Saturday, November 2nd is the 2nd Annual Teen Challenge Bike Run and we think once you know more about Louisiana Teen Challenge, you'll want to do all you can to  help! Teen Challenge needs riders for their rally, Meals, Motorcycles and Missions and are also in need of silent auction items. All donations are tax deductible and 100% of the proceeds will be going to the Minden Center.

Louisiana Teen Challenge calls itself the faith based proven cure for the drug epidemic. Randi Hope does public relations for Teen Challenge in Minden and her own personal story is one that will make you rejoice in knowing our God is a forgiving and healing God. Bless you Randi and Teen Challenge for what you do.

Here's the background on Teen Challenge courtesy of Randi Hope:

Teen Challenge began in 1958 on the streets of New York, reaching out to those caught up in addiction(s) or what we call life-controlling issues. It is a 12 month residential faith-based program. There are now about 240 centers nationwide reaching men, women, and teens.  Through the years we began to encounter women who were confronted with the barrier of not being able to receive the treatment they needed and deserve due to needing to care for their children, and children being denied the help they needed by being placed in foster care or with some family member while mom was gone. There are few in the United States that answers this specific need.

Louisiana Teen Challenge began an endeavor to start a home for women with children in 2009.  Our desire is to create a place where families can be healed together not apart. Most recently we received a property north of Minden in the Evergreen community.  This will be the location of the Minden Family Center. This center will house moms with their children and women who are pregnant for a period of 12 months. Moms will go through the program which includes daily classes and various trainings to help her become not only an asset to her community but also her family.  During this time, their children will receive top notch care in an on-campus Licensed Childcare Center. We want to create an atmosphere that will meet their physical and educational needs as well as emotional and spiritual needs.

Saturday November 2, 2013 is our 2nd Annual Teen Challenge Rally Meals, Motorcycles, and Missions. We need riders as well as Silent Auction items. The items will be set up with the business cards and a display of sponsors as well.  All proceeds go towards the Minden Center.   Louisiana Teen Challenge is a non-profit 501 c3 so everything donated is tax deductible. Our Tax ID No. is 72-1106641.  Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

Read Randi's personal story:

My name is Randi Hope. I grew up in what looked like a Christian home. In fourth grade I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder after I was sent to the school counselor's office for washing my hands to the point of bleeding. This anxiety grew and manifested into much mental illness as I entered my teens. In junior high, I found myself taking a handful of psychiatric medicines but nothing helped me function. By high school, I was anorexic and cutting myself. As a result of sexual abuse, the shame and dirty feelings couldn't be numbed. At 16 years old, my mom finally refused to drag me out of bed anymore and suggested I get my GED and a job since I wasn't functioning in high school.  As I took my classes and continued to make adult decisions, I went in and out of the psych ward countless times for suicidal thoughts and cutting. One day in late September, my dad, a gold miner, was out of town, and my mom picked me up from school like any other night. I didn't know what I was coming home to would change me for the rest of my life. Earlier that night, my boyfriend at the time was using the restroom while for some reason, something shiny caught his eye. He preceded to look at a hairdryer holder that was missing a bolt above the sink in our bathroom. He took a closer look with suspicion, and saw his reflection in a tiny camera eye. In shock, he ripped the holder off the wall and pulled out wires that led to the garage where a TV was for viewing, as well as dozens of garbage bags full of years of videotapes were in our basement. This is what I came home to. My dad had set up a secret pornography operation in our house and this night. I watched my sister throw a huge TV across the garage and my mom fall apart. The shame that made me feel awkward and dirty from the abuse surfaced and I couldn't hide my anger any longer. That night, the police came to our house and confiscated all these things. I had a beer that night and addiction awoke in me and I never was able to satisfy it.

In one year, we filed restraining orders against my dad, my mom filed bankruptcy and divorce, attempted suicide, my sister moved to Mexico with YWAM, and I found drugs. I continued using for 8 years, got 3 DUIS, and went in and out of the psych wards. I tried every program in Alaska and nothing worked. I ended up homeless or when I get lucky had a boyfriend’s house to stay at and get high. My only focus for years was my next fix. I didn’t know where to take my broken heart, the shattered pieces of my life, all the relationships I sabotaged, and everyone that I let down, including my son. So I gave up. The last job I worked was a sheet metal factory where a Christian man hired me to be a graveyard shift janitor. One night in May 2009, by the grace of God, he checked on me during my shift. He found me overdosed from heroin and seizured on the floor. I was rushed to Providence Alaska Medical Center. SIMULTANEOUSLY that same night, in Lima Peru, my sister Aubrey was hiking a mountain with Youth With A Mission and met a Teen Challenge graduate named Dan who told her during a prayer request time "Nobody is ever too far gone. Don't give up on Randi, just send her to Teen Challenge. That’s where I got help.” After hearing this, my sister faxed my mom an application to Teen Challenge. When I woke up in the hospital, I filled out the application and with tears, knowing that I had nothing to lose by going. I had lost my 2 year old son to his dad and had nowhere to go. Since I was on probation, the judge court ordered me to Teen Challenge and granted me permission to leave the state and complete this program. On June 12, 2009 I was dropped off at Alum Rock Women and Children's Center in San Jose, California.   Upon entry, I was detoxing from heroin and 17 psych medications. Because we serve a God of supernatural miracles and not statistics, by only the grace of God, within a month I was able to go cold turkey off all drugs and my medications. I decided without a doubt if God could enable me to stay sober, He could give my sanity for the first time in my whole life. In this program, I gave my heart to Jesus and let him heal the pain that I tried to numb for years. God gave me a new heart, one for ministry. The program challenged me to ask God for sobriety AND sanity, along with dreams for the very first time. Dreams and visions are something you lose long before you give up on life. As God healed my heart, He gave these dreams back to me. I was an intern, then staff and thrift store manager, and now a volunteer. Since moving out of the home, I've worked at the US Postal Service full time, graduated from beauty school and got a license in Esthetics, and recently enrolled in Global University seeking ordination. After surrendering all and moving from California, I am currently pursuing the call of God on my life and that is to attend Bible College and commit to ministry by working at Teen Challenge Women’s Center in Minden, Louisiana. My life is forever dedicated to being the hands and feet of Jesus and seeing the "too far gone" meet Jesus through Teen Challenge.

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captive s and release from darkness for the prisoners..”…. Isaiah 61:1

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