ANGEL WAS BARELY 6 MONTHS OLD WHEN HER FATHER WENT TO JAIL.

So she had to grow up quick, quicker than a child ever should have to. With two siblings in her home and enduring more hardship than imaginable in her early childhood, it was 7 years ago when Angel, at age 11, entered the Amachi program and her life was forever changed…It wasn’t just Angel who’s life was changed, but her mentor Mihaela as well.

Although supported by her hardworking mother, Angel was in need of something extra, a friend who would be with her through her ups and downs. Mihaela and her husband were matched as mentors to Angel in 2012, excited to share their lives with her over the course of the first three years. It wouldn’t be until 2015 when Mihaela’s world would be turned upside-down and she would realize that God hadn’t just sent her to be Angel’s mentor, but that He had provided her with a significant blessing through this child.

Amachi in Nigerian means: “Who knows but what God has brought us through this child.”

In 2015, Mihaela’s husband passed away suddenly and tragically. She remembers the day of her husband’s funeral, “I was standing at the end of the aisle in the church when the doors flew open and Angel came running towards me. She was devastated by grief just as I was, as my husband had become like a father to her. As she hugged me and cried with me she told me that she would always be there for me, but that if I needed to step away from being a mentor to her she would completely understand and never blame me.”

For days and weeks and months to come, Angel would be with Mihaela through her grief and hardships just as Mihaela and her husband had modeled first.

Today, years later, Angel and Mihaela still walk together through the transitions of life. Angel tells us that without knowing Mihaela, she wouldn’t have a relationship with God.