Monica met her father only once in her life. Her mother went to prison when Monica was still a teenager. Monica and her nine siblings then moved in with her grandmother, but they were warned that space was tight, and there wouldn’t be room for anyone else. Then, at 16, Monica got pregnant.

“I actually hid my pregnancy for a whole six months, and I didn’t know what to do,” Monica recalls.

Determined not to burden her grandmother with another mouth to feed, Monica looked for a homeless shelter to stay in with her coming baby. She finally found one she liked and put her name on the waiting list. When a space opened up, a shelter employee called to offer it to her. Since Monica was a minor, however, she would need an adult to provide consent for her and her baby.

“I put the phone down, and I told [my grandmother],” Monica says. “I had to tell her I was pregnant right there while I had the phone down.”

Monica ended up living in the homeless shelter until she turned 18. At the shelter, Monica learned practical tools such as financial budgeting and parenting skills. She left the home motivated to provide for herself and her daughter. Monica’s mother, father, and stepfather had all been incarcerated; this was her chance to start a new legacy for her daughter.

“For me that was such a blessing because it took me away from the lifestyle that my family all lived,” she says.

Although living with her newborn in a homeless shelter was not what Monica would have initially chosen, she is thankful for the role it played in breaking the cycle of poverty, abuse, and incarceration in her family. Even more importantly, she had come to know Christ during her pregnancy. While watching a pastor preach the Good News on a Christian television station, she grabbed her Bible and knew God was speaking through His Word to her.

When her mother was incarcerated, she signed up Monica for a gift in her name from Prison Fellowship^® Angel Tree. It made an enormous impact on Monica.

“We didn’t really get any kind of emotion or any kind of love from my mom,” Monica recalls. “What I remember is when I got the Angel Tree present and then she found out I was pregnant, she also got my daughter a gift from Angel Tree. That was so much because she was actually thinking about us.”

Anthony’s father wasn’t present in his life, but his impact on the family was devastating.

“The only time we were really safe was when my dad was in prison,” Anthony says. “He tried to hurt my family several times.”

Anthony’s father was eventually incarcerated and remained in prison for a total of 28 years. But later, his stepfather also proved to be abusive toward him and his sisters. Abuse, crime, and prison were common features in his immediate and extended family.

“So those are our role models,” Anthony notes. “God has really guided us away from that direction.”

What deeply impacted Anthony and Monica in their separate journeys was having someone come along to help them know there was another way to live.

The couple has been together 20 years but still vividly remembers the first time they met on a blind date.

“I thought she was beautiful,” Anthony says. “I totally just fell in love with her.”

“The biggest thing was our friendship,” Monica says. “We talked. It was just all talking. Our first time on a movie date, we couldn’t even stay because we were talking so much. We walked around and just talked.”

They continued to date for many years, but Monica eventually grew frustrated with Anthony’s lack of interest in anything having to do with faith or church.

As for Anthony at that time, he was pursuing a career as a secular rap artist, and his interests were directly opposed to Monica’s. After 10 years together, they made the decision to separate.

Monica had given Anthony an ultimatum: He would have to start attending church and participate in counseling with a pastor.

Anthony was surprised at how much God blessed his obedience to minister to the incarcerated.

Monica and Anthony began devoting more of their time and talents to prison ministry, ministering to the homeless, sharing their testimonies, and encouraging those they visited. But God had more in store for them.

Monica sensed God leading them to serve people using a food truck. This made little sense to them at first, as they knew nothing about food trucks.

“[We] didn’t know how to get it permitted, didn’t know anything. We were two kids from the housing project that God gave us this big vision,” Anthony recalls.

But they stepped out in faith, bought a food truck, and began ministering to people in need.

Monica’s heart for the food truck was to feed kids at skate parks and inside housing projects, to have greater visibility to those in their community. She and Anthony wanted people in their neighborhood to know, when they saw their truck coming up the street with its unique artwork and Jesus’ arms wide open, that a hot meal and living hope was headed their way.

“It wasn’t an inspiration of wanting to be a cook or anything,” Anthony explains. “It was funny because we went to go purchase the truck, and some guy comes out and says, ‘Hey, what are you guys going to be cooking in this food truck?’ Monica poked her head out of the window and says, ‘Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.’ I told him, ‘Exactly, beans, rice, and Jesus Christ. Whatever He provides.’”

Monica and Anthony learned the ins and outs of running a food truck and even quit their well-paying jobs to pursue the vision they sensed from God. They handed out tacos in penitentiaries and marginalized areas and even served ice cream to 3,500 incarcerated women.

“We’ve blessed over 15,000 people with this food truck in the past year,” Anthony says.

As the number of people they served grew, Anthony and Monica felt led to start a nonprofit serving those in need. They called it Plus One.

“Our organization is called Plus One because, out of thousands of kids, I was blessed to be able to be in that [shelter],” Monica says. “We let people know about the resources that are out there. They don’t know unless someone’s there motivating them and telling them about it, walking through life with them.”

Plus One partners with other organizations offering therapy, counseling, and mentorship. They also work with an Angel Tree^® camp to get the kids into camps.

“It’s Jesus with His hands out; the Lord is our Plus One,” she says. “He’s the one that's always going to be there uplifting us, giving us what we need.”

Through Nathan, the couple has gone into prisons to encourage incarcerated parents to sign up their children for Angel Tree. Remembering the prophetic word spoken over him, Anthony has been able to perform his music, ministering to 10,000 incarcerated men and women.

“I just believe there’s going to be a lot of good reconciliation between [parents] and the kids,” Anthony says.

“I always say, what an honor that the Lord chose us out of millions and billions of people. I’m so honored.”
—Monica