Well, I was a police officer in Atlanta, I was on a gang unit, I loved what I was doing
and but thought that was going to be my career, thought that was going to be what I was going
to do for the rest of my life and my wife and I just kept feeling this tap on the shoulder
about getting in the ministry and not getting into it at retirement but getting into it
now.
We came to a point in this journey where we knew we had to take this step and we didn't
know what was on the other side, whether God was going to bless it or he was having us
go through this process for something beyond this, we didn't know but we had a pretty strong
indication that it was going to be with youth, particularly fatherless boys and we found ourselves
going to work at a children's home in North Georgia called Eagle Ranch and that's where
the vision began to really begin to materialize for our next step.
The mentoring process, it's just investing time in another person.
I saw God changing kids from the inside out.
Young men that didn't know their father were getting to know their heavenly father and
they were finding their purpose in life, they were finding hope for the first time in their
life, they were learning to be a child for the first time in their life.
We saw families being restored and what that did for my wife and I was we realized this
is what God has called us to.
Take this ministry model and take it to a state or a region where the need was the highest
and so we began doing state by state research and everything pointed to this area of the
country.
One for the need and two there's no ministry like this in this area.
These ranches do exist across the country, they're just not here yet.
It hasn't been an easy ride but God has been faithful over and over again.
The thing you see about the ranch, it's amazing what goes on but it's more amazing.
If you really knew who I was, I was introvert, I never spoke in public, never did any fundraising.
I don't have the pedigree on my wall what's unfolding here with the people he's bringing
in, he's surrounding me with able-bodied people to handle the different things that
need to be done here.
And today we've got 225 acres, we've been developing this campus just $1 at a time,
we've got two miles of roads going in and we've had to build the infrastructure.
The school has been up and running for two years now, we've got a long ways to go but
one thing that encourages me when I feel the pressure of what's ahead of us, I just have
to look behind us and see what God has done, remember and be thankful.
