The mother of five children who wowed everyone in May after photos of her graduation went viral has just passed her bar exam to the joy of many.
Being a single mother and working towards a professional degree is challenging, but the 33-year-old, Ieshia Champs, who has beaten the odds learned on Monday that she had passed the exam, expressing her excitement on Facebook.
“God you did that! Ieshia N. Champs, Esq. I’m still shouting!,” she wrote in a Facebook post with her Texas Bar Exam results.
The mother of five is currently required to complete a licensing process to officially practice law in the state.
Champs has, since May when news of her graduation from Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law broke, credited her success to her children, who are aged 5 to 14 years old.
She told USA Today in an interview that the children helped her achieve her goals, “including quizzing her with flashcards while she cooked dinner and serving as a mock jury.”
But her journey has not been easy, experiencing some of the worst misfortunes anyone of her age could ever go through.
In 2009, a fire destroyed all she had and she lost her job. When she was seven months pregnant, the father of two of her children died from cancer. She had to look up to God for strength, she told ABC13, and this paid off.
She was able to go back to school, first receiving her GED, followed by an associate degree from Houston Community College, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston-Downtown, and subsequently a law degree.
“If God can take a little girl like me who had nothing and put me in a position to where I’m graduating from a wonderful law school in the top 15 percent of my class Magna Cum Laude with five children, he can do anything for you,” she said at the time she graduated from the Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law on May 11.
After she graduated and her photos went viral, her life changed as she received support from all corners.
“People from all over the world sent me gift cards and money and that’s how my children and I ate during the summer. My church family would cook meals for us just to make sure we had something to eat,” Champs told Houston Chronicle in an interview.
“It was really, really, really stressful and I just thank God that he was able to bring me through it and pass at that!”
Besides the support, she has been asked to share her story at events across the country, allowing her to travel the world and sometimes bring her children.
“I have been asked to speak at so many events all across the world,” she said. “That has been a real-life game changer for me.”
She achieved the above with five children, who inspired her to “keep going.” “They’re the ones who were like ‘Mom, you have to keep going,’” said the mother who grew up on the streets and was in and out of foster homes as a child.
Being a high school dropout and homeless at one point of time, Champs said that after her successful results, she has already applied to several jobs though her dream is to be a federal judge or someone with her own family law practice.
People have since taken to social media to congratulate her:
BY MILDRED EUROPA TAYLOR
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