Finding Hope

Today is my daughter Hope's fifteenth birthday. Please pray for her. I know that she is out there somewhere and trust that God will help me to locate her in His timing. Right after her birth in 2005, she was taken from me by traffickers and disappeared into the corrupt Mormon foster care system. From the very earliest age I remember, I was trafficked by members of my family. 

​Originally, I grew up in the LDS Church. By the time I was in foster care and a junior in high school, I was living with a Mormon Bishop and his wife. I was forced to enter into a secret marriage covenant with the Bishop and his other wives. The Bishop was over sixty years old at the time. I was sixteen. I had already been promised to this man years earlier. One of his wives arranged for me to conceive a child in a ritual to consummate the marriage. In June 2004, my son Joseph was born. 

Months later, I was introduced to Christianity by a boy I met at my new high school. Early in the morning on January 18, 2005, I read John 3:16. The words "ONLY begotten son" jumped off the page. I realized that if Jesus was the only son of God, then the teachings of the Mormon Church must be false. I also realized unless I believed Jesus was the one and only Son, I was not saved. The very instant I realized this, He was there in a more real way than I had ever known before. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. That morning, I told my foster parents I had been saved. 

Later that day, I was taken to a hospital where my daughter Hope was born. I was led to believe that she and my other children were no longer alive. After my daughter was gone, I was abandoned by my foster family at the hospital where she was born.

I now believe she survived and was adoption trafficked into the Mormon foster care system. Even though it was heartbreaking, being persecuted for my new faith, abandoned and forced to leave my hometown was a total blessing, and possibly one of the greatest gifts ever. The same day that I received the gift of salvation and freedom in Christ, I also received the gift of my daughter Hope. The boy who originally introduced me to Christianity in high school is now my husband.

All these years later, we are trying to find my daughter Hope and my son Joseph. In 2018, my aunt began The Henry, Leroy, Oscar, Call your mom! Campaign to locate her missing sons Henry, Leroy, and Oscar. Now, my family and I are campaigning to find my missing children also. It will be called The Finding Hope Project.