From Tears to Triumph - My Journey to The House of Hope by Linda Bello-Ruiz

During the summer of 1970, nineteen-year-old Linda stops on the way home from work to talk to a tall, handsome stranger on a San Francisco street corner. That chance meeting changes the course of her life. Linda’s compassionate, gripping, and soul-searching memoir tells the story of her remarkable journey from crushed dreams to the creation of a house of Hope. Her desperate cry for help brings a spiritual awakening, a two-year life-molding adventure with the controversial Children of God commune, and her decision to escape. By the age of twenty-two, disillusioned but not defeated, Linda follows a tug on her heart and a voice in her head and moves to Costa Rica, where with faith, defiance, and courage she advocates for runaways, street girls and underage prostitutes. Read her story of tears turned to triumph.