A New Creation

On February 8, 2025, McKenna Giunta-Moreno and her husband, Carlos Moreno, stood in front of their church family for the dedication of their 7-month-old son, Benicio, to make a promise before God that their son would never be able to say, “Nobody taught me who Jesus was. Nobody taught me about the love of God.”

At 19, Giunta-Moreno lost her mom, whose battles with addiction had left deep scars. At 20, she lost her stepmom, who had raised her.

“I started to fall into a really dark place,” she said. Struggling with grief and depression, Giunta-Moreno leaned on substances to get through each day. But she needed something more.

“Nobody taught me who Jesus was,” she said. “Nobody taught me about the love of God.” She had decided at a young age that God wasn’t real, and nothing had changed her mind. But her boyfriend, Carlos Moreno, was sure trying.

She remembers the first time she locked eyes with Moreno. She was drawn to him. “In that moment, I saw something in him,” she said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I could see Jesus in him.”

Moreno talked to her about God. He showed her videos. He brought her to church one week. But after a year of dating—and praying for—her, he was about to give up. 

She didn’t know about Moreno’s plans to stop seeing her, and yet she felt particularly despondent as she left work one evening. Not knowing where else to turn, she looked up at the sky and pleaded, “God, if you’re real, please just show me!”

The sky erupted into an unusually brilliant sunset just as a song about grief played over the radio. Bawling, she continued her conversation with God in the car. She felt His presence and a peaceful reassurance.

That evening, she casually told Moreno, “I was kind of praying, and I think I do believe in God now.” Moreno stopped what he was doing and stared at her. His prayers had been answered.

She would never be the same again. “The torn relationship I had with my mom my entire life had such a big effect on me,” she said. “The moment that I gave my life to Jesus, it was just like the pain wasn’t there.”

But the very thing that brought joy to her life also left her feeling lonely. She could no longer relate to her old friends. Other than Moreno and his family, she had no one in her life she could connect with on a spiritual level.

“Do you know anyone who might have a women's group or something?” she asked Moreno.

Moreno reached out to Allan Martin, pastor of the Younger Generation (YG) church ministry at the Arlington Seventh-day Adventist Church. The timing was perfect. Martin’s wife, Deirdre Rivera-Martin, along with fellow church member, Barbara Quay, was putting together a new online life group. Rivera-Martin prayed over Giunta-Moreno and invited her to join.

Giunta-Moreno felt nervous the first time she logged into Zoom to meet with the other women. Would she say the wrong things? Would they judge her for her limited knowledge of the Bible? “I was just a baby Christian,” she said. “I had this sense that I needed to prove myself.”

Her anxiety was eased a bit by the fact that she wouldn’t be meeting these strangers face-to-face, but there would be a computer screen between them. As she got to know the other women, her anxiety quickly vanished.

Through the life group, she made supportive friends, grew spiritually and began committing Bible verses to memory. “These women really were the key to leading me on the path that I’m on,” she said.

Through this experience, she discovered that the promise from Matthew 18:20 that “where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them” doesn’t only apply to in-person gatherings. “I could feel God’s presence so much whenever we were meeting,” said Giunta-Moreno.

As she continued her spiritual journey with the support of her newfound friends, she decided to get baptized. The experience changed her life. It would rank neck-and-neck with giving birth to her son for being one of the most beautiful moments of her life.

“It’s crazy how you do actually feel different, at least for me, I definitely did,” she said. “It’s kind of like how you feel after you accomplish something really, really great. I felt just this insane amount of peace.”

As the couple stood in front of the Arlington church with Benicio in early February, their pastor, Martin, was overjoyed and shared how he had seen Giunta-Morena's life change through her spiritual journey and baptism. “I have had the privilege of seeing McKenna make that decision,” he said, “that the old life is done and the new life begins.”

“I can’t even really relate at all to who I used to be,” said Giunta-Moreno. “I look at pictures of me from back then, and I’m like, I don’t know that person. I really love my life. It’s great.”

‍

By Lori Futcher
Associate Communication Director and Record Managing Editor