Is it worth while?

Nate with Evan and Thea soon after they
came to live with us the first time.

There are lots of statistics. The numbers can look over whelming. There are so many kids that need to be adopted and so many abused children and there are just not enough places to help all these children. Yet we can do our part. This is not always a rewarding job. These kids are so hurt they can’t love you back because they simply do not know how. But then you get the joy like we did today when Thea brought her paper home that she turned in for English class this week. We want to share it with you. Her letter is an example of why we do what we do, and why we still want to help more kids.

If we get nothing else, but we get a letter like this after helping a child through Harmony Acres, it will be worth it all... 

Through the Past

by Thea Horton

age 11

Imagine this! A girl in middle school with sad and horrible memories. That would be me. I went through lots of horrible things, with my brother. I want to walk those feet back in the past and tell you…

Way back when I was born, I was born to my mom Heather Coughlin. She took care of me for a long time. My dad did not. He spent most of his time in jail. He got out of jail for three months and that’s all he took care of me.

Four and a half years after that I got a new brother. His name is Evan. When he was two we found out he was deaf. We had to learn sign language. My mom took very good care of Evan. I got beat up very severely. After I would get beaten up my mom would hug me. My brother and I got taken away for that.

On our way to providence home I got a headache. The providence home was close to a bowling alley. I didn’t care that much because I wanted my mom to hold me as she did before. We arrived. I got nervous. It was a giant white house. I went inside. There were other kids there to play with. Evan got settled in right away. I didn’t cause I was NOT in the mood.

We had to do chores the next day. We got money off it though. Every Friday we went to the Dollar Tree and spent our money. Well, that continued for three months. I went back with my mom. I was very excited!

When I was eight I got taken away from my mom again to a foster family. I cried again. This time I came to a brown house. It did not look big but it was medium sized. When I went inside I got a tour of the house. I also got to see who lived there. There is Nate, Tamara, Florie, T.K., Daniel, Alex, and Jasmine. I found out that they were very kind and generous. I stayed with them for a day then went camping with them. I had lots of fun. When we went camping it was July 4th, 2009. I enjoyed being with them.

They put my brother and I into Russell Elementary School. I met lots of new people. The people I hung out with the most was Kayla, Dani, Maddie, Kieana, and Brooklin. They were nice and kind, too! I got to go back with my mom a couple of times and got taken away again. It was a long journey.

On September 20, 2012 I got adopted to the Horton’s. The same people that fostered me. When I went to the courthouse I was very nervous. When I went upstairs I saw lots of people there ready for my adoption. I got to see a very amazing friend of mine. Sophie Thurston. Sophie is always there when I need it.

As we walked into the courtroom I felt shivers run up and down my back. I sat down with my almost adopted mom and dad. As Judge Stadler was saying random things, he started saying my brother’s and my name. Evan Jacob Coughlin and Thea Marie Pool your new names are Evan James Horton and Thea Marie Horton. RIght as Judge Stadler walked over to take a picture of the new family he said, “This is a good day!”

Now that I’m adopted I feel cared, loved, adored, and safe. Normally I do not feel safe. I do now because I start to tell my dad the old things that used to happen to me. I am looking forward to the future. I want my children to have a better life than I did.

You never know if you adopt a kid you might change their life. It sure changed mine.

This is the sign we made for our adoption of Evan and Thea in Sept. 2012

Evan and Thea in their new family, after more than three long years
of being in limbo not knowing what was going to happen to them.

You never know if you adopt a kid you might change their life. It sure changed mine. —Thea (age 11)

Thea with her Daddy

Evan with his Mommy

48 Hours of Praises!

Over the past 48 hours, more has happened than we can recount, but among those things are several things God has provided for which we want to point all praise to God... 

• Continued open doors, even though the property was sold back to the orignal lender! As it works, out, there is a Right of Redemption on the property owned by the previous owner, which if we can acquire, we would have the right of purchase within 365 days and would be able to start using the property as soon as the paper is acquired. Please pray that the current owner would be willing to sell it. Typically transfer of this redemption option costs $1000, which God has already provided for through a generous donor.

• Potential part time/fill in house parents with previous burden for similar theraputic children's home, horses and building experience, nursing/special ed teacher skills

• Architect to draft building plans

• Builders with engineered building resource...a perfect system for volunteer labor-powered construction

• Access to haying equipment and information that we can potentially get as much hay as we need to feed horses.

• Access to other heavy farming equipment, hay trailer, and semi for moving things as needed

• Contacts who know potential donors who are looking for this type of organization to fund or support.

• A Christian financial advisor who knows the property well and is offering advice to assist in helping us structure resources available to make the physical property earn money and move towards being self-supporting.

• Continued advice and professional recommendations from a social worker supervisor working for the state who was very impressed with the paperwork we presented to her for review and feedback and is amazed with how fast things are developing. We need to pray for her salvation. She is witnessing this process just like the rest of us.  

• A generous donation that would allow us to be able to purchase the Right of Redemption, turn utility services on once we are able to move onto the property, provide resources for our staff team training, cover required CPR class fees for our staff, and other needed items.

• $200 monthly support has been promised!

Praise God with us for all He has done, is doing, and will do as we trust Him by faith to meet all our needs as we proceed through the doors He opens for Harmony Acres!

God Provides Again!

Exciting update! 

God just provided another voluntary ranch hand. After a knock on our door, I stood out on the porch in my socks for a half hour freezing my feet as I caught up with an old friend and we recounted to each other how God is working in each of our lives leading us to this point. I found out that my guest has been wondering what God wants him to do and has been available and waiting for direction. 

God has a place of service using the talents He's given when the one with those talents desires to serve God with the talents he has. 

I asked my friend what he pictured himself doing and he told me he just wanted to do whatever we needed help with. He could even bring his camper and he'd stay in that and just work for us. His experience is with ranching, horses, cattle, etc. He's pretty much done it all. 

He went on to tell me he is 100% behind what we are doing, thinks the property is amazing and believes somehow God is going to provide. We added him to the "list" of encouragers that are able to see the vision God has put before us and urge us to keep at it and not give up. I was just amazed once again, how God keeps bringing pieces together before we even knew what we needed. 

Isn't God awesome?

Oh, if you are wondering who this character is, he's the third from the right in the picture above that was taken yesterday at our prayer meeting on the property! Speaking of yesterday, we just had a wonderful time in prayer giving everything to God and asking Him together to provide in whatever way He sees fit a place for Harmony Acres to start helping children as soon as He wants to. It was a very encouraging and moving time, and brought tears to our eyes as we acknowledge God—how good He has been to us, and how united our hearts were as we cried out to Him—to let us help these children that are so broken and in need of not only physical and emotional rescue, but spiritual salvation as well. 

And of some have compassion, making a difference. 

—Jude 22

God's Mighty Acts—Past, Present, Future

What gets you excited? What makes your blood start pumping? 

...maybe going to a basketball game when it comes down to the last basket at the end of the game with a rival team…the buzzer is about to sound, the ball is in the air, and the shot determines the winner of the game. That is an exciting moment!

Ok that is where we feel we are with our dream for Harmony Acres. God gave the desire, and after putting the dream out there and acting on it, we have horses, hay, most of staff, house parents, therapists, multiples contractors offering their services for free, found what we think is a perfect property, people to help us move in and clean whenever we need it, and now our first resident making preparations to come. Oh, and today, we just heard about two more kids that might be our next residents! That doesn’t even count the others that we heard of that are in need of a place like this that will just come out of the woodwork when Harmony Acres is operational. Go figure!

Have you observed how, in the last few weeks, God has put Harmony Acres together piece by piece? Wow, all we can say is, our God is amazing! That IS truly exciting but it gets better…

If you look at the list of things God has done, everything is general but every line item has many details that only God could work out and provide so specifically for. Here is a case and point: One man has two horses to give us and a field of hay if we can provide his firewood for the winter.  Well, it “just so happens” that our friend (who will be on our staff) works at a place where they continually generate scrap logs that make great firewood that he can take for free. God has completely provided for that. This is just one of many amazing stories we could tell of God’s provision.

We are coming close to a point where we feel like everything is about to pull together except for possession of land, but it is also at the center of what we need in order to move forward. 

In order to turn in our licensing and nonprofit paperwork, we must have a property for Harmony Acres. That may seem like a really big mountain, and in a way it is, but in another way if God wants Harmony Acres to move forward, then He will either see this detail through, or He’ll come up with a better plan than we had in mind. We are reminded in Philippians that God’s character is to complete the work that He starts. He won’t set us up, then hang us out to dry. This is a very little thing in His economy. He owns the cattle on 1000 hills (and that’s a gross understatement) and maybe more appropriately He created and owns the entire universe of resources and God has no reason to operate in scarcity or with a poverty mindset. We also feel strongly that God will provide the property debt free. We are not saying we know exactly what God is going to do, but we do know there is some reason He is allowing all the other pieces to come together, and it is because He has a plan. Our intention is to be on pace with Him and not allow ourselves to get behind or ahead of what He is doing.

So, in a way we feel like Moses might have when leading the people towards the promised land but found himself trapped with the Red Sea lying in the way of safety and progress. He could see across to where God would keep them safe and provide so many things…and where he would be one step closer to the abundant and beautiful land flowing with milk and honey. 

We can see so many things that we could do for Him to help needy and hurting children, but the “Red Sea” that we are stopped against is the need for property to function on. God has a way that He has not shown us to meet the need, but we wait expectantly and excitedly for God to roll back the water and march us into Harmony Acres at exactly the right moment. Is it ok to expect a miracle? Why not, when He has already done so many things. We would not be where we are without God and the incredible things He’s already done. As we look forward to what God can do through this ministry, we see how He would be honored to rescue many of his little children from lives of slavery in their own “Egypt,” as He surely wants to lead them to a promising new land full of provision of shelter, safety, love, and most importantly, those in eternal proportions. 

We were reminded in church on Sunday in John 5: 14-15: 

“Now this is the confidence we have before Him: whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for” (HCSB). 

In Psalm 37 we are reminded that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us our hearts desires.” Does that mean that anything we desire will be granted? No, of course not, but it does mean that when we delight in the Lord, His desires will become our desires and that is how when we pray according to His will which is now our desire, He promises to hear and and give what we ask. That is powerful! No one has a corner on God’s will, but these verses expect us to have faith in a powerful, providing God. What really makes it powerful, I think, is when what we are desiring is precisely what we are told is true religion in its most basic form…loving and caring for others, namely the orphans (and widows) in their distress, or anguish. We don’t know how God is going to answer necessarily, but we know He will provide a way to help these kids…we just happen to think it will be by providing some property soon.

The auction for the property is this Thursday. 

We have no idea what will happen, but we are preparing for rain. Our first resident is tentatively coming later this month. We are getting ready for whatever happens. We feel it would be best to be in our property by the time our first resident arrives.  We don’t know the details, but we do know God has been working in amazing ways each day up to this point, and that He is in control. 

We praise him for his mighty acts…past, present, and future! 

Are you excited about what God is doing?  We are…maybe you can tell!  Join us as we pray for God to do an almighty act in His timing!

And they were all amazed at the greatness of God.  –Luke 9:43b