In an abusive relationship with a brand new baby, Carmen struggled to survive. Her grandmother’s death caused her to fear the future and worry about how to raise her daughter. Carmen slid into depression, until she remembered feeling safe as a young girl living on Boothe Campus and contacted Greg Huskey, Vice President of Homes for Children.

“Thank the Lord for Mr. Huskey’s direction to Homes for Families!” Carmen said, “I needed to change my life to give my daughter a better upbringing than I had.”

After moving to the Marshall Ranch campus, Carmen devoured her latest book. “Humility and Absolute Surrender” by Andrew Murray encouraged her to dig deep and think about her life. She started reading on Friday, and by Monday she gave testimonies of how God used it to change her life! The information in Murray’s book gave her confidence. Before, her shyness kept her from fellowshipping with others at church. Rather than waiting on others to greet her; this Sunday, she got up out of her comfort zone and initiated the connections on her own.

During her time as a Phase I resident on Marshall Ranch Campus, Carmen discovered a deep love for people and a changed perspective on serving others through mundane tasks. She discovered joy in cleaning and doing her chores. Thinking about loving other people changed her perception toward other residents in the house as well. Carmen stopped assuming others intended to irritate her by leaving tasks undone or leaving trash behind. She realized they too are growing and trying to fulfill new responsibilities.

One morning she felt frustrated when she found food left on the floor of a common room. Carmen decided to ask her Resident Coordinator’s advice on how to handle her feelings. Josephine told her to ask the Lord why it frustrated her. Carmen did ask God to help her understand, and she remembered asking God to teach her to love others better. Tears filled her eyes as she identified that if she felt true affection for her fellow residents, then food left on the floor for her to pick up would not frustrate her as much. Josephine encouraged Carmen to keep listening to God and told her God would continue to confirm her feelings.

The lessons in surrender Carmen learned from the book and applied to her life changed how she viewed her housemates and gave her confidence for the future. As she cleaned the living and dining rooms over the weekend, she remembered she followed a similar routine while in college. She now pictured herself in the future going to school, cleaning up after her daughter and prepping on Sundays for the week ahead.

Carmen and her daughter’s move to Homes for Families during their time of crisis enabled the family to stay together. The four phases of the program provide Bible Study, parenting classes, structured daily schedules to teach consistency and balance, the opportunity for biblically-based counseling to begin healing wounds and assistance with job search preparedness all designed to equip Carmen for success in the future.

Phase I: Restoration, has focused Carmen on the restoration of her body, mind and soul through a renewed spirit. This allowed healing for her broken heart to begin and lead her to forgive others as well as herself. She spends time studying God’s word and learning the importance of developing a closer and more intimate relationship with Him.

Carmen has met the goals of Phase I: find solutions to child behavior issues, maintain healthy boundaries with others, take initiative in daily tasks and expectations, keep a schedule and learn how to deal with conflict. Now that she has mastered these goals and completed the study curriculum, she can move to Phase 2: Equipping.

Phase 2 looks toward supplying the necessary tools for Carmen to experience success physically, intellectually and emotionally. Carmen will accomplish these goals by continuing an intimate relationship with Jesus, improving her life skills and removing obstacles from her past which could cause hindrances in the future. Carmen’s focus will be on learning basic computer skills, how to communicate well with others as well a proper etiquette in the workplace.

Each message from the Bible has softened Carmen’s heart toward God and the lessons she applies from the books strengthen her resolve to complete the program and become independent and prepared to care for her family. Carmen asks us to pray with her about the relationships in her life. She strives to keep God first and serve others. Will you partner with Carmen in prayer? 

Anxious to reconnect and close the distance growing between them, Randall and Jessica Elliott joined the couple’s marriage enrichment class at First Baptist Church Rockport. Sadly, the lessons taught served to highlight everything they had done wrong. Randall and Jessica lost hope of reconciliation.

Through the ministry of the church, they learned about STCH Ministries Family Counseling and called for an appointment, but there was a waiting list several months long. Neither Randall nor Jessica wanted a divorce, and they certainly did not want to tell family and supporters back home—those who prayed, encouraged and believed in them—that the ministry had wrecked their marriage.

God called Randall and Jessica to volunteer missions in disaster relief in 2016. They sold all of their belongings, packed their three kids into a 5th wheel camper and left home, traveling wherever they were needed. They never expected that the close quarters and demands of ministry life would expose disastrous communication issues.

The Elliotts traveled to Rockport, Texas to help Samaritan’s Purse disaster relief efforts after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Having served on multiple sites for over a year, spending a month on the Texas coast seemed the next step in their journey. In the beginning, everything happened as expected. Randall spent the days on the site and Jessica cared for their three preschoolers. His efficiency and knack for the role led to a full-time offer to work for one year on the Rockport rebuild project with Samaritan’s Purse.

Randall and Jessica prayed about the possibility. They asked their families and prayer supporters to join with them in prayer. The Elliotts accepted the position; a full year in one place with a steady paycheck would benefit their budget and provide valuable contacts for the future.

The days grew longer for Jessica, with no friends nearby and only small children for company Jessica experienced isolation and loneliness. She fought to find her purpose. Randall recognized the change in his wife and also wrestled with what seemed like an unfair situation. “God, what do you have me down here for? Why do I get to have this dream job and she doesn’t?”

The walls of the camper seemed to close in and created a sensation of captivity rather than coziness. The adventure turned to resentment and every conversation appeared to lead to an argument. After one particularly loud disagreement, then four-year-old Mack asked Jessica, “Why do you talk to Daddy that way?” Heartbroken and discouraged, Jessica considered simply staying in North Carolina with the kids after the family vacation rather than return to Texas.

Finally, they received word that STCH Ministries Counselor, Kelly Harris had an opening. At this point, every conversation between the two of them felt like a confirmation that each no longer loved the other. Yet, they forced themselves to attend the sessions. Kelly asked the couple to remember what brought them together and why had they married in the first place. Remembering those reasons and speaking them out loud brought reconciliation. Hearing Randall say he still loved her and wanted to stay married, gave Jessica comfort. She admitted the same.

The work was not easy, the harmful habits and assumptions created patterns, negative cycles of communication, which kept the arguing as their standard form of communication. Kelly gave them a list of fair fighting rules – something they struggled to use because, in the heat of the moment, hurt feelings held priority over fairness and they forgot their good intentions.

Kelly led the couple to recognize cues that sparked offense in the other and challenged them to remember what they loved about one another. That idea allowed them to find a new perspective. They reminded one another neither meant to hurt the other and to choose words that encouraged true communication. Kelly taught them to stop and express, “This is what I heard you say.” Most of the time, the message received had nothing to do with the intent of the speaker.

Jessica realized that she had become anxious over the state of their marriage and that caused her to attempt to control situations in a manner that made Randall sense she did not trust him. Once they recognized how those emotions created conflict and overshadowed the truth of their commitment to one another, a real change took place in their hearts and minds. The two have changed the way they think about, respond to and speak to one another. The fair fighting rules were not necessary anymore once they recognized negative cycles and change their words before saying hurtful things.

The first time they successfully worked through a disagreement on their own, they stopped arguing and shared what they were truly thinking. This allowed them to solve the issue and enjoy the day together as a family on the beach. “We had an ‘ah-ha’ moment! It worked, we had figured it out. For the first time, I had a bunch of hope!”

Recently, Randall and Jessica encouraged a young friend to seek pre-marital counseling and learn to communicate well before their upcoming marriage. “We knew communication was not our strong point for a long time,” Jessica said. “It didn’t get to a point that we couldn’t handle it until we were all stuck in a camper together with nowhere to go. We hope others can learn from our story.”

For more information about STCH Ministries Family Counseling locations in your area, please visit: https://www.STCHM.org/family-counseling/

Nikki Bazil, housemom at Homes for Children’s Hope Cottage, realized two things: how fast her high school boys spent their allowances and how fast the few days left before graduation raced past. She knew she needed to do more to prepare them for life after Boothe Campus.

Nikki shared her concerns with other housemoms and Victoria Gordon of Brown Cottage knew her double major of finance and accounting equipped her to meet this need. The two moms brainstormed different ideas, prayed together and a new course for youth emerged. Money Matters is a monthly class open for sixth-graders to seniors.

The ladies presented practical lessons with plenty of hands-on applications to real-world situations. The January meeting focused on introductions and hearing what topics attracted the students’ attention. Subjects such as buying a car, renting an apartment even buying a house topped the list. Victoria focused the February class time on an overview of the actual cost of living prices.

She paced off 450 square feet inside the meeting room to approximate the size of an efficiency apartment in the nearby town of Beeville. As Victoria explained that small space would cost them $675 each month after the initial payment of nearly $1500, the students’ eyes widened and mouths dropped open. Most of them had not thought about adding up the application fees, a security deposit, an administrative fee as well as the first and last month’s rent before they even moved into an apartment of their own. The costs of utilities and convenience charges such as garbage pickup, internet service and cell phone contracts brought further thoughtful looks from the students.

Nikki passed out pencils, notebooks and calculators. She instructed the students to brainstorm menus for meals. Later they added toiletries, cleaning supplies and estimated the total cost. Once they decided on meals, students listed out the ingredients and created shopping lists. Victoria took the lists and approximated what they needed for an entire month. The students’ original estimations for the total price of a month’s supplies ranged from $150-$225 per week.

One weekend, the housemoms took four of the seniors to Walmart and had them price every item on the list. Nikki explained, “Victoria even showed them how to shop using the unit price on the grocery labels. Things we all take for granted but something desperately needed for this generation.” Once all the numbers came together, the final bill amounted to $800.

Victoria remembered the students’ astonishment by the high number and reminded them, “This was for just one person for one month. We had to do it that way so that they could see the numbers I’m giving them are real numbers.”

Addressing the stark truth about the high cost of living, Nikki and Victoria proposed to help the students learn to save money using their allowances as a guide. Using the youngest participating student’s allowance as a starting point, the housemoms explained the process of saving money for the future. They figured he could have a nice sum of money to use toward the costs of living or even his own car by the time he graduated if he set aside half of the allowance he received until that day.

Nikki and Victoria, encouraged by the students’ enthusiastic response to the lessons presented so far, built an outline to cover items specific to situations the students need to know. Nikki’s innate people skills enabled her to reach out to community resources. Nikki spoke with staff at STCH Ministries’ headquarters and discovered employees with banking experience. She requested someone to come and talk about how to open a checking account, what it takes to save money and how to set up a savings account. She contacted car dealerships looking for an expert to explain the process of buying a car – explaining extended warranties, GAP insurance and all the other things that come up when signing the financial paperwork.

The first thing everyone understood they needed to know revolved around how to live on what they earned. Many students on campus did not want to go to college. The housemoms clarified college was only one way to plan for the future; certifications, on the job training or an associate’s degree also sufficed. Each student needed to think now about what they wanted to do in the future and plan for that. Nikki and Victoria reiterated, “Figure out where you want to be and we’ll figure out how to get you there.”

Housemoms on the Homes for Children campus fill every aspect of the role of “mom.” Like every household, moms do more than cook and clean, they prepare their children for a successful life on their own. After only a few meetings, students now grasp that adult life requires more effort than they originally imagined; they also know their housemoms remain committed to ensuring they will be prepared when that time comes.