Maria’s Story

One of our founders, Shanna Crawford, writes below of Maria, a woman she met in March 2025.

In March, during our outreach to the prostitution district in Lumley, I met Maria. She shared about how she had been living in the area for three years. She had been lured away from living with her grandmother, who had raised her from birth after her mother died.

The man who convinced her to leave was older, a fisherman, and gave her a promise for food and clothing in return for sex. This lasted until he traded her in for a 12-year-old girl and no longer needed her.

Her grandmother had raised her as a Christian. Maria told me that every time she tried attending church since leaving home, she would be overcome by something dark. She felt oppressed and wanted freedom. As I shared my own testimony of living in the bondage of drugs and sex work as a young woman, I could barely get her to look at me. 

Eventually she let us pray over her to walk in the freedom that Jesus died for her to have. She shook as we prayed. Afterwards, you could see peace and joy in her countenance. She laughed with us and even sang a worship song she knew from childhood. 

We knew she was free.

She told us she was ready to go home and leave her life of sin behind. 

The next day we tried reuniting her with her family. Her grandmother ran an orphanage and had passed a few months earlier.

In God’s providence, a local pastor we partner with, Pastor Hassan Mansaray, knew her grandmother very well and had even assisted her orphanage over the years. I watched as he wept when Maria told her she had passed. In the end, He chose to take her as his own granddaughter.

Her uncle was next in line to take her in but he chose not to. 

We realized the orphanage would not be a good fit for her because of the lifestyle she was coming out of. She would need deep discipleship in the care of a family. So, we decided to place her in one of the pastor’s homes who works closely with the ministry. This is providing the kind of intentional care that she needs.

We can’t wait to see what God is going to do in the life of this precious, little lamb that He has brought back home.

Please join us in praying for Maria’s faith to grow, for her mind to be renewed, and for the Gospel to transform every part of her life!

“God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing…”

Psalms 68:6