Arms of Hope Update
By Leslie Salinas, Marilyn Flores, and Patrick Lemmons
Ms. Martinez has been a single parent of 3 teenagers since she divorced her husband in 2020. After enduring years of abuse due to his alcoholism, she decided to end the abuse and paid for her own divorce. Although the divorce was a big relief, it was also a major disruptor in their family. Her daughter now suffers from severe depression due to the divorce and the years of witnessing her mother’s pain, and has attempted suicide on several occasions. Her boys are also affected by the situation and have difficulties managing their emotions, anger in particular.
Ms. Martinez’s mental health suffered as well. She resorted to food as a comfort and gained a significant amount of weight, which negatively impacted her daily life. She is employed as a medical assistant and works very hard to provide for her family, but was recently forced to be without pay for several weeks after taking time off for a surgery. She has learned how to budget through the last several years of being the sole provider, but after missing that much work she was forced to seek help from us. She is also exploring her faith, and was connected to a Impact minister. We hope Ms. Martinez is able to fully recover and we pray for her health and for her family.
Ms. Hopkins and her husband Joseph are the parents of two beautiful children. They both are very hard working individuals who found themselves in a difficult financial situation when he was injured and unable to work for 2 months. They relied on her income during that time but it was not enough to cover all of the expenses, and they came to us when they were in danger of missing their rent payments. Ms. Hopkins had been very stressed; she had reached out to many organizations and they either had no funds or she was not in their zip code. We were able to help them avoid eviction and connected them to various resources. Let us continue to pray for the Hopkins family, and that Mr. Joseph has a speedy recovery and is able to return to work soon.
Ms. JP is a single mother to 3 children. She is now divorced after leaving an abusive relationship in Louisiana. She and her partner had their own business, but she left everything behind and is rebuilding her life in Texas. She is a very hard worker and is doing her best to provide for her family as a relocated single parent. She is now receiving the support she needed, and was also referred to counseling. She was also assisted with furniture for her children from the Impact warehouse. We are prayerful for the family as they begin their new life in Houston.
