Ieshia Champs is a single mother of 5 who has overcome some of the most devastating losses – but thanks to a fateful phone call from her pastor, she is fulfilling her childhood dream of graduating from law school.
Champs has wanted to be a lawyer since she was 7 years old, but her rocky upbringing as a teenager stacked the odds against her.
“I really didn’t have any stable guidance at that time. My mom was addicted to drugs. My dad was deceased. And I was homeless,” Champs told CBS News. “I lived with friends or whoever would take me in. Then I got pregnant with the first of my five children, and things just went from there.”
Champs eventually found stability by dropping out of high school and landing a job at a call center. Then at the age of 24 when she was pregnant with her fourth child, she endured another devastating set of tragedies.
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Champs’s house burned down; she lost her job; her mother died of a stroke; and the father of her children passed away from cancer.
The devastation eventually became too much for the Texas mother and she tried to take her own life.
Shortly after the suicide attempt, however, she received a serendipitous phone call from the pastor of her church, the Ministers for Christ Christian Center.
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“Pastor Louise Holman called me one day and said that God told her to tell me to go back to school and get my GED, because that lawyer I wanted to be, I’ll be it!” Champs recalled. “I thought it was a little crazy because I was too old and I had three children with my fourth child on the way.”
Not only that, but Champs said that she had never told the pastor about her childhood dream of becoming a lawyer.
Despite her initial apprehension, she dutifully reenrolled in school and acquired her GED. Next, she took classes at Houston Community College before going on to attend the University of Houston–Downtown.
Finally after years of hard work, the 33-year-old mother is due to graduate Magna Cum Laude from the Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law in May.
As a means of celebrating the exciting occasion, Champs posed for a series of photos with the five “mini-lawyers” to whom she credits her success.
“I took the pictures with my kids because they helped me through school. They’re graduating too!” Champs joked. “They would help me review with flash cards while I cooked. They would sit as a mock jury while I taught them what I learned that day. I would sit in my closet and pray and cry because I was overwhelmed and my oldest son, David, would gather his siblings, give them a snack, make them take a bath, gather their school clothes, all to make things easier for me. And I had no knowledge of him doing that until I went to do it!”
(WATCH the video below)
Click To Share The Sweet Story With Your Friends – Photo by Bishop Richard Holman Photography
She is a perfect example of what CAN be if you try really hard. What a blessing and a great example she is to her children too. Best wishes for a great career as a lawyer.