A house of hope

From the worst of circumstances, kids come to Hope Children's Home to learn and be nurtured in a Christian, family environment.

By TIM GRANT, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 18, 2002

CARROLLWOOD -- At the end of their evening Bible study, the girls at Hope Children's Home spoke of prayers that had been answered, and prayed for things they wanted.

A 16-year-old girl asked the group to pray for her broken family. A 14-year-old thanked God for a chance to go shopping. An 11-year-old prayed someone would donate spinach, pizza and grits to their home.

"It's pretty cool because if we pray for something and it comes in, it's ours," said Amy, 15.

Administrators at this 34-year-old children's home off Mushinski Drive say they never have to shop at a grocery store. The home is totally sustained by donations. Each night the children -- identified here only by first name, because some are in protective custody -- ask God to provide food items they enjoy.

One time, administrators say, a 12-year-old girl told everyone in Bible study she wanted Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast. Within minutes a man showed up at the door with a crate of that cereal. Another time, the home was about to run out of meat when 4,000 pounds of it arrived from a meat company whose tractor trailer had flipped in an accident.

"I think one of the things that leads these kids to Christ is, they see all these miracles," said Ray Boltz, 37, a house parent at this Christian home for abused and unwanted children. "They see the way God provides for us here."

Gov. Jeb Bush 's naming of conservative Christian Jerry Rieger to head the Department of Children and Families has revived a long-running debate about the role of religion in the social services. Much of what the Hope home does -- including corporal punishment and a strong emphasis on prayer -- would not be allowed if the home were part of the state child welfare network.

Realizing that fact, Hope chooses not to accept state money, relying instead on private donations from businesses, religious organizations and private donors.

"We insist on independence because of our desire to raise our children in church and in prayer," said Bryan "Buddy" Morrow, the home's executive director. "We find that it's Christ who makes a difference in our children's lives."

The campus, a former Boy Scout camp south of Gunn Highway and west of Henderson Road, is home to 76 children, ages 2 to 18. They come here from juvenile courts, churches, social service agencies and broken homes. They're often victims of abuse, neglect and exploitation.

What Hope provides them is a home. It's neither a rehabilitation center nor a reform school. It's a place where the children live and are nurtured in a family environment with a Christian foundation.

Biblical connections

Christianity and prayer are woven into the fabric of every day at Hope Children's Home.

After rising at 6:30 a.m., the children pray and meditate until breakfast. They pray and read a Bible Scripture before each meal. They pray before going on field trips or leaving the property.

Even the academic curriculum at their private school incorporates the Bible, Morrow said. Bible stories and Scripture are used in the English lessons. Science is taught from a biblical, not evolutionary, standpoint. The children learn biblical history right along with U.S. and Florida history.

Everybody attends church on Sunday.

After school and church, the children retire to living areas designed to reflect family life. Separate boys' and girls' dormitories are divided into two sections each, creating four families. Four married couples live in the dormitories as house parents. If house parents have children of their own, those children also live in the dormitories with the Hope children.

The children in each dormitory share one kitchen and a great room with a television, a pool table, sofas and games.

"Our main challenge is making them do right and being consistent," said Harold Groves, a house parent.

Teens can stay up until 11 on Saturday nights. Children can make two 15-minute telephone calls a month. For their own protection, they cannot receive telephone calls from anyone who is not on a calling list.

The children visit their families for three days each month. They go home for 11 days around Christmas and 11 days each summer.

Children must make their beds and keep their rooms clean, with families rotating kitchen duty. In the kitchen of each dormitory, the children maintain a prayer board where they list their needs.

During a recent visit, the prayer board indicated the girls needed red meat and chicken, butter and breakfast meats, acne cream and hair spray. One girl had requested prayer for a family member who was dying.

"The prayer board is our true budget," Morrow said.

A bulletin board for each Hope family also lists children who break rules and what punishment they received. One child, caught sneaking food from the kitchen, could have no sweets for a month. Another, who talked back to a house parent, had work duty for two weeks.

While they are disciplined in a variety of ways, some are punished as a last resort according to the biblical verse: spare the rod, spoil the child.

Five staff members are authorized to paddle students according to a strict set of guidelines, Morrow said. They can use only a paddle, never hands or a belt. Three swats are the most they can give, there must be an adult witness, and a child is never swatted by a staffer of the opposite sex.

"It's about a 30-minute process because we sit down with them and explain why they are being paddled," Morrow said. "We tell them it's in love and not anger. Then after they're paddled we give them a hug and pray with them."

'Who can they trust?'

After a long day at school, the children do homework, eat dinner, clean the kitchens and shower before their last activity of the day -- an 8 p.m. Bible study that lasts about 45 minutes.

"We shelter these kids," said Lyons, a former Hope student who returned to the home with his wife, P.J., to be house parents. "They are so hurt and so broken. Somebody has got to throw their arms around them and tell them the world is not going to hurt them here.

"I think they know they can trust me. But sometimes they are afraid to. When their own mom and dad can't be trusted, they have to wonder, who can they trust?"

Amy came to Hope a year ago from Fort Pierce to get away from a bad circle of friends and a life she felt was heading on a dangerous path.

"For a lot of us there are so many problems at home, we don't know what to do," she said. "We come here to work on our own problems and grow spiritually."

Reggie, 17, was practically living in the streets of Miami. He said he had dropped out of school and was abusing drugs and alcohol until his mother asked that he be admitted to the Hope home. Two years later, Reggie said he plans to attend a Bible college and become a preacher.

"The good thing about being out here is being isolated from anything negative," Reggie said. "That's the key. When you are seeking God, you'll find him."

Melvin, 13, said he spent two years in juvenile detention for dealing drugs and stealing cars. Matthew, 10, had disrupted and damaged his elementary school so bad, he spent three days in a crisis center.

"Before I got saved, I thought I was nothing and I couldn't be used for anything," said Matthew, describing a father with a drug problem and a mother who abandoned him. "Christ has shown me I can be used."

Some of these children have lived at Hope most of their lives. Sharon, 13, is one of them. She has lived at Hope since she was 23 months old. Her two older brothers have lived at Hope just as long.

Employees regret that so many children are in such dire need of parent figures.

"It shows the failure of our society in parenting," said Lyons, the house parent. "I wish there was no need for homes like these."

Douglas, 14, was abandoned by his parents at age 2 and bounced around to various relatives for years before his grandmother won custody. Along the way, he said he suffered physical and mental abuse.

"Douglas has had some problems. And where I live, they would not allow him to attend public schools," said his grandmother, Narvell Potts, 63, of Inverness. "Hope has really helped Douglas and I thank the Lord."

Though he still gets in trouble occasionally, administrators at Hope said Douglas has improved. But they have had to take the paddle to him -- 12 times in three months, Douglas said.

"Some hurt, some don't," he said. "It's all right here, but there are still times I want to be home with my grandmother."

He considers himself a Christian now.

"Now, me and my grandmother talk to each other kinder," he said. "I don't fuss and I'm not rude to her no more."

Operating without state help

The Hope home could receive state financial aid, like many other social service programs, said Bob Brooks, director of communications at the Department of Children and Families in Tallahassee.

"The funding is there, but they chose not to accept the funding because there are certain guidelines they don't want to adhere to," Brooks said.

While unable to speak specifically about Hope's merits or weaknesses, Brooks said that "the state is not likely to permit corporal punishment" and would take a close look at the religious content as well.

That's fine with the people at Hope.

"Our desire to be free of state license was because of the state agency formerly known as HRS (Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services) telling us that we couldn't have our children pray," Morrow said. "Their feeling was prayer would be the equivalent of teaching children to beg."

Instead, Hope is licensed by the Florida Association of Christian Child Caring Agencies and its school is accredited through the Florida Counsel of Private Schools. Hope staff are all certified Christian counselors and therapists, Morrow said.

With only 80 beds, the home must select only those children who are most in need and likely to benefit from such a setting. They are taught to regard the house parents as "aunts and uncles," not parents, Morrow said. The home does not break up siblings, and tries to reunite the children with their biological parents when possible.

"We keep kids here as long as they need a place to live," he said. "We assist them in going to college if they want to." He described two, ages 19 and 20, who live in one-bedroom huts on the property. "We also have one who is working a job and going to start college next quarter," he said.

Morrow's own family is rooted in Mississippi and Alabama. He says he owned fast-food chicken restaurants before moving here 13 years ago with his wife and three children to work as house parents.

While the children attend Westgate Baptist Church on W Hillsborough Avenue, Morrow travels from church to church as an evangelist and fundraiser for the home and school. The nonprofit Hope International Ministries is their parent organization, and Morrow answers to a 13-member executive board.

Money comes from a variety of sources, including a thrift shop on campus called GoodKids Village. Morrow said the light bill alone at Hope averages $6,500 a month. Liability insurance is $170,000 a year.

"The Lord has met our needs and he always will," said Morrow, who estimates the home has served more than 5,000 children. He counts fewer than 10 who have been expelled in his years at the school.

"The rarity of that is simply because we don't take children who don't have a desire to be here," Morrow said. "Our children can walk off the property as easily as any family. We are a family."

-- Tim Grant can be reached (813) 269-5311 or at grant@sptimes.com.

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