Amanda Andrews's Page

Marital Status

Engaged

Looking for

Networking, Learning, Friends

About Me

I am a 28, a dedicated Christian and mom of three. I am a student at University of Phoenix. My major is Psychology. I have a passion for helping others. My goal in life is to help bring people to know Jesus Christ. My motto is I live for Christ and will die for Christ

My Testimony

New Life



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New Life
A troubled young mom makes the transition from life in jail to life in Christ
By Jami Becher


Nine-year-old Sierra still gets a little nervous if her mom isn’t home on time. But these days mom is never more than a cell-phone call away. “I always pick up when she calls,” Amanda says. “I reassure her that we don’t live that way anymore and she doesn’t have to worry.”

Amanda Ortiz is in the process of allowing God to rebuild a life for her and her children. A life that went terribly wrong when left under her control.

In her early twenties Amanda had pulled herself together. Drug addiction, abuse and dysfunction dominated her teen years and she did not want that for her children.

“I felt I had my life in control. I was a dedicate wife and mother and even considered myself a Christian,” she says. “Yet inwardly, I found myself on a trip downward heading back for that certain art of the breakdown of my self sufficiency.”

Amanda desperately wanted to be there for Sierra and her son Jordan. She vowed never to be like her own mom—a drug addict—who lost her children to Child Protective Services when Amanda was only three. Yet in mid-2007 she lost control.

Amanda relapsed into her addiction, her husband left with Sierra and Jordan and she was in jail—again, for stealing money to support her habit. “I completely lost myself,” she says. “I hit rock bottom and lost everything that had meaning in my life.”

She was all-alone—or so she thought—until the jail’s routine health evaluation revealed that she was carrying a little life inside her through this nightmare.

“I was so scared,” she says. “I was afraid of what I had done to my baby by using while I was pregnant. I was afraid of giving birth to her in jail and of not being able to provide for her when I got out.”

Amanda needed a change. Not just a change in behavior or circumstances, but a heart change. She found that change through a Bible study called Road to Freedom. “I finally learned the meaning of true repentance and surrender,” she says. “Now I choose to keep Christ before anything and in every choice and decision I make in my life. I know without Him I’m lost.”

God is rebuilding Amanda’s life. “I cannot count the blessings God has done since I truly gave my heart to him,” she says.

Her sentence was reduced so that she was out of jail when baby Eliana was born on December 11, 2008. God provided a loving Christian family to take her in when she had no home to go to.

And she met Lorna Fike, an MSC missionary with the Austin Pregnancy Care Resource Center. “I had no clothes and no medical care when I got out of jail,” Amanda says. “The APRC helped with material goods, Medicaid problems, and spiritual encouragement—they became family to me.”

Most importantly God has restored Amanda’s relationship with her children. “I’m able to show them the love and attention that I couldn’t before,” she says “And I’m very careful what I teach them. It’s all about loving them and planting a solid foundations in their hearts.”

Favorite Activities

Spending time with the Lord & my family. I love doing anything to serve to God and my community

Favorite Music / Movies / Tv Shows / Books

I love Christian music

Favorite Quotations

A womans heart should be so hidden in Christ that if a man wants to persue her he has to seek God first

What would you say is your Spiritual gift?

I believe that my gift is a heart of helping others. I use my past experiences to help woman and others. I dont regret my past because now I have a very stong testimony that can help bring people to know Jesus Christ and for them to know that through Him nothing is impossible. I can relate to others in a lot of areas. I have faced a lot growing up through sexual abuse, divorce, being a single mom, through using drugs and alcohol, having parents who used, rape, jail, foster care, and so much more.