EPA Award Winning Article: Sioni Rodriguez—The Freedom of Forgiveness

by Emily Walton in Leading Hearts Magazine 

Congrats Emily for receiving 4th Place from the Evangelical Press Association for Student Writer of the Year


“FORGIVENESS IS A GIFT, AND YOU CAN GIVE IT TO YOURSELF AND GIVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE,” Sioni says. Sold three times and a survivor of unspeakable horrors, Sioni Rodriguez is a champion of the healing power that God and forgiveness can bring.

Raised in Costa Rica with her younger brother, Sioni’s early years were torturous.

“I was confused and afraid, living in poverty. I was

abused and violated,” Sioni says. “Our mother seemed to hate us so much.”

Her parents were alcoholics who physically, mentally and verbally abused them daily. When she was five she began getting raped nightly by her mother’s lover. “I would sit in my bed [at night], dreading his arrival,” Sioni says.

Sioni was sold for the first time when she was nine. Her mother took her to a brothel in the city and left her there. She accepted Jesus into her heart that day.

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