I listened with horror as the social worker, Adriana, told us Fran’s life story. With her mother dying of AIDS, custody of Fran was given to her older sister. That was when her nightmare really began. Instead of caring for her, the older sister prostituted her 12-year-old little sister, selling her on a nightly basis. Her story only got worse from there. 
 
I interrupted Adriana’s recitation by asking, “What will happen to her? In the U.S., she would be so scarred that she would probably be institutionalized for life.” 
 
Now it was Adrianna’s turn to look at me with horror—or perhaps angry indignation that anyone would give up on a child. “But with God. . .,” she said, an emphatic plea in her voice. Please, please don’t give up on a child.
 
But with God . . .
 
That was my first trip to Brazil, my introduction to the work of Hope Unlimited. If I were to grab one phrase to talk about the transformation I see in the lives of children who have experienced life in ways that no child should ever know, that would be it. But with God . . . 
 
The reality of that phrase is so visible at Hope’s graduate church. Young adults have lived out that “But with God . . . “ in their own lives, so they know that no person is beyond transformation. Not the addict living in the weeds on the vacant lot next to the church. Not the 50-year-old enslaved in prostitution living in a shack in the nearby slum. This community of believers sees people God loves; lives that God can transform, can redeem.
 
And so they minister. They go to rehab with the addict. They buy the woman out of her slavery, and put a new roof on her house. They live the promise of “But with God. . .”
 
And Fran? I stood beside her the day she accepted Christ as Savior. I watched her absolutely blossom into a beautiful young lady who took joy in every moment of life. I saw the transformation.
 
But with God . . .