One of Dorothy's earliest memories is being abandoned in 1969, at the tender age of 2- - along with her 4- -year-old brother - by their mother, whom Dorothy wouldn't see again for more than 25 years. It would be 5 years before their father was able to track them down and bring them to live with him.

And then tragedy struck, which resulted in Dorothy spending her youth in a series of more than 40 foster and group homes.

At the age of 18, newly graduated from high school, and thrust from foster care into the unknown world of independent adulthood, this angry, defiant, broken young woman encountered God, and her life was forever changed.