God Heard, Momma, Where Are We Going to Go?

When Gina was accepted into One More Child’s Single Moms program, she was a 31-year-old single mom who felt like her children deserved more than she was able to give. Without a high school diploma, she was ashamed that she had to fudge her credentials to get a job that barely made enough to cover her bills.

She was in a deep valley, but she was not giving up. It was then that she decided she wanted more out of life and signed up for GED classes. She would work her new job during the day and go straight to night school.

“As I’ve come to expect…” Gina said, “a trial was just around the corner, and about a week into classes, the transmission went out in my car.”

Suddenly, just when she was gaining momentum and really needed things to go well, she found herself dependent on her parents for transportation. But it was during a ride home in her father’s car that she got the encouragement she needed to keep going.

My father said, “Hey Gin, you know they say if you don’t make it in life by the time you are 30, you probably won’t.” Gina was crying, but without missing a beat, he said, “Hey Gin, that is a darn lie. You will not make it in life if you quit trying, and you, sweetheart are going to make it – and make it big.”

That moment gave Gina what she needed to keep going. She succeeded in getting her high school diploma.

With a slightly bigger paycheck coming in, thanks to her high school diploma, and feeling more hopeful than she had in a long time, Gina immediately enrolled in college to become a Physical Therapist Assistant. She worked hard at her studies and made the Dean’s List and with a 4.0 GPA and was even invited into the National Honors Society.

“But,” Gina said, “the devil was plotting his next move – and so was God.”

Right before she was scheduled to start, Gina was surprised that the collegiate program she enrolled in did not align with her work schedule. “I was beside myself, and I began to pray.”

The next day, Gina got a call from someone offering to take her kids and her in while she was in school – someone promising everything would be okay.

Gina was grateful but scared and sad – she would have to give up everything she worked for. And her children would have to make sacrifices, too. They would have to give up their home.

But with a better future for them in mind, Gina took the offer and moved her little family.

“In the days to come, things were tough,” Gina said, “We found ourselves sharing a couch and air mattress in a living room of someone else’s home that just had a feel of tension.”

Plus, she still had to work on the weekends, missing many of her children’s precious moments. The people encouraging her to give her children a better life started saying things like, “School is something you do in your 20s” and “You are being so selfish.”

Depression set in. And yet Gina prayed God would get them through.

After three months in the tense living situation, one night Gina and her children were asked to leave. Immediately.

“I was crushed, but the hardest moment in this journey was when my baby looked up at me, knowing we no longer had a place to call home and said, ‘Momma, where are we going to go?’”

Gina did not know, but she told him that God was in control and his momma was on it, too. They all began to pray.

God heard. Gina and her children were again invited into a friend’s home – and a living situation that was not much better than the one before. The little family had a private room but were sharing a twin-size bed, and a few months later were again asked to find somewhere else to go.

“…I cried myself to sleep for weeks, praying that God would make a way for us. I was depleted. I refused to allow my children to ever again wonder where they were going to lay their head at night, so I concluded that I was going to give up and quit school to go back to work full time,” Gina shared.

She gave herself a deadline – if they did not receive a miracle fast, all her hard work and all the things she felt like she put her children through were going to be for nothing.

But God is a miracle worker, and it was then that he introduced Gina, via an aimless Facebook scroll, to One More Child.

She was worried about so many things. How could she ask strangers for help? How were the kids going to handle it? Despite the many doubts before her, she set her pride aside and reached out to the “greatest blessing she could have ever hoped for,” Gina says.

All her worries were relieved the moment Gina and her children walked into their home on One More Child’s campus.

Gina says her children’s eyes lit up, and they asked, “This is all for us, Mom?” She cried tears of joy.

Their new home was nicer than anything they had stayed in during their journey between homes. “Our apartment was not just nicer than anything we had stayed in during this journey but customized just for us. The weight of the world finally started to ease up off my shoulders.”

But Gina says the love did not stop there. She says people were asking about her – how she was doing and if she and her children needed anything – and then there were the random acts of kindness to welcome them.

“I finally could breathe. My children finally had the stability I had been striving to give them but just could not. With the love and support we received, I pushed on with one of the hardest journeys I have ever been through,” Gina said.

Since joining the One More Child family, Gina graduated with an Associate of Science in Physical Therapy Assistant. She even received the Perseverance Through Adversity Award and passed her exams.

“I could not have ever reached this point without the grace of God and One More Child. I am forever grateful for the faith you have given me and my children – to all of you who helped me give my children the belief in prayer. They went from seeing me praying and crying myself to sleep at night to reminding me to pray and give thanks for all the blessings we have,” Gina finished.

Your faithful service to our mission to reach one more vulnerable child, one more struggling family in need, means we can align with God to answer the prayers of mothers like Gina. Will you support One More Child in its mission to support single moms in your community? Thank you for giving.