November 2016

So far the holidays at Favor House have been a blast! Most all of our residents were able to travel home to be with their loved ones over Thanksgiving. For those residents who did not take a pass to visit loved ones, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Ogle provided a home cooked Thanksgiving meal! We want to give a huge thank you for them and their continued support of our ministry!
We were also blessed to enjoy a night off from cooking ourselves as New Haven Baptist of Athens, GA provided all of our residents with pizza night! Pastor Bryan Townsend meets with our residents weekly to hold a Bible study. We appreciate New Haven going above and beyond to show their love and support!

In November:

We are so excited to say that four of our residents, David S., David M., Timothy L., and Stuart E. were all baptized at New Haven Baptist Church! We are so proud of their decision to follow Christ and we are truly honored to be able to witness this part of their journey.

Favor House has offered our recent graduate Roddy Payne a position as our first Servant Leader. As a Servant Leader, Roddy will remain on property as part of staff and be a mentor to our newer residents coming into our program. He will also be able to help with driving, scheduling and in other areas where his talents and skills can be most beneficial. We are so blessed to have him as a part of our team!

We asked, and you provided! We are ready to roll with our Christmas decorations! Just like with Thanksgiving, our residents will be given the opportunity to visit with their families over the Christmas weekend. For those who choose otherwise, we wanted our house to feel like their home! We are so grateful for all of the donations we received in November for this holiday season! A number of our residents have already mentioned their excitement over helping decorate! We are looking forward to it!

As always, we couldn’t do this without YOU! THANK YOU!

Giving Thanks Always…

This past month has been full of blessings for Favor House Ministries. We have received more donations than ever before! We have also been blessed with the opportunity to meet with a few leaders of Grace Fellowship Church in the hopes of creating a lifelong relationship. As we seek to follow God’s will within our ministry, we continue to see Him move us forward.  As the first half of 2016 is coming to an end, we are forever grateful for the outpouring of love and support we have received. We are excited to see what God is going to do with the rest of 2016 at Favor House Ministries!

In June:

In the past month, we received a total of $5,072.00 in donations! We know that we could not accomplish our mission without your generous support!

We would like to thank our donors: New Haven Baptist Church, Bryan and Alicia Townsend, Debbie Lanier, Bob Paul, Caroline Ritchey, Nancy Stanley and Gerald Gay. We would like to give a special thank you to Mr. Gerald Gay for his continued support of our ministry through donating each month!
We sincerely appreciate the love and generosity of you all!

LIFESPEAK— a speaking ministry of Favor House—has also continued to see growth and opportunities. We would like to thank all of those who have welcomed us into their own facilities and ministries!

So far, Charles McDonald has had the opportunity to speak at New Grace Fellowship Church, Tuckston United Methodist Church, St. James United Methodist Church, Baxley First United Methodist, Hartwell First United Methodist Church, Emanuel Episcopal Church, Christian Family Center, Bridges of Hope, Penfield Christian Homes, Full Gospel Men’s Fellowship.

We are truly blessed by all who have given us the opportunity to prosper and reach out to those in need!

A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

– Proverbs 11:25 (NIV)

A Look Inside Our Program

A monthly letter from Dr. Charles McDonald, Assistant Program Director

This is the first of several in which I will highlight an aspect of our program at Favor House Ministries. Hopefully, this will give you an idea of our program’s structure and the commitment of our residents.

Daily Reflections Each evening, our residents write in their “Reflections Notebook,” in which they are encouraged to share the high and low points of their day which are submitted to me the following morning. Our residents are encouraged to share honestly and without reservation. While in our program our men come to understand that sharing what is really going on in their lives is an essential aspect of recovery. In recovery we learn that we are “only as sick as our secrets.” Most alcoholics and addicts have significant trust issues and have had very few opportunities to share what is really on their minds. Over time, residents share at deeper levels allowing me to offer guidance and an understanding ear. At Favor House – while a very structured program – we understand that each resident brings with them their own experiences and life issues. With this in mind we develop a program to meet each resident’s specific needs and challenges.
God Bless,

Charles McDonald

In our next Newsletter: 12 Step Meetings

Moving Forward…

God is continuing to bless us here at Favor House Ministries. We are working hard to establish a Board of Directors. We know will help us to fulfill our mission and reach more men in the recovery community. That being said, we are so excited to welcome Nancy Stanley and Ted Jones to our team! They both come to us with a vast array of knowledge and experience. We are truly blessed to have them on board. We are continuing to seek donations of items needed to expand our program, and we have now added a direct link to Amazon.com to make donating even easier! Please visit our website at, www.favorhouseathens.org under “How to Help” to view our new Donation List.

In April and May:

 We have created relationships with two major employers, who are willing to employ our residents upon entry to our program!

 We have received over $3,000 in donations, both monetary and service based. Also, we’d like to thank New World Graphics for their generous donation of 50 t-shirts to our ministry!

 We have a resident graduating from our program on Friday, May 6th. This resident has worked a diligent program and is coming up on his 1 year sober birthday! He is looking to find housing in the Athens-Clarke County area to stay closely connected to his recovery family. We are so proud of him and all of his achievements!

 We have implemented a “Resident Handbook” that clearly lays out how we operate to make it easier for our residents to adjust to life in our program.

 LifeSpeak has seen an increased amount of speaking opportunities and we are very grateful for the opportunity to be able reach out and educate others about recovery and following Christ.
THANK YOU for your continued prayers and support! We couldn’t do it alone!

What a year!

Let’s start by saying God is so good. 2015 completely exceeded our expectations. Favor House Ministries was founded in April of 2015 and is already doing more than we could have imagined. The relationships we have built and the way God has orchestrated things so far is mind blowing. This is our first official newsletter. We aim to begin sending out monthly newsletters to the people who have invested in our ministry to update them on our progress. We want you to know that you truly are making a difference. We are recognized as a non-profit organizations and could not do what we do without the support we receive so THANK YOU!

In the last year:

• Three men officially completed and graduated our program.
  We have seen genuine heart-change, lives completely do 180’s and families receive healing and restoration.
• From June-December, we received $2,325.00 in monetary donations, as well as a donated car, a donated van and a year’s worth of paid auto
  insurance!

We value any and all donations and want our donors to feel confident in knowing we use these funds to serve those in need. These donated funds have allowed us to start a website, begin thorough background screening/drug-test administration to any new men looking to become members of our program. This has also been used to sponsor a few men who didn’t have the necessary intake fees to enter the program. This enables them to move into the house, begin our job search program and from that point they begin the process of paying the money back. HUGE THANK YOU to all who have supported us in this past year! Whether your support was monetary, material donations, or even your prayers…we pray God blesses you and returns it 10x over! Here’s looking forward to seeing what He does in 2016!

“My husband has become the man I always knew he could be. He has been able to maintain his sobriety, break down walls he has had built up over the years and is learning new tactics to deal with the struggles of daily life.” – Fonda B.

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