Noel, A Success Story

Noel has been attending SoCal Harvest for the past seven to eight years. She continues to come because of her excitement and love of seeing the thousands of people accept Christ each year. Last year she was able to invite her younger sister and she accepted Christ!

Life has not always been easy for Noel. After accepting Christ, Noel and her family volunteered and served at church about five days a week. She eventually fell away from the Lord and into a life of drugs, alcohol, and bad relationships. These things played a huge role in keeping her preoccupied with her boyfriend, and kept her at times leaving her children. Noel’s priorities needed to be straightened out.

On May 10, 2010, Noel says that God got her attention. As she was leaving her house to go pick up her boyfriend, her 13-year-old daughter Monica asked to ride along with her. While driving on the 91 freeway they were rear-ended by a drunk driver, which resulted in Noel being very seriously injured, and Monica being paralyzed from the waist down. This was the physical and spiritual jolt Noel needed to begin her journey to come back to Christ.

Noel struggled with the guilt she carried from her daughter’s paralysis, but thankfully Monica always remained strong in the Lord and told her mom, “Don’t cry for me, I have Jesus.” Noel is on her third year without the dependency of alcohol and is on day six with no pain medications. She says that she has seen God’s handprint in her family’s life in so many different ways.

Noel, her sister, and daughter Monica love coming to the SoCal Harvest. Monica says that “every time she hears Phil Wickham play live, she feels her legs tingle.”