Angela* couldn’t understand why her mother hated her so much.

The one person in this world who was supposed to protect and love Angela only cursed at her and beat her. “She was angry with me always. She beat me and left me alone in the house without food,” Angela remembers. “My mother never cared how I was.”

Growing up in Bolivia, Angela was desperate for someone to love her. But again and again, her angry mother beat her and left her broken and in pain, all alone in the house without food or care. Because Angela never knew her father … she had no one. She never knew anyone cared.

When Angela was 10 years old, child service workers came to her house and found her alone, sick and battered on the floor. “I was unable to move,” she says. They took Angela from her mother and placed her in an orphanage. The little girl was physically safe, but she still longed to know love.

Then, because of the generosity of Bible Society friends, Angela received her very first Bible! In it, she read about God’s great love for her. She learned that Jesus Christ loved her so much that He died for her. “Jesus loves us … to know it gives me patience and a little love.”

“The Bible represents all good things for me and means a lot to me. When I feel like giving up or when I’m filled with hate, I read the Bible and it makes me feel good,” she says.

The support of American Bible Society financial partners shows Angela and other hurting orphans in Bolivia, and around the world, that God loves them and will never leave them.

*Name changed to protect privacy.