Today my husband and I were honored to speak to the parents of the teenage girls who reside in the New Hope House in Utah. There are currently 13 young ladies, ages 12-17 who live there. Their challenges range the gambit of risky behaviors. The girls who live at this house have stories most people don’t want to hear and certainly stories their parents never thought they would have to tell. These families have been surrounded and nearly destroyed by divorce, death, drugs and all possible ugliness from a broken and depraved world.
Last week was a very very difficult week at our own house, For reasons best left unstated here, i was not at all sure that we would be able to show up to the event that we’d had on our calendar for months. Parent visitation weekends occur every other month at the group home for girls outside of beautiful Salt Lake City. These weekends are ripe with a mixture of emotions. Having lived through the bittersweet ordeal of visiting our own daughter at New Hope House for 18 long months. a flood of emotions threatened to destroy any witness we might provide. We were struggling ourselves and simply did not have anything to give.
That is exactly when God shows up!
We arrived Friday evening tired, angry and frustrated. Sitting in the driveway before entering the house, we prayed, well begged really -for God to help us, to give strength where we could find none. We had nothing, absolutely nothing to offer. The parent BBQ was in full swing as we entered the house. Parents from all over the Western United States gathered to meet staff, tour the facility and hear progress reports, some for the first time since their daughters had arrived. Some girls are here because their parents were courageous enough to seek radical help, others are ordered by Judges, some are here because a teacher or counselor advocated for them.
All of the families share one thing in common. Devastating choices.
Some choices were made by the adults, others by the kids but all the families are broken as a result of choices. What is discovered in the journey is that all choices come with consequences. These families come together to try to tackle those consequences together. Small clusters of these broken families gathered to begin the process, the long, slow and difficult process of rebuilding relationships. A Mom and daughter talking at the picnic table, a family in quiet conversation huddled on the patio, a divorced Mom and Dad sitting together with their girl attempting to connect for the first time in years. Occasionally a tear falls or a laugh breaks through. In hushed tones the tentative healing begins, slowly, cautiously. We realized anew that we were called to witness the miracle of restoration.
The Directors of the group house, a Teen Challenge of the Rocky Mountains program are Matt and Heather. A simple, no-nonsense couple who have lived in the trenches of youth ministry for years. They are parents, partners and life changers giving their-selves to the hard work of the Savior daily - without ego or adequate compensation, without appreciation or gratitude and without grumbling. They continue to stay in the dirt with the girls, breathing life where death threatens to destroy. I am not only speaking spiritual death, I am speaking about literal death.
I am blessed to be able to hear the reports first hand. One girl rushes to me in the kitchen to welcome me back greeting me with a huge smile and a hug, another tells me in hushed tones how she invited Jesus into her heart. As I come back to this place where miracles happen, I am reminded that joy is found in the small victories.
I am so thankful that there are people who will step into the trenches and do the work that God calls them to do, without earthly accolades. I find that I am grateful for the staff at Teen Challenge of the Rocky Mountains New Hope House who have committed their lives to helping girls that many, if not most, would have tossed aside.
I am confident of this, I have seen the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13)
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