Latasha McCoy: Escaping Life’s Storms in Noah’s Ark

CBN.com “I felt really worthless ‘cause once you go through so much stuff, that’s what you feel like. You feel you’re just so nasty.”

Latasha McCoy has endured almost unimaginable pain and abuse in her short life -- much of it at the hands of those who should have loved and protected her and her siblings -- her parents.

“They did drugs forever and so that became more important than us,” she says.

Her mother was physically abusive and though her father never hit her, his abuse was even worse.

“He was like sexually abusive, and my mom didn’t know it. No one knew that. He started doing it when I was like five or that’s my first memory. That went on 'till I was 14.”

Latasha didn’t know how to deal with the pain.

“I tried to find out ways to get through it without having any help from them. So I just followed their tracks and went into drugs.”

But the drugs also came with a high price.

“Once you do drugs, it’s not just drugs. There’s all that other stuff. You have to buy it. If you don’t have a job, you either do what they tell you to do or you steal it or make it. You’d have to date the guy who made it. It was horrible. They were really abusive too.”

When she was 14, Latasha was put in foster care and then juvenile detention. It was there that her life changed for the better.

“One night we had this lady come out and share her testimony with us. She had been sexually abused her whole life," Latasha explains. “Then she asked if there was anybody [who] wanted to be saved. At that time I was kinda scared. But I jumped up.

“After that she was talking to me about how to be saved, and she told me the prayer and talked to me about Jesus. I felt so relieved. That was the best I’ve felt in years.”

Since that time Latasha has come to live at Noah’s Ark, a foster home and animal sanctuary that combines healing for abused kids and animals.

Owner Charlie Hedgcoth explains, “It’s terrible abuse that a lot of our kids go through, but once you take them out of it and the animals come in and show them unconditional love, it’s amazing how they respond.”

Latasha says that her time at Noah’s Ark has shown her a new way to live.

“They let you see by their example of what all Christ can do for you, what Christ makes you, who you can be through Christ. They helped me grow a lot,” says Latasha. “I went from probably the most emotionally unstable person in Noah’s Ark to I can deal with things now. I pray about it, and I ask God to help me through it.”

Latasha now looks forward to living the rest of her life in the love of Christ.

“If I hadn’t had this place, if I hadn’t had God, I wouldn’t make it. I can trust Him more than anybody.”

For more information, visit www.noahs-ark.org, and read our special feature on Noah's Ark.