Testimonies

When I was a child, my mom worked selling things in the streets.  My father was an alcoholic, so my mother took care of nine children including me.  She put me in primary school when I was 13.  At the age of 14, I left home with the father of my three oldest daughters ( Lydia, Heidi, and Scarlet). He didn’t treat me well; he was an alcoholic who didn’t love his daughters.  At 18 I decided to separate from him because I no longer wanted to be mistreated. At this moment, I went to the streets.  I began to do things that I shouldn’t have, and then I started living with the father of my two youngest daughters (Vanesa and Genesis).  He also started to mistreat me and the girls.  He beat me and left me pregnant with Vanesa.  He didn’t help me, but he left me pregnant again with Genesis.  In 1997, I started going to a Baptist church, and there I was baptized. But not long after that I went back to the streets where I got involved in drugs, etc.  Almost all of my family members are alcoholics. After my parents died, almost all of us got into alcoholism; my older children, my brothers and sister, and nieces and nephews got into drugs as well.  I got hooked on crack, which was what kept me on the streets.  I didn’t eat or sleep, and all I wanted to do was die.  My daughters suffered a lot because I never gave them anything, and didn’t put them into school.  Vanesa cried, but I didn’t want to leave the streets, getting high every night, doing really bad things, staying up all night without any hope.  I sold all of our clothes, and had many problems because nobody wanted me or my children.  We were evicted from every place, so we ended up sleeping in the streets.  We would go from house to house, or just sleep in the streets, all because of my addictions.

Little by little, my eyes were being opened. I could see that I was doing nothing good.  But my family turned its back on me, which disappointed me even more.  However, I wanted to change because I was hungry and cold, and wasn’t sleeping well on the streets.  We were getting sick from sleeping on the floor in an abandoned apartment without electricity or water.  The girls cried in fear at night, and I started to pray to God.  I asked him to help me and my girls.  Indira, my sister in Christ, found me and invited me to church, and she prayed for me and for others in need.  She always came for me and suggested that I go to group meetings at her church, so that the Lord would change my life and the lives of my entire family. 

On Sunday, October 28, 2007, we went to a church called “Oasis de Amor” and the next day Sister Indira brought me to Jericho Ministries to pray for me and my daughters.  There I found people who are sons of God who help addicted street people and are in need of God.  They really are instruments of God because I was without hope in life.  I was living with strong headaches and felt that my life was worthless. My older daughters are suffering because they are involved in drugs, but I know that we have a God who loves us, and He doesn’t want us to suffer, and He helps us all the time.

I felt really bad when my daughter had an accident with her hand, all because of drugs.  I felt that I was worthless seeing my daughter destroyed, and not being able to do anything about it.  Ever since, I have started to believe that I needed to change in order to help my children.  I realized that I couldn’t do it in my own strength; only in Christ could it be achieved.  I started letting go of the drugs, and I didn’t use them often- some days I did and other days I didn’t.  Picturing myself in the street without food or a home, I decided to make the effort to take a step forward. Seeing myself without anyone to help me and without work, I realized that I didn’t want my children to become like me.  I didn’t want them to live the painful and horrible life that I had led, binding myself to the devil. But, Jesus loves us and wants to forgive us for all our sins.  I ask my Lord to give me the strength to keep going forward with help of my sisters at Jericho Ministries.

I came to Jericho one day in May. A friend of mine who led me to the streets but was now in Jericho invited me to this ministry for a Mother's Day dinner.  Instead of going to the streets, I went to the ministry that night. During the dinner, various people talked about Jesus but I felt that I was too sinful to accept Christ. One of the ministry workers pursued me and I felt that the Lord touched me. That’s how I gave my life to Christ.  I was addicted to cocaine for 6 years and was working on the streets for 4 years. For me, it was difficult to get off cocaine but between the staff at the ministry and the members of my church, I was never left alone to do drugs and the Lord set me free. I have 6 children but I gave my first two daughters away. My 3 sons are studying at Jericho School. The Lord also changed them radically. My children go with me to church and love the Lord.  I have a church cell group in my house and I am serving at the church as a Sunday school teacher.  I graduated last year before Christmas. That day, the family that I had given my first daughter to visited me with my oldest daughter.  I asked her forgiveness and she told me that she loved me and she was proud of me. I am so thankful to God and I want to serve Him always. 

Vilma spent 20 years involved in prostitution before coming to Christ back in June of 1999. She was so tired of being on the streets and she told God that she wanted to leave that life, but she knew she couldn’t do it alone. When the Jericho team came to talk to her about the plan of salvation she thought that surely these people were sent by God to help her leave her life on the streets. Nancy, Vilma’s oldest daughter who was also working on the streets that night, accepted Christ with the Jericho team. Vilma also accept Christ as her Savior that night, but didn’t tell anyone. It was only when the women from Jericho went to visit Nancy at her house that they realized that Vilma and Nancy were mother/daughter and that they had both received Christ that night on the streets. Vilma entered Jericho ministries with Nancy and began to learn how to sew, but it was difficult for her because she was severely burned as a child leaving her with only one finger on her right hand. Vilma admits it has been a difficult journey following Christ, but she has never gone back to the streets. She now serves in her church and teaches Sunday School. She also loves to evangelize, especially women who are still trapped in prostitution. No one knows the streets quite like Vilma. But no one knows mercy and forgiveness quite like Vilma either.

When Laura was just 20 days old, her mother, not wanting responsibility for a child, gave her away to be raised by a man she barely knew. When Laura was older, she was molested and raped by the man she called father. This created a tremendous amount of anger and resentment and she left home and started prostituting herself on the streets. There she met the father of her 5 children. He was an alcoholic and didn't want to work so she continued in prostitution to be able to support him and his alcoholism. She soon became an alcoholic herself. Laura heard about Jericho through another rescued woman who had come to Christ and entered the Jericho program. She decided to visit Jericho ministries and it was there that she accepted Christ. She entered Jericho and began to grow steadily, leading other women from the streets to the Lord.  Sadly, after a year, she began to listen to the lies of the enemy and started a relationship with a gang member which led her back to the streets.   The day she left Jericho, she not only left the ministry behind but her three youngest children too, who were in the Jericho daycare/school.  Juan Carlos was nine at the time and Susana just three years old.  They now live with Betsy and call her Mom.  Little Miguel, just 22 months old when his mother left him, now calls the Villa home and his mother is Hae Young.   Laura remained on the streets and a year later became gravely ill dying from cirrhosis of the liver 10 months later.  She reconciled with Christ two days before her death and spent the last day of her life asking various people to forgive her.   Miguel, the children’s father, was supported by Jericho in a Teen Challenge program to help him get free of his addictions.  Unfortunately he went back to the streets where he was killed in August of 2007.  We thank God for Laura's reconciliation and that her children are safe in the heart of the ministry.

Nancy was the first woman to receive Christ when Betsy and the evangelism team began to go to the streets. Nancy is Vilma’s daughter and learned from the example of her mother how to make it on the streets. At first she went to different parts of town to hide what she was doing from her mother. When Vilma found out, she hit Nancy and told her to get off the streets while she could. But Nancy spent 4 years in prostitution. She said she finally cried out to the Lord to help her get off the streets. She says she knew there was a God, but didn’t know how to find Him. Then the Jericho team came out and shared the plan of salvation with her. She says she remembers the battle there was that night as they were sharing with her. She wanted to listen, but at the same time she wanted to run away. She would get up and begin to walk away, taking several steps before returning to sit back down again.  She did that several times before returning to accept Christ. The Jericho team did follow-up visits to her house to disciple her and that is where they began to talk about what they could do to help her find an honorable job. She said that she had always been interested in sewing and that if they could find her a sewing machine that she thought she could make things to sell. That was how the sewing workshop at Jericho began. Nancy graduated from Jericho in 2002 but continues to sew and sell her products from her house. Nancy has since married the father of her 3 children, been baptized, and is active in her local church. She is now a new creation and she prays that her children will be different, knowing God and knowing good from evil. She gives thanks to God for Jericho ministries.

Miriam was usually always one who wanted to talk, so it was a bit uncharacteristic of her when she took off running the other way when the Jericho evangelism team arrived one night on the streets. What was even more uncharacteristic was how Betsy also took off running right behind her! Miriam ran into an office building and hid behind a high reception desk determined to avoid contact. But Betsy, who was right behind her, called out her name upon arriving. When Miriam came up from behind the desk with a sheepish look on her face, they both burst out laughing at this comical situation. “Miriam, Miriam, why are you fleeing,” Betsy asked still giggling. She confessed that she had run because she hadn’t made much money that night and didn’t want to “waste” time. By this time, the other team members had caught up and they all continued to woo Miriam into the Kingdom...and there she accepted Christ. Several days later she showed up at the doors of the ministry. She could not contain her joy or the story of how God had used that little encounter. She said, “Betsy, when I heard you call my name, I knew that it was God calling me through you. I heard Him call my name. And here I am because I no longer want to flee. I want all He has for me.” After four short months with us, one day Miriam did not show up at the ministry. Several days later we received a note. She had decided to go to San Pedro Sula, a large industrial city to the North of Tegucigalpa, to live close to her mother. We were devastated. What had spurred this sudden decision? Was it something we did wrong? We prayed for Miriam for days after she left and entrusted her into the Lord’s hands. Several years later guess who showed up again at the doors of Jericho? We hardly recognized her. Her tasteful clothes and delicate gold jewelry spoke of prosperity and she wore a smile from ear to ear. She told us how the Lord had led her after she had left Jericho. It was a story of God’s faithfulness and provision. When Miriam arrived in San Pedro with her three small children, she contacted her mother who was very excited to learn of Miriam’s new Christian status and invited her to live with her as long as Miriam promised to go to church. Miriam and her little family began to attend a very dynamic church and there she felt safe to share her background with the pastor and his wife. They took her under their wing and began to disciple her. At the same time, Miriam’s older brother, who was also a Christian and ran an appliance store, began to entrust Miriam with a small business of selling fruit. As she proved herself faithful in small things, he began to entrust her with larger responsibilities until finally allowing her to be the manager and future owner of the appliance store. Meanwhile at church, she and the pastor’s wife began to reach out to other women who had been abused and mistreated. Miriam was radiant as she shared these details of the ways that God had moved in her life. We all listened raptly as she recounted His goodness to her and were blessed that she came back to share. She thanked us for being used by God to get her off the streets and we thanked God that He had allowed us to be a part of His salvation story in her life. 

Mayra, grew up in an unstable home. Her father left them while she was very young to be instead with her aunt, her mother’s sister. She has a sister/cousin who was born the same month she was. At the age of 14, her mother sent her to Tegucigalpa to live with an aunt and continue her studies, but her aunt treated her badly and she ended up leaving to look for work, which she finally found in a bar. There she met the father of her son, Cristian, and moved in with him. But he left while she was still pregnant. Three months after the birth of her son, she found herself with no money and a sick baby. Together with a friend, they decided to go to the streets to make money. She was 18 years old. For 5 years she sold herself on the streets. She says that when you have spent a good amount of time in prostitution, you begin to think that is all you can do. But the “Hound of Heaven” was after her and many people began to speak to her of Christ. When the Jericho evangelism team shared Christ with her and told her of the ministry where she could be trained in an honorable profession, she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior and entered the ministry. But it wasn’t always easy. A month and a half later, after receiving her monthly pay, she went home, put the money in a drawer, and then left for a church meeting. Upon returning she found that someone had broken in and stolen all of her money. At the time the Enemy tried to convince her that God wouldn’t take care of her and that she could only make money by being on the streets. She decided to go back to the streets the following day. But upon arriving she felt embarrassed, “like being naked in front of a crowd of people.” When a former client called on her, she walked up to his car but could feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It was as if He whispered to her, “you are too valuable to me to be doing this.” She left the man there and went home. The Lord was gracious to her she says, “for who knows what would have become of her if she had gone back.” The Lord is now teaching her to seek Him, to trust Him and to press on in the faith to which He has called her. Her eyes now shine the light of Christ.

Like all of the Jericho women, Glenda grew up in a very difficult family situation. Her mother decided to give her to an “aunt,” who was really no blood relation at all, after Glenda’s father died when she was just four years old. Glenda lived with this “aunt” until she finished fourth grade at which point Glenda’s rebellion was more than this woman could handle. She was then shuffled to a Catholic boarding school and then finally a youth detention center when no one seemed able to handle her. Upon leaving the detention center, Glenda moved in with her sister. Glenda’s sister had been selling herself at a brothel for several years, and she knew that Glenda would be able to make a lot of money working in the brothel as well. Glenda, at just 14, was petite and had striking features and her sister knew she would be popular. But she hadn’t envisioned the jealousy that would eat at her own heart when Glenda was chosen before her, time after time. Glenda was having her own share of attitudes to deal with. She hated her older sister for “forcing” her into this lifestyle. And so it was that Glenda, beautiful and strong on the outside, fragile and consumed by hate and rebellion on the inside came to know Eddy. Edward Hernandez had been shuffled from one home to the next growing up just like Glenda. His father had no interest in him and his Mother was so poor that she sent Eddy out to beg. Eddy, looking for belonging, joined the first gang who asked him. It happened to be the most brutal of the gangs in Tegucigalpa…the Mara Salvatucha, better known as MS. Eddy, living in the area where Glenda worked, met her one-day in a local bar. He had no idea where she worked and she certainly was not going to divulge that information. So began the relationship between them, part deception, part magnetic pull to escape painful backgrounds full of rejection and hate. You can imagine Eddy’s surprise one day when he went to find Glenda at the scrappy apartment she shared with her sister, and Glenda was not there. Glenda’s sister, filled with envy and alcohol, divulged the news of Glenda’s whereabouts that sent an incredulous Eddy flying to the brothel to see if the news was true. A scandal erupted as Eddy burst in on Glenda. Eddy told her that he would need time to think through the whole situation. If he came back, he would be hers and see the relationship through. If not, the whole thing would be over for good. She waited not knowing what the outcome would be. To her great surprise, Eddy came back and they moved in together. Thus began a season in Glenda’s life that was even more unsettling as Eddy’s gang activities often meant very violent and always illegal activities. She became pregnant almost immediately. In the midst of her pregnancy, Eddy was shot the first time. She remembers holding his hand in the hospital, the heat overwhelming and the thought of losing him even more so. But he survived and went on to receive yet another gunshot wound. Glenda began to seek solace in alcohol and infrequent visits to the brothel when she learned she was pregnant again. It was actually through her sister that Glenda heard of Jericho ministries and she accepted Christ when she showed up at the Jericho offices one day. Eventually Eddy also became a born-again believer and they were married in a civil ceremony where Betsy and Hae-Young were witnesses. Glenda graduated earlier this year and really needs your prayers as she begins to make a living for herself apart from the protective confines of the ministry.

It was a common sight to see Maria Elena happily sweeping or cleaning up around Jericho. She came to Jericho after having been more than 15 years on the streets. She was weary of life itself when another street woman told her about Jericho. She showed up at the offices of Jericho to find out more about the ministry and ended up accepting Christ right there. Now she is off the streets, and has found peace with Christ. She says that the only thing that awaited her in the streets was death but now she has found real life in Christ. She says she has received from the Lord a whole new attitude and outlook on life. Where she was once a violent woman, who used to attack by the throat anyone who crossed her, now she lives at peace with others. Maria Elena is the mother of 7 children, ranging in ages from 6 to 21. Five of her children now also have a relationship with the Lord and her young son, Merlin, says that he wants to be a pastor when he grows up. Maria says that she believes that her children are going to be great servants of God. Maria Elena is excited to be serving God and now even has a Growth Group meeting in her tiny house where more than 15 people gather weekly to study the Word of God together.  Since graduation from Jericho in 2005, Maria Elena has worked at a cleaning company and is a great witness to the power of Christ.  She visits Jericho regularly to update the staff on the miracles she and her family are experiencing.