The power of a story...Michelle Corley

To make a long but very cool story short, I met Michelle back in June while on vacation. The sovereignty of God always blows me away...how He can be over and in all things yet still so intimately involved in every minute detail of our lives. I came to Honduras this week with Michelle and her husband Pat and a team of 11 other people to begin work on the start of a girls shelter. I wanted to share a little bit of her story with you...

Michelle was sexually abused by her father from the time she was 4 years old until she ran away from home at the age of 17. She used drugs, alcohol, and unhealthy relationships as a way to cope with the pain of her abuse. She eventually ended up opening a hair salon and through her clients God began drawing her unto Himself. One of her clients was a man by the name of Forrest Jones. Forrest and his wife began to develop a relationship with Michelle and would speak of their faith but never pushed it upon her. Michelle says that as their relationship deepened she would drop parts of her story on them little by little to see how they would respond. Their encouragement and presence in her life eventually helped to lead Michelle to the Lord. God then took Michelle on a journey of healing and began to bring restoration to her. She and her husband Pat came on a mission trip with Forgotten Children's Ministries back in 2007. Michelle says that FCM appealed to her because they only worked with boys. Even after finding healing and hope in the Lord she was never able to be around little girls because she would have such violent triggers of her own abuse. Because of the severity of the abuse she suffered she was never able to have her own children. She immediately fell in love with the little boys of Honduras and for the last couple of years has come back trip after trip and considers these children the children that she was never able to have. One day she met a little girl in the streets and says that before she even thought about what she was doing she picked her up and in that moment realized that her flashbacks were gone. God had replaced her pain with an intense passion to help rescue the little girls that were facing the same type of abuse that she had endured as a child...and thus the start of the first girls home with FCM. Beauty from ashes...God taking what was intended to harm and bringing good from it...and then using it to bring redemption to others...there is no one like our God.

And remember Forrest and his wife...well, they actually officially adopted Michelle...in her 30's :)...and guess what...I have had the privilege of meeting this sweet man because he is on this trip! Once again I have had the sweet blessing of seeing how the Lord can knit hearts together like no other. I have seen this man tear up time after time as he speaks of his daughter Michelle and the work God is calling her to do with the little girls of Honduras. This is Michelle with her dad...affectionately known as Jonesy...

"My whole being will exclaim, "Who is like you, O LORD? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them." Psalm 35:10

"O LORD God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you." Psalm89:8