart!
At that time, Cassidy placed her faith in God and began using her gift of singing to worship Christ. But her depression didn’t disappear.
For a while, Cassidy relied on medical marijuana to avoid despair. It gave her space to pursue work as a registered nurse and stay involved in her church. But in especially low moments, Cassidy turned to alcohol, drank progressively more, and lost self-control over her choices.
Cassidy was pulled over multiple times while intoxicated and given warnings. But after a fourth arrest in a church parking lot, time in prison was imminent, until a judge miraculously allowed Cassidy to go to Hoving Home instead.
Hoving Home gave Cassidy a safe place to handle her challenges in healthy ways.
“Instead of relying on marijuana, for example, I can journal, pray or listen to worship music,” Cassidy shares. She is also managing her depression more thoughtfully with safe medication instead of numbing the sadness away.
As if life came full circle, earlier this year, Cassidy married her childhood friend who showed her to Jesus!
She is eager to start a family and use her nursing skills again. She is also thankful for caring supporters and staff at Hoving Home who helped her grow in her faith and lean on the Lord during difficulties.
“God uses this program in so many ways,” Cassidy expresses. “I was in a pit and He pulled me closer to Him!”
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When Chelsea was two years old, she was found wandering around a neighborhood near a police station by herself in her native South Korea.
“Nobody could find anybody that was related to me,” Chelsea shares.
Chelsea was placed in foster care until she was adopted by a family in the United States. While her adoptive family took her to church and tried to teach her about God, Chelsea rebelled against everything she learned.
“I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere,” Chelsea remembers.
One drug in particular, meth, seized Chelsea’s life immediately—and numbed her throughout an abusive relationship.
“I would walk the streets for hours, wanting protection, and I always found myself at churches. I wasn’t an active believer, but I just knew God was somewhere.”
One day, Chelsea looked in the mirror and saw her two black eyes and a broken wrist and knew, “This is not the life God wants for me.”
Despite her mistakes, Chelsea’s parents never gave up on her and told her about Hoving Home. “Upon walking through the doors, I was met with nothing but love and support from people who didn’t even know me,” she remembers.
After completing the program at our Pasadena, California Home, the Lord opened a door for Chelsea to attend our Leadership Academy.
After some bumps in the road, Chelsea spent a couple more months at our program in Garrison, New York and later graduated from our Leadership Academy. She served as a facilities intern first and then got hired as our education coordinator at our Home in Oxford, NJ!
“I’m really grateful I get to be part of women’s recovery,” Chelsea says.
She sees how Hoving Home supporters play a huge role in each woman’s story and is thankful to see God’s miracles firsthand.
“There’s no way this would happen without their love and generosity!”
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Most people can look back at their childhood and remember fond moments with loving family members. But as a young child, Rachel’s mom kidnapped her and raised her with a gang.
“I was exposed to things children should never be exposed to,” Rachel remembers. “Physical and sexual abuse.”
In need of help, Rachel’s mom was committed to a mental institution, forcing Rachel into unhealthy foster homes throughout her childhood.
When Rachel was a young teen, her mom regained custody, until one day she left the house and never came back.
Miraculously, Rachel graduated from high school and got a job in the dental field. But inside, she was utterly broken.
So Rachel sought love through unhealthy relationships with men, no matter how dangerous they became.
Rachel’s lifestyle exposed her to drugs, addiction, and jail time. For 25 years, Rachel survived on the streets, prostituting herself for drugs. But God never stopped pursuing her.
“I woke up one morning and said, ‘God if you’re real, I don’t want to do this anymore. I need your help.’”
That’s when Rachel remembered a book she read in jail … the story of Hoving Home. She called and came right over.
Rachel allowed God’s love to fill the empty areas of her life, memorizing Scripture and replacing despair with truth.
“It was hard for me to trust people,” Rachel admits. “But volunteers would just love on us. They gave their time, and it was so special.”
Rachel also gained an appreciation for our donors while helping in our financial office on her path to graduating. “I would gather checks from the mail and think how loved we were. Their generosity saved my life.”
Today, Scripture dwells richly in Rachel’s heart. She thanks God for the people He used in her redemption story and now sees it as her turn to help others.
Rachel hopes to serve as a chaplain in a Christian organization, so she can share the hope she found in Christ with other women in crisis. She knows what it is like to go from darkness to light and wants as many women as possible to know Christ’s redeeming love.
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Oftentimes, our lives can start out whole, filled with love … and then sin creeps in.
Kelsey grew up with a caring family. She learned about God and got baptized as a child. But as much love as her family provided, something was missing.
Kelsey began to seek acceptance and approval from friends.
Quickly, the seriousness of Kelsey’s decisions worsened … gangs, selling drugs and eventually selling her body to survive.
“My family watched me destroy my life,” Kelsey shares.
But Kelsey’s family – and God – never gave up opening doors for Kelsey. She tried different programs to overcome her addiction and address her mental health challenges, but every time she left, she returned to her old ways.
“I needed a serious change,” Kelsey expresses. “And by the grace of God, I came here to the Hoving Home last April.”
While initially worried and afraid, Kelsey began to see God’s loving providence in her life.
By working through the underlying issues of her addiction and desire to be accepted, she began to accept God’s plan for her life.
“I learned I am a very strong and courageous lady that has walked through a dark path,” Kelsey adds.
Today, Kelsey is eager to see God’s plans unfold for her life. She hopes to finish her education, get a job and give back to the community that gave so much to her.
It’s a joy to see Kelsey welcome the mercy of Christ and experience His miraculous power to make all things new.
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It’s hard to imagine how Lanisha must have felt when she was seven … moving from Milwaukee to California to live with her grandma because of her mom’s crack addiction.
Lanisha was just starting to loose teeth … now she was losing everything she knew.
With so much dysfunction, Lanisha took on adult responsibilities while still a child, often in charge of caring for her three younger siblings.
Lanisha ran to the worst things: drugs, alcohol and street gangs. When she was fourteen, she started a vicious cycle of gang life, promiscuity, abusive relationships, drug use and prison time.
“I didn’t know what love was,” Lanisha now understands.
By the time she was 26, Lanisha had three children and no direction—until her daughter told her she didn’t want her to end up “like grandma.”
In a moment of clarity, Lanisha realized she needed help and came to Hoving Home.
“From the time I entered Hoving Home, I felt a sense of peace like a burden was lifted,” Lanisha shares.
Thanks to your generosity, Lanisha had time to heal from past wounds and learn how to cope in healthy ways.
“I learned to pray and commune with Christians,” Lanisha shares. “They showed me I can have self-control and patience. They taught me to have quiet time with God before you start your day. I have taken that with me.”
Most of all, Lanisha felt loved.
![At first, I tried to push [the Hoving Home staff’s love] away, but they continued. It was real and genuine. It was the love of Christ. They made me feel worthy of love.-Lanisha](https://hovinghome.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/story_Lanisha_quote2.jpg)
Lanisha now understands the new life she has in Christ!
She loves being a mom to her beautiful children and currently works as a Ministry Assistant at a recovery center, helping other women find hope for their future.
“I’m thankful for the Hoving Home, because they were a part of my second chance at life and my transformation to my new life with Christ.”
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The daughter of United States Marines, Alison learned the value of hard work early in life.
As soon as she could, Alison got a job and began earning money. The only downside? She wasn’t taught how to properly use her income.
Alison moved after graduating from high school. But her addiction went with her.
Even after joining the Marines herself, Alison was surrounded by drug use. Then her addiction expanded to painkillers.
“I was arrested on felony charges a month before getting discharged from the Marines,” Alison shares. “While incarcerated, I found out I was 6-1/2 months pregnant. I gave birth to my daughter, Nalani, shackled to the bed in an orange hospital gown. I still remember my mother saying, ‘This is not how I envisioned meeting my first grandchild.’”
Crushed by guilt and shame, Alison returned to drugs after her release from jail and left her Nalani with her mom.
But it all came to a head when a physical altercation with a man left Alison in the hospital with a broken jaw and arm. Alison’s father took her to a safe house.
There, they learned about Hoving Home.
Finally, Alison laid down her burdens, including the need to work in order to “earn” feeling worthy of love.
After five months in our women’s program, Alison joined our Lioness and the Lamb Home with her precious 2-year-old daughter.
Alison has had to work hard (again), but she’s regained confidence in her ability to be a mom. God has very kindly restored the mother-daughter bond!
Today, Alison is eager to help other women and mothers find their identity in Christ, not in how they perform.
Her transformation is a testimony to God’s plan—to give all of us new life—and she is walking freely in God’s grace and sharing His love with her daughter. We celebrated as Alison graduated from our program last month!
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Ever since Beth can remember, her mom and dad worked hard and loved her deeply. But some situations they just couldn’t control … like when she went to a friend’s house as a kindergartner and found her friend’s mom dead … or when she moved to a new grade school and her new best friend died of cancer.
Those traumatic experiences shaped the rest of Beth’s childhood and gripped her with fear of death. Feelings of anxiety tortured her.
Despite her mom and dad’s careful parenting, Beth was exposed from a very early age to alcohol and even tried cocaine before attending high school.
Once Beth went off to college, she was drinking all the time. At a party, she took a pill that was laced with something dangerous. The next day, she woke up hearing voices and spiraled into a mental health crisis.
Over the next three years, Beth lost everything.
She dropped out of college. She couldn’t keep jobs. She was in and out of jail. She even tried to take her life three separate times.
Beth spent so much time in hospitals, she felt hopeless. The spiritual battle raged in her mind, and she was literally trying to die just to find relief … but God saw her, loved her and had a plan for her.
At the urging of her grandmother, Beth’s childhood pastor visited her in the hospital. He gave her the number of a local program in Texas, but they didn’t have any room. So, they gave her the number of Hoving Home.
Thirty years ago this past January, Beth’s church bought her a one-way ticket to Garrison, New York.
At Hoving Home, Jesus took hold of Beth’s life, healed her mind, and saved her soul. She was freed from the power of addiction and got her thoughts back, thanks to the mighty Word of God.
God never gave up on Beth. Neither did the community at Hoving Home!
Beth knows from personal experience that Hoving Home is special. Thanks to John Benton, Hoving Home’s founder, believing in Beth and her gifts, she now serves as President & CEO, three decades after her own recovery, helping women start their own path of healing with a seedling of hope.
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At only eight years old, Rosie’s innocence was stolen from her.
Before she was out of elementary school, she knew the horrors of abuse, sexual exploitation and drug use.
As a little girl, Rosie’s perception of the world was distorted. So it’s not surprising she ran away from home and started a life on the streets, stripping and escorting to make money to take care of her new baby and support her drug habit.
But while she was on those streets, missionaries, whom Rosie used to call “crazy church ladies,” planted seeds of faith and God’s love into her heart.
Desperate for help, those tiny seeds took root and led Rosie to cry out to God.
Through a series of open doors and answered prayers, Rosie sought help from a women’s ministry that eventually lead her to Hoving Home.
God showed Rosie what true, unconditional love looks like.
As Rosie remembers, “I was immediately surrounded by an army of women who radiated the love of Jesus.”
In addition to seeing what God’s kindness and grace looked like in real life, Rosie gained a structure her life desperately needed. Routine, consistency and stability were critical parts in helping her develop healthy patterns and grow in her trust of others.
After completing our program in our Las Vegas Home, Rosie heard God calling her to share her experiences with others through ministry.
Rosie’s first stop was our very own Leadership Academy! She showed incredible potential to serve and lead the way in ministries. Shortly after graduation, we hired her as Community Engagement Coordinator at our North Carolina Home.
Rosie laughs at herself when she shares she’s looking forward to being a “crazy church lady” who plants seeds of faith in the hearts of women like her.
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When all hope seemed lost three years ago, the only thing that kept Maria going was her fierce love for her three precious boys.
She wanted to be the mom they needed. She wanted to give them a stable home life. And she wanted to be there every morning when they woke up in cute pajamas and ran to greet her with a big hug.
But for so, so long, alcohol had a firm grasp on Maria’s life.
When trauma from her childhood resurfaced or disappointment in her marriage arose, Maria turned to alcohol to cope. As with any addiction, Maria felt powerless to stop. And the consequences of her drinking were gravely dangerous.
One night, Maria felt especially low. After drinking to the point of blacking out, Maria tried to take her own life.
Thank God He spared Maria’s life.
After that night of despair, once Maria was safe and stable, she went to church with a friend and learned about Hoving Home.
Even though it was heartbreaking to do, Maria left her three boys with her parents while she worked on her own heart in our women’s home. She learned how to trust God’s love for her and not let shame write her story.
Throughout the healing process, Maria missed her kids like crazy and prayed fervently to see them as she went through recovery.
God answered her cries and opened space for Maria and her three adorable boys to be part of our Lioness and the Lamb Home – and even moved her ex-husband’s heart to allow her sons to join us here!
In our program, God showered Maria with grace, redemption and renewed purpose. He also placed a hedge of protection around her children as they watched their mommy dedicate her life to Jesus and to them.
Today, Maria and her boys live in a new cozy home, lovingly furnished by Hoving Home. They are creating a beautiful, healthy family life, anchored by God and His Word. And Maria is living her dream of being the mommy her sons run to each and every morning.
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It’s remarkable to see Brandi’s beautiful smile today. Many would be surprised to learn she wasn’t always so joyful.
At the innocent age of twelve, Brandi was molested by a friend of the family and “groomed” for ongoing abuse.
After the horrific trauma, Brandi sought any semblance of control she could find, eventually suffering from eating disorders for years. Then a triple homicide-suicide rocked Brandi’s family when she was eighteen.
The shock and devastation ripped Brandi’s family apart. Her father to abandon his family and, inside, Brandi felt more rejected and unloved than ever before. To numb her pain and fit in, Brandi started shooting heroin and prostituting to support her habit.
Seven times, Brandi overdosed, waking up in ambulances and hospitals. But her last overdose was a suicide attempt.
But seven times, God preserved Brandi’s life.
After surviving a suicide attempt, Brandi couldn’t deny a divine intervention. So she opened her Bible and landed on Isaiah 1:1. “Though your sins are red like scarlet, I will take them and wash them and make them as white as snow.”
Knowing her choices took her to rock bottom, Brandi questioned why God would save her. But she was determined to find out if He would.
Brandi searched online for recovery programs. She saw that Hoving Home provided meals, living arrangements and drug rehabilitation support. It was also centered around faith. She knew God answering her prayers.
Knowing she needed a program far from the temptations of her past, Brandi flew to our California home, barefoot, with a backpack and dim hope that God could transform her life.
“The ladies in the program were experiencing restoration and reconciliation. And they wanted that for me,” Brandi adds.
Finally, Brandi had time, not just to survive, but to work through her past and build a foundation for her future.
She admits she made mistakes along the way, but Brandi was graciously given second chances. “They offered immense love that was so sincere,” she says.
Brandi also discovered that she loved learning! She spent free time in our learning center, devouring books about what it means to live for God. And she didn’t stop at Hoving Home.
After graduating from our program and serving on staff for a year, Brandi earned a degree in Biblical Theology! Today, Brandi is happily married to a man of God, they’re raising a precious little girl and serve the Lord and others together.
“God is so amazing,” Brandi expresses. “He doesn’t just save you from your addiction and let you figure things out on your own. He continues to carry you.”
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