From Abandonment to a Diploma — Luisa's Story

Luisa was seven years old when her mother abandoned her and her sisters. What followed were years no child should endure: severe physical and psychological abuse, malnutrition, and exploitation. The people who should have protected her instead forced her to steal to survive.

By the time Luisa came to the City of Refuge, she had learned that adults hurt you, that food runs out, and that love comes with conditions. Everything the staff offered her contradicted everything her life had taught her.

But the City of Refuge does not love children in theory. Teresa, Tom, and the staff surrounded Luisa with what she describes as unconditional love and kindness, meal after meal, day after day, year after year, until the lessons of her childhood slowly lost their grip.

Something remarkable happened in Luisa’s heart along the way: she forgave her mother. Not because the abandonment stopped mattering, but because Luisa refused to let bitterness write the rest of her story. The staff watched a wounded girl become, in their words, a young woman “full of love, and kindness, and loves to help others.”

Today Luisa is eighteen years old and a high school graduate, an achievement that once would have seemed impossible for a hungry seven-year-old forced to steal. She is now studying cosmetology at a local college, building a skill and a career with her own hands.

IMI has not stepped away now that she is grown; the ministry continues to support her transportation, housing, and food while she studies. That is what a City of Refuge means: not a program with an exit date, but a family that walks with you into your future. Luisa’s future, like her heart, is full of light.