Hello my name is Ashley and this handsome young man next to me is my son Doren!

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I have lived with Jenny and Delbert for almost 2 years now. Prior to coming here I had used drugs for almost 20 years of my life. I had battled addiction along with many other struggles that resulted in losing custody of my son to my mom and dad. Dorens father has never been in the picture. The last 3 years of my addiction, I started to use crack and heroin that brought me to the darkest place I had ever been. God pulled me from that place, April 2 2018. I went into a discipline program and was there for 19 months. Jenny volunteered there often. I began to get to know her and a little about her family.

 

When I completed the program, Jenny had offered a room at her house for me. I wanted to be wise on my choices after the program, and I knew I wanted to continue to follow the lord. Jenny was someone I knew to be safe and loving. I needed this to continue to seek the lord. I moved directly into her home after completing the program and shortly after I moved in I was able to receive a car! 

 

I then was able to obtain a job as a medical assistant. While working in the medical field for almost a year, I was offered a position to work on staff in the very same program I just graduated from. I took that position prayerfully and seeing lives transformed by God is something I live to see and be a part of! 

 

Eventually I was able to pay off my fines from being on probation in Franklin County and Fairfield County. Both counties had decided to terminate my probation early!! 

 

I continued to pray over the situation with my family and my son. God began restoring those relationships. My son started to stay on the weekends at Delbert and Jennys. After about 6 months of him coming back and forth, I had asked my mom for custody. She said “YES”. Doren came to live with me at Delbert and Jennys. The transition on him was tough, moving to a different school and moving into a completely different lifestyle. 

 

Doren was a very quiet kid.  As time went on he began to open up and build relationships with not just me, but other people in the home. Delbert came alongside him and has played a role I could have never expected God to do for Doren. God was working a miracle inside of my son! Through the relationships he has built, Doren has become very confident and free to be a child. He smiles often and most of the time we can't get him to stop talking!! Delbert has not just built a relationship with him, he has helped me to disciple him. My son at 12 years old is following Christ! God has opened my eyes to the true gift he has given me in my son. 

 

After about a year of being here I was able to pay off everything on my credit and raise my credit score. I have been able to get completely out of debt. Recently, I was able to purchase a new car because of the work I had done on my credit. Some of these things are material blessings God has showered on to me while living here. 

 

The spiritual growth I have gained has been more valuable to me than anything. God continues to love me through this family and the community he has placed me in. All though some days are tougher than I could have thought, I am learning to consider it all joy when those experiences come. I am forever grateful to God for placing me and my son here. 

 

I hope to continue my walk with the lord here until he calls me elsewhere. My son wants to stay forever!! It will be a challenge getting him to come with me. Thank you Father for knowing me better than I know myself.

Hi, my name is Kristy McDowell. I started using drugs at 12yrs old, because I thought that by using them, I would be more accepted. They made me feel like someone other than who I was because I didn’t like who I was. The addiction led me down a sixteen year long winding path that not only cost everything I

held dear including my two beautiful children, but eventually completely losing any sense of who I was as a person. In 2011, finally at my end, I found the help that I needed at Teen Challenge Columbus. It was there that I met Delbert and Ms. Jenny.

 

When I completed the TCC program in 2013, Delbert and Ms. Jenny were there to help me through the transition to my new life. They became a family to me and my children. They helped me in adjusting to having both of my children back on a full-time basis, along with a new job, schooling, new friends, new church, and really a new everything. It was like stepping into a new world, but this time the Lord gave me spiritual training wheels through this new family of mine. They have continued to walk with me these past eleven years and helping me to be all that the Lord is calling me to be. I believe that because I was willing to be taught and grow up in the Lord undertheir covering the Lord has been able to really great things in my life.

 

I am now almost twelve years clean and free from drug addiction…praise the Lord! He who the Son sets free is free indeed. I am now married and have recently had a new baby girl! Joel 2:25 says that He will restore to you the years that the locust and cankerworm has eaten. This has been the reality of His

promise in my life. All these things truly are wonderful and very close to my heart, but the greatest part of all of this is my relationship with Jesus…and that has changed everything inside me and about me. He has become my dearest friend and for that I am and will forever be grateful. I now know that I don’t have to ever do anything alone and that I have a wonderful family that loves me, and I have the God of the universe walking right by my side.

Hello, I am the one in the middle of my besties!!

 

I had been doing drugs for 24 years, raising 2 children with the help of my parents. I had been to church as a teenager and on missions trips and was following Jesus, then life hit me. I didn’t feel accepted by my family, who were addicted in many different ways. I did things I knew were not of God.

 

In 2017 I finally got caught with a large amount of drugs in my home and I was arrested and spent 8 months in jail. While I was there, I started going to a Bible class on Fridays that Jenny led. I talked to her and she seemed so nice and caring. I just knew I had to get to know her somehow! I remember she passed out cards with her church number on them, and I knew once I was out I had to find her. 

 

On June 13, 2018 I was sentenced to prison for 15 months. I tried to stay close to God during my incarceration, and close to my release date I reached out to Jenny and asked her if I could come stay with her and go through her program. I arrived at her house where she and her husband lived in the middle of

 

October, 2019. I had nothing when I got there - no license, no car, no job. Most importantly though, God began to change my heart and I started to heal from the inside. I first had to learn to trust God, which in turn taught me how to trust myself. I got my license, got my own car, and worked for temp services for a while. Then out of nowhere God blessed me with a full time job at Amazon! I have been there a year and half.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I still have struggles in life, but this time I know where my help comes from and who will ALWAYS be there. God still blows me away, just when I think “I can’t”, He says “Here, it’s time for you to own your own home.” Yes - I am a homeowner now!! God continues to teach me daily about his grace and mercy. If it were not for Jenny and Delbert opening their home, I would not be alive today to love my children and my grandchildren.