Before I came to Mercy Multiplied, I was very against Christianity. I believed that there was God, but I did not believe that He was good. When I came to Mercy, I got to know God and Jesus, the most beautiful man who died on the cross not just for me, but for all sinners. I walked away from Mercy knowing that God is good.

After I graduated from Mercy, I started working with girls with life-controlling issues. When I started my job, I was the only Christian in my unit and things were out of control. We had riots; I was assaulted seven times within my first 3 months of working there. I just kept hearing God saying, “You got to stick with it and you got to choose forgiveness.” So, these girls who would assault me, I would take them and I would implement the Freedom Tools that I had been given to use at Mercy and I would forgive them and believe in them. As I started implementing these tools, the girls started to get really curious and ask, “Why are you so kind to me?” and “Why are you so different than the other staff?” The other counselors taught the girls that if you do well, you get a reward and if you do badly, you get punished.

I would work the night shift every now and then, and before they went to bed, I read them stories from a children’s bible story book. They would line the hallway and sit there with their blankets and teddy bears, like teenage girls who never had childhoods. Soon they started asking me to pray with them, and I really started to see a difference in the program. Within a few weeks, I got a new supervisor who was a Christian. She allowed me to start doing all of these things that I knew would actually help these girls. It started just with one girl who assaulted me my first day at work. When I asked to take her to lunch a few weeks later, she was pretty surprised! I told her that I forgive her and believe in her. I told her a little bit of my story and how the Lord had come into my life and how when I started making choices instead of excuses, my life started to turn around. I also started teaching her the tools of freedom that I learned at Mercy. When she started opening up to me, I found out that she was Muslim and she started asking me to go on walks where she asked so many questions. About three months before she left, she gave her life to Christ. Her life completely turned around now. It was because this girl made the choice to invest in Jesus and then to really take on these tools of freedom, to forgive and really make these choices to be empowered, that she was able to be successful.

Once my co-workers saw the transformation that happened in this one girl, they started opening the door for me to do it in group settings. Our unit went from being almost shut down to being the third most successful and profiting unit in our agency within seven months. When doors open to Jesus, even if it is a behavioral modification setting, you really are empowered and your life can be transformed.