A House Called Hope, episode 107

0:00 Welcome to the When You Love a Prodigal podcast. If you love a prodigal, you can discover, help, and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal. And also help and hope for your own life journey. And as I always say, remember to write down any ideas or thoughts or words from God or things you might want to do. As you listen. Because if you're like me, and most people are, if you don't write it down, you won't remember. So be sure to do that.

0:40 Now I have two very special guests today. I'm going to introduce them in a minute. I'm going to give you a little background. At the age of 14, our prodigal, Josh, whom if you've listened to this podcast, you have probably heard him as well as heard a lot about him. He went to a place for troubled teens called House of Hope. It's here in Orlando. It was early in our long prodigal journey with him, but it was a very important step on the difficult road. We had hoped it would be over quickly, but it took him a long time to put in life the things that he experienced and learned there.

1:26 As he explained in episode 50, if you haven't heard him yet, he met Jesus at House of Hope, the most important thing that happened to him there. But he also learned about rules and consequences, made some good friends, grew in many areas of his life. He did well when he came home for most of the year, trying to walk with God. But then he wanted to go back to school instead of homeschooling, which we were doing. So he did. It took him about three weeks to find his old friends.

2:09 That's when our wilderness journey really began. But even today, he is a strong, hardworking, loving husband and daddy. Things he gained at House of Hope are still serving him well. And I think you'll find that they will serve you well and your prodigal as well. So I have with me Sara Trollinger, the founder of House of Hope, and Karla Mathis, the president of this amazing residential program and other benefits that they provide.

2:51 So welcome, Sara and Karla. Thank you very much. What a blessing to be with you. Yes, thank you, Judy. Well, it's definitely my pleasure and honor to have you here. So I have a few questions to ask you. I want us to get a little history and understanding of House of Hope and then some up-to-date things as well. So it is a program. House of Hope is a program for teens, I think, 14 to 18? 13, 17. Oh, you've gone down some. Okay, 13. I assure you, my listeners, even if your loved one is no longer a teen, you will hear some valuable helps for your journey with your prodigal.

3:39 So, Sara, why don't you give us a little of your backstory and the backstory of the founding of House of Hope? My backstory is I taught school in the Irish County schools for 25 years, and I ended up teaching behind bars at Juvenile Detention Center. And it was there that I saw a desperate cry of parents and teenagers that were not getting help. And it was like a revolving door, the same ones coming and going. And so one night, in my distress, I'll cry out to the Lord and say, what can I do to help these hurting teenagers? And parents. And in a still small voice, he said, I want you to start a place and call it House of Hope.

4:24 So the next day, I was so excited because I had friends that had a heart for teenagers, too. And we got together, we had $200, and we started House of Hope. $200. Well, we wrote a grant to... I'd never written a grant. I wrote a grant to the Edith Bush Foundation, and as for... We had no property, we had no resources, but we had a passion to do this. And so we asked the Lord how much we should ask him. The Lord said, $95,000. So we sent it in, and you know, grants very seldom hit us wrong. But we got a letter back saying that we're happy to tell you that we're giving you the $95,000.

5:07 And so we found... Did you have a pretty big praise party after that? Probably did, so we found two little houses, and they were asking $117,000 for it. And the lady was so touched by what we wanted to do. Well, she said, let me and my husband grab at it, because we have such a heart for teenagers. And we didn't tell her we'd written a grant. And so she calls me back and says, we've decided if you want the property, you can have it for $95,000. And I said, well... And she said, well, I need a down payment. And I said, how about $200? She said, okay, but when you go to the closing, you have to have a dollar.

5:51 We had it, we had the grant. And so we started, and this was up on a little dirt road street with two little houses with schools. And so it's been one vehicle after another ever since. I love what your scripture basis is. What is the scripture that's kind of the theme? The Lord gave it to us as Malachi 4.6, turning the hearts of the fathers and mothers to the children and the children back to the fathers and mothers, lest there be a curse on the land. So we're breaking that curse now. And so our thing is, the main key is parent involvement, because we know in this, the parents have the training that they can hold a teenager accountable when they kill a woman.

6:38 Oh, yes, the parent involvement, the parent was learning as well, because I certainly was. Exactly, because we have to be sure that they come to parenting class every Tuesday night to learn how to be a good parent, and that they come to counseling once a week, and that they visit their teenager on Sunday afternoon. So the main thing we do is, first of all, most of the parents when they're saved, you are one of the few lucky ones, rest of them are still here, but most of them don't have a relationship with the Lord. And we require that they go into church of their choice, and that they start establishing a relationship, so that when the thing goes out, they have a place to go to make friends and a good situation.

7:28 So a parent involvement is pretty strict, and we even have them go and baffle back from church, make sure they're going. So we hold them accountable, too. So, yeah, it's exciting to see how the Lord wants to intervene and get these families restored. But, you know, that was the last portion of the Old Testament, was to get families together. And so that's exactly what we do. It's such an important thing to restore them. You know, when I talk to parents and they say, how do I get them to even talk to me? I try to help them understand one of their highest priorities is to maintain the relationship with them.

8:14 Then you have the connection that enables you to move forward and help them make some better choices. Well, we tell them to start spending quality time with a teenager, maybe old time or whenever, and to find a counselor, if they are in house of hope, that they can get it to to help restore the relationship. But, yeah, the parents, they are an important factor because everybody needs to be special. And these prodigals, most of them don't feel special. And they absolutely... But, you know, they want a family.

8:55 I know that... I think it was Josh who went down. Somebody said that. They took a survey of a teenager of a desire. If they'd rather go to McDonald's and have a meal, most of them would rather have a meal with their family. And almost everyone said, it's family. They want to be part. They want to belong. One of the things that was really helpful to us is just what you're talking about, because Josh came to us as a foster child from a pretty rugged situation. And it was really hard for us to get him to connect.

9:37 And, you know, we would do a lot of things with him and for him and with the whole family. And yet he still kept his distance. And one of the best things that happened at House of Hope is because we had to be there every Sunday afternoon for several hours with him. And, you know, after a while, he got tired of just sitting and are asking questions, and he actually started to engage. And I think that that was one of the other great things that happened for him at House of Hope, was that he began to believe that we could have real relationship. And we really would be parents that he hadn't had earlier.

10:20 So thank you for that. Thank you for following through. Well, that wasn't hard for us. So kind of you've given some of the purposes and principles. Anything else that really guided you as you planned the program? And then what did the program look like? Yeah, we knew that the teens were desperate to change their lives, but they didn't know how. So at House of Hope, we have counseling. We have a school called Hope Academy. And they all of them need someone they could talk to and confide in.

11:01 And so our counseling program works really well. And even for parents of teens that aren't there, if they need somebody to make the connection with their teenager, it's good to try to find a Christian counselor that can give them some insight in how to deal with the hurts, because they all have this hurts. And they need to have those hurts healed. And that's what we do at House of Hope, do our counseling. We find out exactly where the hurt started and go back with them there and start the counseling. So it's good to have an outside person that you can trust.

11:45 Yes. Yes, yeah. So one of the things that was very important for us, because Josh came to us with the results of fetal alcohol syndrome from his birth mother's drugs and alcohol when she was carrying him. And that prevents in the formation of the brain the ability, the actual ability to do cause and effect reasoning. And so we just were amazed. We couldn't understand why we'd ask him to do something, and he would say he'd done it, but he hadn't. And he didn't understand that there are consequences. If you do this, and then you'd actually do it.

12:28 And one of the things that was the best thing for him, other than the Lord, of course, was there were so many rules, little ones, big ones, that he was bound to break some. And of course, he did often, as did the other kids, to start with. But there were immediate consequences. And you all were better at that than most parents are. And so Josh actually had, you may not even know this, forming in his brain while he was at House of Hope was the physical means to do cause and effect reasoning. And so he came out of there understanding that if he did this, there was this consequence.

13:14 And before, he just hadn't had enough opportunity yet to build those synapses in his brain. So thank you very much for that. Well, we hold them pretty close to me. Yes, because most of them don't have them. And when they come, that's a whole new thing. And the parents are excited when they come home for the first visit because they've never helped clean up the house or clean up the room. And their parents are shocked because they come in and help. And when they're used to being served, we try to teach them how to serve. You've done that very well. And other parts of the program, you did a lot of fun things with them.

13:59 Yeah, you have to with teenagers. They look forward to that. It was a fun thing. One of my favorite pictures of Josh is with a fishing pole and a fish at House of Hope. And Lake Catherine it is, I think. Yeah. That was neat. You love that. Especially the boys. The girls didn't because they didn't want to take the fish off the hook. So you started out with girls. And then when Josh came, he was one of the very first boys. So tell us a little about why you started with girls and then how you decided to include boys.

14:40 Actually, we started with girls because it seemed to be only girls who were applying. We had a list of people and it was all girls. So we started with six girls and we increased to 18 on the old campus. And then we knew that it was time because we started getting lots of calls from parents who had boys. And so I think 1997 was when we started with boys. And I'll tell you the difference. Boys are so much easier than girls. Who would have thought that? Yeah, I know girls are all about drama.

15:22 Yes, true. And they like to be emotional. And it's hard to get to the real root of their problem. But boys pretty much is what you see is what you get. If you can get them to talk about it. Wow. So any other parts of your program people should know about? Well, first of all, we've never received any government funds. And we have the mercy of caring people who have a heart for seeing what happens there. And for 38 years, we've ended in the black lives.

16:02 People have seen the results. And it's less a miracle. So there is a charge for people to come there. What we do, we have the parent to bring the WT form for the past two years. And then we look at it and try to find something that's reasonable for them. And sometimes they drive up in Rolls Royce and they say we don't have money. So that sort of gives us a guide. But we have lots of teenagers that parents really want to be there. We just had a fashion show with eight of our girls who were there, who were between the ages of 30 and 50, graduates.

16:46 And every one of those pretty much was there because the money wasn't there for them. So we try to get the parent to give what they can. We try to get them to work too or whatever. It's based on a sliding scale. OK. And so like Sara said, we'll take a look at the two years of their W-2 retrial. And just we try to work with the families. One of the things going back to the principles is we don't want to turn anyone away due to lack of finances. We are just there for the families and for the teens and the parents. And it's a structured program.

17:27 And like Sara was talking about, so many of the teens that come in there, Judy, they come from families where they haven't had much structure. Some of them do. But most of them, percentage-wise, they haven't had any structure. And what's interesting is when the kids do, once they get used to it, they are so thankful for that structure. But one of the key things is the Christ Center program. The foundation is Jesus Christ. Amen. I'm so grateful for that. It was extremely important for Josh. I know. So I'll tell you what happened to us. We had an amount that we were supposed to pay, and it was a stretch for us.

18:08 And one of our friends, a strong Christian businessman, said, well, I don't think I would have taken a boy like you did. But why don't I pay for what you're doing at House of Hope? And that was a wonderful gift. And he paid for the entire time that we were there. And then he's still a friend, and he asks us how Josh is doing. That's special. That's very special. So do you also do fundraisers to make up for it? We have a dinner, usually in the spring, and we also have a fashion show in the fall, sponsored by Macy's.

18:59 They wanted to do it for us, and we were happy they wanted to. And those people that model usually are our graduates. And some of them even some of the kids sometimes. Oh, yeah, they do. Oh, yes. I love that. That's great. When did the program begin to add other Houses of Hope to and become a national program and not just a local in Orlando? So as House of Hope Orlando started to grow, at one point, and Sara, you can speak to this. Sara started touring with Women of Fate.

19:40 Yes, I know that. Yes. And she would usually take at least one or two teens with her who would share their stories. And so obviously, Women of Fate, large audience, and oftentimes she would have people come up to her, it's mostly women, that would come up to her and say, I love what you're doing. How do I start a House of Hope? And so it became this repetitive question of how do I start this? And so that's what led to the start of National House of Hope. And that became into existence in 2002, is when National House of Hope launched. And it launched mainly as a training and resource for other individuals who have a heart for the same for the teens and families for restoring the teens to the families.

20:32 And today, how many do we have? And so today, we now have four houses. We have House of Kansas City House of Hope York, Pennsylvania. Of course, there's the model Orlando, we have House of Maryland. And then we have House of Hope Piedmont in North Carolina is getting ready to open their doors, they have the property and everything. And so they are ready to open their doors within the next 30 to 60 days. So we're excited. And what do they have to do to use your name House of Hope? They're considered affiliates. And so they just they go through the training and that sort of thing. There's a nine, it's a nine step training process. And they do come to the campus of Orlando and live in person training.

21:13 We also do video trainings. And there is a whole process that they go through to get to that place where they become an affiliate. But there we let them use the name we just, if they're adhering to. I'm keeping with the vision and mission, then we're good with that. Our goal is for them to stick to the vision and mission and be about the heart to be about the families and the teens. And they're accountable to us. Yeah. Say that again, Sara. I said they are accountable to us. Okay. So yeah, they are accountable. We have annual, we have monthly affiliate meetings. Every year we do a conference with them.

21:54 And then we also will have every now and then we will do random audit inspections where we'll go and visit and that sort of thing. That's awesome. So that gives it a chance then for people in different parts of the country to have something a little closer. Yeah. That's a great thing. So Karla, tell me. I know you came to House of Hope in one role and then you were another role and now you have an even bigger role. Tell me a little about that story. Yes. So I, in the, it was in the late nineties, I had relocated back to the central Florida area from, I'd been in Atlanta for several years, relocated and visited First Baptist Church Orlando and I heard Sara speak and share about House of Hope.

22:51 And one of the teens was with her who gave her testimony and just my heart was really touched. And so that Monday I called House of Hope to volunteer. And so I volunteered as a big sister for about six years. So people can volunteer to help. Absolutely. We have lots of volunteer opportunities. We welcome volunteers. Yes. There are many opportunities for that. And you never know where God might take it. You never know. That is true. That's a good point, Judy. You might become fresh. Absolutely. I, yes, never did I, you know, God has a sense of humor and he orchestrates our steps.

23:33 But so I did that and it was just such a, it really impacted me and touched my life in so many ways. It was the best experience I had as a big sister and just the relationship that you build not just with the one young lady that I had, but also many of them and just the difference you see, you see the transformation while they're going through House of Hope and you can't put a price tag on that. And so I relocated out of state to Nashville and was gone for several years. And in 2013, it was really just divine intervention. It was a phone call from a friend.

24:14 And after much prayer and much deliberation, much discussion, came down and visited with Sara and Sandy and had lunch and we talked. And so that brought me back to doing some contract work, which led to executive director of House of Hope Orlando and then got involved with National House of Hope. And so now I'm with National House of Hope. So it's been a journey. It's been a wonderful journey and just a lot of Sara is such a strong woman of faith. And it has definitely helped my faith grow in many ways.

24:57 Well I'm grateful. I've been enjoying getting to know you and work with you. So likewise. That's great. So tell us a couple of, not too long, a couple of stories of some lives that have been changed. Okay, I'm going to start with Josh's friend Bobby because today he's doing so well. Anyway, Bobby came to us from a non-Christian family and didn't want anything to do with the Lord. He had been abused. So he was reluctant to being in the program and he would put potatoes in the staff's pipes from the car.

25:42 And he did all kinds of things trying to get out of there. So finally, after he'd been there several months, he had been with people like Josh and their boys and he saw them worshiping the Lord and he decided that he would get into the tribe. So he did and he got saved. And today he is up in Massachusetts. He owns three businesses. He has a family of two children and a precious wife and they have a youth group that's going on. So all the things he went through paid off. So the bride and co-star to the Lord.

26:23 And then we have many girl stories and boys but things like most of the girl stories have abuse involved in it. Most have sexual abuse. There's a young lady who, well she's known her late 40s, Cheryl. And she was, it was her stepfather who sexually abused her and he was a pastor of a church. So she was very angry. She was angry at God. She didn't want anything to do with God or with Jesus. And so she came to House of Hope and I know she had thrown a brush at one of the other girls.

27:08 Most of the girls were afraid of her. God just really got a hold of her and that particular night when she threw the brush and knocked the teeth, two teeth out of the one girl. And they ended up the staff called Sara and Sara went to House of Hope and it was like around midnight. And Sara just said, Cheryl, I'm going to come in. And Cheryl, she just, she thought she would, Sara was going to punish her. And instead Sara just sat her down and just calmed her down and just talked with her and just loved on her. And Cheryl to this day says that was the turning point in her life.

27:48 She said, that's when I realized Jesus really loved me. And she now has her real estate license. She's a business woman. She has nine children and she's doing fantastic. So, yeah. That's awesome. And I know we could take the rest of this time and you could tell us more stories, but some of them are on your website. Yes. So, tell us, you have a website. What is it? We do. There is nationalhouseofhope.org and also houseofhopeorlando.org. So either one of those, houseofhopeorlando.org and then nationalhouseofhope.org.

28:31 And I will have those website links in the show notes. Thank you. Wonderful. So people can go there and look. So expanding beyond having someone in a residential program because that doesn't happen for everyone. What would you say to parents or grandparents or people who have influence in the lives, especially of some teens who are not always making great choices? I would say spending quality time with the teenager. And the teenager probably won't like it at first because they're not used to it.

29:14 Spending time with them and like having dinner together and finding a counselor. If they can't break through with their teenager, find a counselor to help them, a Christian counselor. I just think that a counselor can help with the healing that needs to take place in the teenager. Because they come with lots of folks that parents don't even understand. And so somebody, an outside person. And find a church. Find a church of your choice. And start having a relationship with the people there. And find a safe place for a teenager to go to create new friends.

29:56 I know in Cheryl's case that Karla was just talking about, she said that there's no place in her area to find a good place because all of her friends were either dead or they were in jail or on drugs. And there's nobody to go to. So she had to pull away from her area and find a new place where family did where she could get help. Maybe that's the case with lots of people. Maybe in their area it's not a place, but there is a place someplace. And I think it's also important to hold on to the truth. In God's Word, He says His Word does not return void.

30:37 And for any of the listeners, if the seeds have been planted, His Word does not return void. And so that is a promise that parents, grandparents, anyone that has a prodigal, they can hold on to that and have hope in that any seeds that they have planted. God will send maybe other individuals to water and to help that seed grow. God can be the author. God is the author of any of our lives, if we allow Him to be. And if anybody's there listening that doesn't know who to go to, they can call in house of hope and we'll recommend a place where they might be able to get help if we can help.

31:27 Because you know of others, other houses of hope, but other organizations. That's right. Programs. That would be a positive. So if somebody wanted to at least talk to someone about the possibility of sending someone to your local Orlando one or one of the others, how would they go about that? They can call. We have an 800 number. It's 855-253-HOPE. That's 855-253-HOPE. The local number to Orlando is 407-843-8686. And there's also the websites. They can go on the websites.

32:08 There is information they can fill out, just a little contact form and then someone will get in touch with them. And what would be the process then that they would go through? So once they fill out, let's say completes that or if they call, there will be a little interview questionnaire that our office administrator will go through. And then from there, an application would be either sent or they would come up, they would set up like an in-person interview. And during that in-person interview, they will go through, they will interview both the parents and the team, but they do it separately. And so there is the interview process.

32:49 There's the application that they go through. And we just want to make sure that we are a good fit for their teen son or daughter and that also that they are good fit for our program. Because sometimes there might be issues that might be out of our scope. And so we just will sit down with them, have conversation, do the interview process and we want them to pray about it. We'll pray about it as well. And then there will be follow up from there. Some issues that are out of our scope might be legal things that we can deal with. Okay. Yes. Do sometimes does the court order people to come to your place?

33:33 Does that happen? Sometimes they will have a judge will recommend yes. They don't necessarily court order to House of Hope, but there might be a court order to House of Hope or some place similar. And so we are oftentimes on the list for recommendations, whether it's the sheriff's officer, the judge, the juvenile justice. Yeah, we've been there. So what if the child doesn't want to come? You know what? That happens often. We've had teenagers to jump out of the car all the way. But it's the first step in the panic shoring they have authority. And so they will bring them anyway and sometimes they rule them, which they shouldn't do.

34:17 They tell them they're going to take them to counseling center and really the folk already checked them in to be part. So they're managed parents with us. But the neat thing is when the parents are getting the fight in the intake room and then the first time they come back when they see the parents are serious, the teens can't wait to see the pet. And the parents are shocked because they come and give them a hug. The last they saw they were fighting. So it works out. It's just establishing the parents rule as head of the house. Any other thoughts or anything else you'd like to say to our listeners?

35:00 I'd just like to say that you are blessed to be watching this program because Judy has been through this. She knows it ends in the outside and she knows there is hope and she knows that there is healing and so there is for you whatever you are doing in the early givings. God will be as big in your life as you'd like him to be. Well thank you, thank you. We could talk a lot more. You have stories to tell. But you can also, my listeners can go to the website and see some of the stories and see how God has used this. I'll tell you one last story of mine and that's when I got a phone call from Mike who was, Mike and Rose were Josh's house parents for a number of months and Mike led him to Jesus.

35:55 Now Josh had heard lots about Jesus both from his grandparents who had him for a while and then from our family and going to church but he was ready and they baptized him right after he invited Christ into his life right there in the lake, found a big alligator right there the next day which Josh loves to tell. So Mike called me that night and said, guess what? Josh just met Jesus and he got baptized. It was a real beginning of a turning point for Josh and I just love it.

36:39 Mike and Josh are still close friends. Mike performed a wedding for him and he just, they've been part of our lives and we're grateful. I love the miracle story with Josh. Yes, which miracle? There's been quite a few. He's a miracle. When he was making candy. Oh that, absolutely. He tells that story. There was hot oil. Was it candy or donuts or whatever? But it got on his hand. Is that it? It's splashed on his hand and really burned him. And you came and you prayed for him and it was healed and he's never gotten over it.

37:25 That was neat for him to see. It was. For him to see how Jesus works. Yeah, he remembers it. So that's a great thing. And he'll do the same thing in the lives of the prodigals. Yes he will. He does big miracles, little ones, things. He's all about, he loves them so much. And I'm so grateful that there are people like you, Sara and Karla, who have said, we'll be God's arms of love for them. Arms also of stronger discipline perhaps and structure for their lives. But helping them to become children of God, but also responsible people for the community and the family.

38:15 And then the gift goes on to their children. Yes. That's right. Most all of our managers would say that they use the same principle we do in training with their own personal short. And what a great help it is. So they have them cleaning all the time? Whatever. That was one of the main jobs was keeping their place clean. So Josh does it. He does it now. Oh, that is great. So for my listeners, I have a couple of questions for you to think about. What one or two ideas have Sara and Karla sparked in your mind that you can begin to apply with the prodigal that you love?

39:10 Just don't try to change everything at once. Start with something that you can follow through on and begin to see some change. I have put a link to House of Hope in the show notes. And people have been asking me, where are the show notes? Well, if you go to Apple or Spotify or Charisma, all of those podcast places include the show notes. Some of the others don't. Or you can go to my website, judydouglass.com. And I have all of them there as well and the show notes. And you can feel free to contact House of Hope about services, locations, the possibility of a residential place for your loved one.

39:56 And I know you've enjoyed hearing from Sara and Karla. I am so grateful that they answered God's call to love and care for troubled teens. God bless you, Sara and Karla, and God bless you all of my listeners.