Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you each by name.
Isaiah 45:5

ALL of our kids are good, and brave, and beautiful. Melissa is no exception.

The product of an abusive home, she had a cruel and unfair childhood.

“My parents used to whup me, something fierce.”

Bouncing around between relatives, she felt abandoned, unwanted… and hopeless.

“Finally, when I turned 15, I became emancipated. I was on my own.”

One night, Melissa met a “really nice guy” at a bar. He listened to her. He seemed to care.

“When I wasn’t looking, he put a ‘mickey’ in my margarita.”

It was that simple. That’s how Melissa was lured into sex trafficking.

“He kept me on drugs, 24 hours a day. He sold me to one man after another, after another…”

Melissa said they moved around a lot. Those days are hazy – she has a hard time remembering.

“I couldn’t even tell you, I was so out of it.”

Somehow, after two years, Melissa escaped. But without the drugs, she soon went into serious withdrawal. Violently sick, she was taken to the hospital.

“In a few days, I stabilized enough to go into rehab. After a month, they called Miss Sheri.”

Sheri leads our Human Trafficking team. There is no one you would rather have in your corner.

“Sheri gives me my suboxone. Thankfully, we’re cutting back – a little bit each week.”

Like most of the young people in our care, Melissa lost her job due to the Coronavirus. Covenant House stepped in, enrolling her in our new on-the-job mentoring & training program.

“Now I’m a trainee, working with Miss Pertina to keep Covenant House clean & germ free.”

Melissa is doing well with housekeeping, but she ultimately wants to get a degree in counseling. She wants to help trafficking survivors, like herself.

“I want to be like Miss Sheri… I would be dead if it wasn’t for her.”

Every Good Friday is followed by an Easter.

I asked Melissa one last question: “When you were being drugged and raped, night after night. Did you get mad at God?” She looked at me quizzically.

“No… sometimes when the drugs were wearing thin, I would wake up and pray: please God save me. In the end, He did.”

For Melissa to have such profound faith – despite everything – is truly astounding.

In this holiest of weeks, far too many will die due to COVID-19. Almost all of us will be touched by the pain and loss of a colleague, a friend, and possibly even a family member.

Today, for the first time, we are seeing a glimmer of hope as the numbers appear to be flattening in such battleground states as New York, Washington, and here in Louisiana.

And so, like Melissa, we pray: please God save us.

In the end, He will.

Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you each by name.
Isaiah 45:5

– Jim