My Kentucky Kids

This Thanksgiving season I have thought a lot about family. Not just my family but the families the Lord has brought to my table of care. So I would I would share my thoughts: 

I love my family. I have an amazing wife of 31 years, three beautiful and successful daughters, one stinky son in-law and two gorgeous twin grand-babies! How can a heart and soul that is already SOOOOO full make room for more? Well, I have discovered it can because the power of love and compassion just enlarges your heart and soul to depths and width you never thought possible.

In May, we went from a family of eight to one whose numbers shift daily. On one residential campus, I can have a capacity of 48 and another campus a capacity of 46 of which neither take into account the numbers of children we have in therapeutic foster care and family preservation programs. Regardless of how many or where, I consider them MY kids. Why? Because thinking of them as my kids gives me the passion, energy and commitment to provide, protect and prepare them just as much as I did for my own biological kids.

Someone asked recently, “What is it that you exactly do for these children?” My answer was simple, “We help angels find their wings.” You see, when these precious children of God come to us, we find that their childhood innocence, naivety, idealism, unswerving trust, dreams and hope for tomorrow have been taken away. Survival for them is neither “what toy am I going to play with next” nor “wonder where we are going for family vacation this year?”

Through life experiences of being sexually abused by a loved one or “friend of the family”, abused physically (beaten, burned with cigarettes, etc.), sexually trafficked by a parent so that they could next their next drug fix, neglected and left to take care of self while mom or dad is passed out from drugs, become addicted to drugs because a parent fed it to them to sedate the child when they didn’t want to deal with them or some other more than imaginable trauma…they come to us with broken or completely ripped off wings!

Untreated trauma in the lives of the kids often manifest in negative behaviors, lack of boundaries, lack of respect for adults and others, and can ultimately lead to a diagnosable psychosis. Almost all of our kids exhibit substance abuse, highly aggressive behaviors, sexually acting out and self-harm/mutilation behaviors.

During our time with them we seek to give them a safe and healthy environment to reside, provide adults in their life that will not harm them, provide nutritious meals, provide therapeutic recreation activities, help them develop better coping and decision-making skills and eventually get to the root of the trauma they experienced. Providing a safe, healthy and secure environment for these kids is the first step in helping them adjust to community life and work the program that has been developed in concert with family, clinicians and campus staff.

This is hard work. This is heart-wrenching work. There are successes and there are failures. So in the spirit of It’s a Wonderful Life, a towering bell will be put on each campus and will only be rung for one occasion.

Each time we hear that bell ring on campus, we know that an angel has earned his/her wings and will be leaving as a graduate of our program and has been released to fly into a future full of health and hope! An Angel who has earned his/her wings, that’s what we are about...that is success!!

Buckhorn Children & Family Services

As one of the largest human service providers in Eastern Kentucky, Buckhorn Children and Family Services (BCFS), delivers vital services to over 5,000 children, teens, and families each year.  We recognize that children grow, develop, and thrive in the context of family.  We therefore believe that the key to our success is our holistic approach and focus on strengthening the family.

BCFS is unique as an organization in that it offers a wide-range of services that enable us to support families in a comprehensive way.  From preventative early education and care programs to support for children at risk of abuse and neglect and their families, to therapeutic foster care, to residential behavioral health/psychiatric/developmental-intellectual challenged programs, BCFS provides a wealth of resources to families.

For over 100 years, our organization has been and continues to be an extension of the communities we serve.  With a staff of over 200, our agency impact not only affects those who enter our doors for services but also impacts the economy of the counties our offices reside. Most of our staff resides in the communities we serve and many have overcome struggles similar to the families that seek our help.  They bring a deep passion and commitment to helping families prevail in a crisis and find a path to a stable future.  Our staff brings their passion, deep understanding and love of their community to the work of helping others, and in turn, the agency provides them with solid training in best practice approaches to ensure their work with children and families is effective.

We meet people where they are—not just where they are in there circumstances, but where they have been and where they seek to go.  The bulk of our work is through residential services and in community settings.  Our staff is often working evenings, weekends and holidays, and we always have staff on call, 24 hours/day.  We understand that accessibility is key to engaging families and sustaining their engagement. In all that we do, we seek to be recognized as an organization that respects the humanity and dignity of every individual.  We strive to create an environment where every person who works or receives resources from BCFS will feel cared for, safe, empowered, respected and accepted.  Our work is focused on strengthening families and individuals through a culturally sensitive, strength-based and trauma-informed approach that achieves recovery, healing and that result in a community that is hopeful and resilient.

It is my pleasure and honor to serve BCFS as the new President/CEO as we continue the century old legacy of providing hope and healing and move forward into a new future with renewed passion, energy and commitment focused upon those at-risk.

Adapting

The last five months have been a transition for us as I retired from denominational service to take the leadership reins of Buckhorn Children & Family Services in rural Appalachian Kentucky. The transition has been dramatic and life-changing.

Leaving the streets of Washington, DC to adopt the rural back roads of KY was dramatic and life-changing in and of itself. Along KY 15, where I drive day in and day out, there are no motorcades, no sirens, no traffic jams, no buildings over two stories tall, and no concrete jungles. However, there are farms, lots of trees and greenery, and lots of curvy roads and tall mountains. Active and inactive coal mines are sited routinely as well as “curing barns” for locally grown tobacco.

Everybody you pass waves or nods their head in acknowledgement as you pass by. I don’t have to rush or head out early for fear of getting caught in traffic. Life is slower, less stressful and made palatable by the natural creation we are surrounded by. There are no sidewalks and street lights where I live but there is a dark, dark sky at night where we connect with a sky that is illuminated by grandeur of God’s handiwork. We had forgotten how beautiful the sky was at night.

Technology is slow getting to us as there is no cable service, no unlimited long distance telephone plans, and little cell phone coverage. So we purchased our first Dish Satellite system, pay extra for long distance calls, live with slower internet and bought a “mini” cell tower for our home to boost our cell service.

We had to change our normal patterns of shopping, dining out and outings that we so easily took advantage of and for granted while in DC. No longer do I grocery shop each day for our evening meal, the nearest Kroger is 20 miles away and the nearest Walmart is an hour away! So meals and trips to Walmart have to be planned. There is not an enormous selection of dining establishments. The closest Mexican Restaurant is cash only (never carried cash when living in urban areas), Chinese cuisine is 28 miles away, burger and fries are at the gas station a few miles down the road, and soup and a sandwich is at the hardware store! The area attractions are centered on nature, with lots of hiking, trail walking, rock climbing, repelling and fishing.

So as Donna and I adapt to our new home and culture, we do so missing some of the modern conveniences of urban life, yet all the while thanking God for this present adventure.

My Dad

Today I am thinking about fathers. The one who gave me life, the one who called me to faith through this son Jesus Christ, the one who adopted me when I married his daughter and the one who fathered me in ministry. Respectively, Tommy Creech, God, Rev. Ray Batson and Dr. Buddy McGohon have all had a hand in fathering me at some point in my life and I am ever grateful for the influence they had upon me.

All are still around except one, my biological father, Tommy. It is to him I memorialize on this Fathers Day weekend my short life journey with him. Death came too quick and I lost out. So here's my perspective of what I thought about dad as I grew up.

When I was...

4 yrs old, my dad can do anything;

5yrs old, my dad knows a lot;

6 yrs old, my dad is smarter than your dad;

8 yrs old, my dad doesn't exactly know everything;

10 yrs old, back in the day when my dad grew up things were different;

12 yrs old, dad doesn't know anything about that;

14 yrs old, dad wants to teach me what? I don't want to know how to do that;

16 yrs old, I'll never be like dad

19 yrs old, I'm getting married and I want dad to be my best man;

25 yrs old, dad knows more about it than what I thought;

28 yrs old, I think I'll ask dad about this;

35 yrs old, we all have our faults and desired re-dos, dad is really a better man than I ever thought;

37 yrs old, the older I get the closer I become to my dad;

38 yrs old, three weeks at the beach with my family, dad and mom...one of the best summers ever. Dad's really cool;

38 yrs old, I lost my dad;

45 yrs old, I wonder how dad would have handled this?;

50 yrs old, I wish dad could see his great-grandchildren;

51 yrs old, I'd give anything now if dad were here now so that I could talk this over with him. Too bad I didn't appreciate how smart his was. I could have learned a lot. Those things I did learn will be forever with me and passed down to my daughters.

Location:Scioto Dr,Louisville,United States

Life Chapters: End One, Begin Another

Thirty-three years ago I began my service to the local church, Calvary Baptist Church, in Barnwell , SC, my hometown. Since that time, I have had the opportunity to serve Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Greer, SC; Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Greer, SC; Buckeye Forest Baptist Church in Spartanburg, SC; Jeffersontown United Methodist Church in Jeffersontown, KY; Walnut Street Baptist Church in Louisville, KY; and Oak Grove United Methodist Church in Decatur, GA. During this time I have also had the honor of serving the Montgomery Baptist Association in Montgomery, AL; Birmingham Baptist Association in Birmingham, AL; and the District of Columbia Baptist Convention in Washington, DC.
 

Throughout these 33 years I have journeyed with congregations through births, celebrations, tragedies and deaths. The one thing constant through all was God’s sustaining grace. God has never called one person to be perfect but has called all to be faithful. In my years of ministry within the Church, I have sought to be faithful, loving, and compassionate and filled with grace. I have sought to love all, including the unloving. I have sought to meet the needs of people where they are not where I want them to be. I have sought to be a minister of redemption not one of judgment.  Did I succeed in all my attempts? No, but I tried and when I failed I asked for forgiveness.

This past April, I retired and ended the chapter in my life of directly serving the local congregation by beginning a new life chapter through another ministry opportunity.  What precipitated this change? I retired not because of my lack of passion for the Church, but because I sensed the need to write another life chapter that would reconnect my ending with my beginning.

At 50 years of age, I asked myself, “How do I want to end?” That question haunted me for some time, especially since I loved Washington DC and all the initiatives in which we were involved. But there was still a yearning for something different. Different?  I was in the most powerful city in the world and rubbed elbows with powerful people and pastors every day. What can be different than serving the Church in DC? 

Nothing, so I found myself serving the Church in a different way. From the concrete jungle to the mountains of Appalachia Kentucky, my wife and I moved. Moved to a world far removed from what I had known and experienced for some time. A life where technology is still struggling to infiltrate, a people whose average individual annual income is $11,000, where 42% of the population lives in poverty, where only 10% of the population have a bachelors’ degree or higher and a state where 7,500 children are in the custody of the State.

As I begin to write the first sentences of this new life chapter I do so with a heavy, yet excited heart. Providing leadership to Buckhorn Children and Family Services is an awesome opportunity and challenge. I will keep you informed as I write this new life chapter.