As I stood staring out of my prison cell with tears running down my cheeks I asked myself, how had my life come to this? I was thirty-nine years old and sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary. My name is Sophia. I transitioned from Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in November of 2016 to His House Outreach Ministries in Claremore, OK., a second chance faith-based program founded by Rhonda Bear. A program that with the support of this community and many others currently gives about thirty women a safe and spiritual environment to live in and has restored over one hundred and sixty-five children to their mother.

I have not always been a God-fearing woman. As a little girl, I could not understand how the one man who was supposed to protect, love, encourage me to reach my ambitions, dreams and goals be the very man who beat me down, broke me down and shattered everything meaningful in my life. He had stripped me of my innocence, inner beauty, self-worth, confidence, hopes and dreams. I secluded myself from everyone as I tried to keep my shameful secret from being discovered while at the same time hoped someone would hear my silent cry. Nonetheless, no one heard and no one came.

Drugs and alcohol became a mask to cover the shame and betrayal I faced at such a young age. I was pregnant at the age of fifteen. Throughout the years I had encountered myself in abusive and toxic relationships that I found difficult to escape. My daughter spent more time with grandma than with me. I met truck driver that would later become my husband at the age of twenty-three. In this relationship my addiction had only escalated to crack-cocaine. He became an abusive and controlling man and did not permit me to see my family. I somehow managed to leave him when I met another man.

​

In this new relationship my addiction spiraled out of control as I became addicted to methamphetamine and introduced to drug trafficking. I began to traffic marijuana from Mexico. When I was arrested in Feb 2010 and sentenced to three years Federal probation my drug trafficking from Mexico came to an end. The only dream I had held on to for years was to have a home. A home I could call my own where no one would hurt me, throw me out and I could stay longer than a few days. Holding on to this dream I began to traffic cocaine interstate in hope of making fast enough money to have my own home. I hit rock bottom when I was arrested on the panhandle of Oklahoma for aggravated drug trafficking. God put a stop to my destructive lifestyle. I found myself hundreds of miles from home and family. God took everything away so that I would rely on Him. I did not need the money, drugs or men. I needed Jesus Christ!

Although I faced life in prison this arrest was the best thing that could have happened to me. I realized I could not do it on my own and I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. I pled guilty to drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to fifteen years at Mabel Basset Correctional Center. As I arrived to the penitentiary in April of 2012 I was greeted by the fear, depression, darkness and loneliness that surrounded the facility.