From Tears to Triumph

During the summer of 1970, nineteen-year-old Linda stops on the way home from work to talk to a tall, handsome stranger on a San Francisco street corner. That chance meeting changes the course of her life. Linda’s compassionate, gripping, and soul-searching memoir tells the story of her remarkable journey from crushed dreams to the creation of a house of Hope. Her desperate cry for help brings a spiritual awakening, a two-year life-molding adventure with the controversial Children of God commune, and her decision to escape. By the age of twenty-two, disillusioned but not defeated, Linda follows a tug on her heart and a voice in her head and moves to Costa Rica, where with faith, defiance, and courage she advocates for runaways, street girls and underage prostitutes. Read her story of tears turned to triumph.

During the summer of 1970, nineteen-year-old Linda stops on the way home from work to talk to a tall, handsome stranger on a San Francisco street corner. That chance meeting changes the course of her life. Linda’s compassionate, gripping, and soul-searching memoir tells the story of her remarkable journey from crushed dreams to the creation of a house of Hope. Her desperate cry for help brings a spiritual awakening, a two-year life-molding adventure with the controversial Children of God commune, and her decision to escape. By the age of twenty-two, disillusioned but not defeated, Linda follows a tug on her heart and a voice in her head and moves to Costa Rica, where with faith, defiance, and courage she advocates for runaways, street girls and underage prostitutes. Read her story of tears turned to triumph.

Linda Caridad Cassells (Bello-Ruiz) co-founded and directed the House of Hope—the first safe-haven for street girls, runaways, and underage prostitutes in Costa Rica. She was a twenty-three-years-old college dropout when she took on the project, and relied on her faith and determination which was much bigger than her curriculum vitae. After her return to the United States in 1976, she went back to college and earned her Master’s Degree in Psychology from Sonoma State University. She worked as a bilingual vocational rehabilitation counselor in Santa Rosa, California, for twenty-six years, and as a vocational forensic expert on disability for five of those years. She maintains friendship with many of her former clients. The mother of four grown children, she divides her time between Lincoln, California, and Barra de Navidad, Jalisco, Mexico, where she practices her mantra, “Lord, where can I be of service today?” Ms. Bello-Ruiz speaks to clubs and organizations on her experiences in moving beyond despair into hope and in combating the underage sex trade. She currently volunteers with groups in California whose mission is to combat sex trafficking and provide a safe haven for girls rescued from the sex trade. She is a member of Destiny Christian Church in Rocklin, California, president of the Lincoln Hills Authors Resource Group, and a member of Inspire Christian Writers, Northern California Publishers and Authors, and the California Writers Group.