“I hated God. How could he just disappear and allow these horrible things to happen to me.”
As a young girl, Maritza, would dread coming home from school knowing she was about to be sexually abused by her step-father on a continual basis. Finally, she found enough courage to report him. The authorities removed her from that abusive home and placed her in a foster home. However, she was soon being sexually abused in the foster home as well.
With a lack of parental direction in life and an overwhelming sense of self-loathing she looked for love in all the wrong places. Those relationships soon became physically abusive and Maritza sought relief from domestic violence through drugs. With children from these bad relationships, her addiction led her to become homeless on skid row.
At her lowest point she ended up at the Union Rescue Mission and Hope Gardens. Here she found authentic love from people who wanted to help her. She learned that God wasn’t the disinterested deity she had imagined him to be. She still doesn’t know why God allowed these unspeakable things to happen to her but she now believes that God was with her on every step of her journey and felt every painful experience with her.
Maritza found her smile at Hope Gardens. She still wears it every day because of the life transformation that God has done in her life. She has been a very hard worker since she was 13 years old and continues to earn the best living she can to try to care for her five children.
Maritza just got a voucher for a beautiful 4-bedroom home in Lancaster. Deed and Truth, with the assistance of All Nations Church in Sunland took the long drive to the desert to turn her empty house into a home. It turned out beautifully. The transformation of her empty spaces in her house will remind her of the transformation God has done in her life… turning the emptiness in her heart into a beautiful spirit of gratitude.
Maritza has a lot to learn about caring for a home and doing life but some of our volunteers will be there to provide encouragement and a little guidance now and again to help her accomplish her goals.
Currently Maritza finds incredible satisfaction working for a non-profit organization that serves the military veterans in our community. She has a dream of going back to college to finish a degree to become a Drug Enforcement Agent (DEA). She’s doing an incredible job of raising her children, working full time, and seeking to improve her life situation.
Please pray for her to achieve success in these areas. Please pray for her children to be safe from harm and find Jesus as soon as they are able to understand what Maritza learned through her journey… that God is always there… loving us, feeling with us, and carrying us through all the ups and downs of this life… and rather than questioning why, we should be confident that he will never leave us nor forsake us and will, in the end, bring about something beautiful worth smiling about!
A special shout out to All Nations Church (ANC) for coming through with 14 volunteers to turn Maritza’s house into a home. This H2H wouldn’t have been possible without the partnership of our ANC friends!
Awesome!
This is super inspiring life narrative. Wow! Indeed GOD was in there with Maritza on every step of the way, but she had no idea of Him being there. Her impoverished nature, abusive experiences and the assumed lack of respectability shaped her in particular way. Finding herself among the inhabitants people “on the skids” didn’t help either, BUT GOD was right there on her side. Very interesting and thought-provoking experience. May every life crucible encounters draw us close to the LORD. GOD bless Deed and Truth for putting smiles on people’s faces.
It is exciting to see lives changed. He is the God of the impossible.