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Them Before Us Podcast
Them Before Us #070 | Answering the Call – How the Church Can Support Families in Crisis
00:25:37
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Foreign.
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Welcome to the Them Before Us podcast. I'm Jen, our TBU training director and the host for our podcast here. As an organization, then before us, we take a very kind of specific lane. We talk about children's rights, public policy, reproductive technologies, things like that. But we're side by side with a number of amazing organizations that are doing pro life or pro family work around the world. And we love getting an opportunity to highlight organizations for all of you. Today we're doing so again by having a conversation with Christine Denova, who is the executive director of the Idaho Families Organization in Northern Idaho. Hi, Christine.
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Hi, Jen. Thanks for having me.
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We're happy to have you. Yeah, this is very exciting. This ministry is dedicated to supporting families in crisis through a community of compassionate volunteers in local churches who are devoted to keeping kids safe and families together. And, Christine, before we jump more into what the organization does, can you share a little bit just of your background, maybe education, career, faith journey, anything that kind of will give us a picture of how did you end up where you are today with Idaho?
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Great question. So all I can say is I was. I was called by God that God just directed my path. I was in the corporate world for a long, long time. And in my 40s, my husband and I decided that, you know, we wanted me to just get back to family, community, and church. And so I left my corporate job and just was praying, hey, Lord, this know I say yes to you wherever you want me. Just place me somewhere. And so two weeks later, the pastor of my church called me and asked if I would be open to a staff position at the church, which was a huge surprise. But long story short, I said yes. I was there for seven years and then left there. And my pastor recommended that I become executive director of the local pregnancy center. And from there, I was there for nine years. And then while I was there, recognized this tremendous need for families who are choosing life for their babies to have support, and we launched Idaho Families. So here I am.
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B
That's awesome. You know, pro lifers get this reputation. Culturally, I would say I. I don't think this is true at all, but there's a reputation that pro lifers, you know, protest outside of a Planned Parenthood or an abortion clinic and try to basically convince you to keep your baby, and then they disappear. And maybe historically, that's been what it was, but we know, I mean, people in the pro life, pro family movement know that there are so many organizations and resources that are trying to help the family while the woman is pregnant. And after the baby is born. And so Idaho is an organization that's helping more on the side of continuing the pregnancy and after the baby is born. Correct. So which is really cool because you're kind of coming alongside the Crisis Pregnancy center maybe is convincing you. I know they're doing it in a really nice way. They're not trying to. The organizations I know about do not try to convince you not to get an abortion. They just try to give you all the resources. Hey, you need rides to the doctor. We have someone who's going to help you with that. That kind of thing. So Idaho is kind of helping on the other side of choosing to keep the baby, is what you're saying?
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Yes. So when, when I was at the pregnancy center, I realized that these women and men didn't have the support that they needed to actually parent well and keep their children safe long term. And so we recognize the need and began to investigate and launched Idaho Families to bring wraparound support to these families so that they can parent well and to. For their families to be able to thrive and to be able to stay together.
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Yeah, that's great. That's another thing. You know, in our organization, we talk about how important it is that a child would be raised by their biological mother and father. That is the ideal. Sometimes that's not possible. We're thankful if a woman chooses life and still gives the baby to be adopted because she just realizes for whatever those factors are, she can't. But the ideal is that the baby can stay with mom and dad. So can you just walk us through? Let's. Do you get a recommendation or a reference from a crisis pregnancy center? Is that typically how you come to know a young woman?
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We do. The pregnancy center is one of the top three referring sources for us. But actually we get recommendations also from child and Family services.
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Wow.
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We. We get recommendations from actually 63 referring partners. But when someone contacts us, it's because the family's in crisis. And you know, that that could look just all kinds of numbers of ways, but it's typically that the parents are trying desperately to support and care for their children and something's lacking. Their. Their social capital is just lacking. And they don't have the network that's necessary to. To support their children and keep them safe. And so that's where we step in. So they call us and we assess the situation with our case manager, who. Master's degree in biblical counseling, and she'll assess the situation and then work with the parents to. To find out not just what's your immediate need, but what's the source of the problem? And so then she can really look at helping the family to just become whole again. And so the first thing that we do is we assign a mentor because we know that families are vulnerable and everyone needs someone to walk through a crisis with. And when families don't have that support, we want to make sure that we give that to them. So all of our services flow through the mentor relationship. And so that's the first thing that they get. They get a mentor and then that mentor walks with them through the crisis toward long term change and stability. And then we can also bring other services around them like a host home or support partners. And a host home is there to, you know, just that, host a child and. Or sometimes a child and their parent. And so the idea though is when we host a child, parents keep all parental rights. This is not foster care. This is looked at as extended family. So you're allowing for the child to be placed in a safe place while you still get to make all the decisions for your child and you still get to visit with your child, talk to your child anytime. And then we have support partners who come alongside those two volunteer roles as well. And they offer special services or special goods. Goods. You know, whether it's finances or maybe it's, you know, the house needs a carpenter or a plumber or maybe the family needs counseling. And so we have support partners who offer free counseling, you know, all kinds of free services to our clients to help them become whole again. Yeah.
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What a lot of people don't realize, maybe especially coming from more conservative or Christian backgrounds, like let's say you've been raised and your parents aren't even divorced. You have a lot of stability in your family if you have grandparents or aunts or uncles around you, if you go to church. That's a huge aspect of community. I've told people, I've. I've thought through this all the time. You know, when you look at people who are on the street or homeless, there's of course different addictions and some choices maybe brought them to that point. But I remember reading a story, I might have mentioned this on another episode when I was chatting about to a pro life organization. But it was the sense that this woman had been adopted. So she had parents, great parents, they were married, but she just had the two of them. And then they both just passed away from old, older, old age. And she was living by herself in an apartment. She lost her job. It was basically a month or two until she Just couldn't afford her apartment. So that's what led to her living in her car. She didn't have anyone else really to reach out to. And I can. I know I could be on 20 different people's couches before I'd have to live in my car. There'd be so many friends or family who would let me stay in a guest room, sleep on a couch while I'm looking for a job, let me borrow a car, those kinds of things. And it sounds like what you're identifying is that a lot of these folks who need help don't have that next level of people they can turn to for help. We kind of think it's just about they need to be pro life instead of pro abortion. But I remember hearing stories of women saying, I don't even know what medicine to buy or how, you know, the prenatal vitamins and stuff, stuff. I can't afford it, so how can I keep the baby? Or I can't get to the doctor. And so it sounds like Idaho is thinking all the different factors. Someone needs to help them. And you're helping provide whether the mentor helps. But then like you said, special, more specialized. Maybe it's counseling, parental or parenting classes, or a ride to the doctor, things like that.
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Yes, whatever they need, actually. So we just. Basically what we do, Idaho families, is we equip and mobilize the body of Christ to bring assistance to families in crisis. It's. It's basically, you know, allowing the church to re. Engage in the work of helping people in crisis in their community. And so that's really what we're doing. And so we just call on the body of Christ and we recruit them, we train them, we vet them, because we want to make sure that they're safe. And, and that's what we do. And so then we just surround them with the body of Christ, do.
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So, Idaho, when you're trying to get a church on board, what are the steps that you take? Let's say a church has never heard of you. What would you do to get people in that church engaged with Idaho?
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Typically we would go to a church. I'd contact the pastor, share a little bit about what Idaho families is and does and, you know, in their community too. And we know that they care about their community. And so then I would ask if I could meet with the pastor and, or the elders and share more about what we're, what we're doing. And so I have one tonight actually, where I'm going to meet with the pastor and and the elders, and we talk about the need, first of all, you know, and they, they're all aware of the need in the community. There's actually quite a few that are in need in their own church. And so we talk about that and how we can equip their church members to come alongside these families who are, who are in need and how we do that. And so, you know, they ask typical, typical question is, well, what's the difference between you guys and our benevolence team? And so it's, it's quite different. So the benevolence team is typically, you know, helping to offer help for, you know, rent or a utility bill or something like that. We, we are far more holistic. And so the mentor walks with the family until wholeness is, is achieved. And we have this wraparound support of individuals who come alongside and basically act as extended family. And so it's far different than just saying, here's, here's some money to help you pay for this need or that need. It is actually walking them through the crisis until they are whole again. And it's really what we, what we try to do is, is encourage that these are your, these are your local family. These are your community, family, individuals. And why not befriend them? Why not invite them into your home, into your, your Bible studies, into your world and just become a friend?
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Yeah. What would you say to folks, you know, someone might be sitting in that church listening to you share about the opportunities and they think, I could not do that. I wouldn't know how to be a mentor. I wouldn't know the things to say or to do. How, how do you encourage people in the church that maybe don't, they don't feel like they have any special. I, I don't know how to do social work. I don't know how to do these things. Or maybe their kids are grown up and moved out of state and they're like, I don't. I'm not really with my adult kids anymore. I'm not hanging out the grandkids. I don't feel qualified to do it. How do you encourage them?
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Yeah, it's a great question. It happens all the time. I'm not a mentor. I don't know what I'm doing. Well, the first thing is not to worry. We train you. The other thing is that we're just asking that you would treat these individuals as if they were your best friend or your brother or your sister. So what would you be willing to do with them and for them as they come to you in a crisis, and so you don't have to have all the answers. We have a case manager for that, and she will guide each and every mentor and just basically give an assignment, you know, so here's what I want you to do. I want you to be their friend. I want you to be available to them if they call you and they're having a hard day. Encourage them, pray with them. And then we have this goal sheet that they're. They're after these goals. And we want you to do what you can do, not to do for them, but to do with them, to encourage them along this line to hold them accountable toward their goals and to cheer them on and say, you got this and you don't have to do it alone.
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Can you tell us a story or two of, you know, a family that's been helped or young woman, young man that's been helped with Idaho?
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Yes. One of the most recent stories in my head, we actually had a grandma who came to us, and she was just. She was looking for respite care. She's in her 70s. She has been the legal guardian of her two grandchildren, who 10 and 12, one of which has diabetes, pretty. Pretty severe diabetes. And the grandmother is up every night in the middle of the night because of the insulin, and she needed some rest. And so she'd been doing this for years, and she just got to the point where she can no longer do it. So she asked if we would offer some weekend respite and take the children into one of our host homes. And so we did and signed her a mentor. Mentor. And what happened shortly after that was Grandma fell and broke her shoulder and needed surgery. And so with the surgery came physical therapy, and Grandma was no longer able to help give those insulin shots or take care of those kids. And so for 10 days, we hosted the children. And then the grandmother realized in that time that, you know what? I really need to seek permanent guardianship. And so she ended up asking our host home to consider guardianship of the children, where she could be grandma again and stay in their lives and they still would get to visit dad. Mom is not really in the picture and not available in and out of jail, but dad was still in the picture as well. And so she was. She asked, could you. Could you do that? Could you take them, be legal guardians, even consider adopting them, where she can still be grandma and dad can still engage with the children. And so it was an amazing thing that God did. That's not normally what we do. We normally want to keep them with bio parents. And so that was the best scenario that we could possibly offer them. And, and they're doing great. They're thriving.
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That's awesome. That's such a great story. Do you have an example of, you know, probably teenagers, like, you know, young teenagers, 16, 17. Because that's one that some people might say, oh, well, don't. You don't want them to get married and you don't want them to keep the baby because that. That's going to ruin their life or it's going to change. Well, it's definitely going to change your life. Right. But that's kind of an interesting scenario for. If you think about mentors coming alongside, in essence, teenagers that now have had to really grow up. I'm not sure if there's a particular age range you, you end up serving more often than others.
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Or we, we do end up serving more adults, but we do have a few teenagers that we've been able to come alongside. One teenage girl referred to us through the pregnancy center here, and we were able to get her a mentor and who can help her, you know, because her parents did end up coming alongside her and telling her that they would be supportive of her in parenting. So we were able to get her some parenting classes and a mentor who can help her along the way. But quite honestly, it is difficult to get teenage host homes, particularly for boys. And so our organization is right now looking into launching a teen boys home in the fall where we will, what the insurance company calls it, ID bit. And so we would have the mentors assigned. We would have a different mentor for each boy in the home. In addition to obviously the. The parent host home, we would purchase a home where hopefully 5 to 16 boys can end up staying. But we would, the key here is that we would engage with their parents and try and bring reconciliation and wholeness back to the family and even see if we can't offer the parents a mentor and some parenting classes and some opportunity to learn how to deal with their teenager.
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I imagine it probably tends to be boys whose dads maybe are not in the picture or they might be getting into trouble or getting, you know, a little too much for their parents or maybe grandparents or something to handle. That's a pretty. Because, you know, the state will run group homes and I've had friends who've, you know, helped or served in group home situations. And they could be good or they could be kind of bad. But what's nice about what it sounds like Idaho is doing is there's mentors it's not just a staff person, you know, one person for 10. You're basically just trying to keep order and make sure nobody gets hurt or whatever. But this is like, this is actual. Well, and is. So is Idaho Christian based, you said, right? I mean, you are integrating Christian faith into the way you mentor.
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And yes, we only recruit our volunteers and our staff through the body of Christ. But with that said, we will offer our services to anyone. The one position that people outside of the body of Christ can volunteer for is a support partner. And it's in specific support partner scenarios where like for instance, we've had a support partner for the last, going on five years because we started five years ago and he's not a Christian, but he wants to offer financial support to our clients. And so we contact him and say, here's the scenario. We don't give names or anything. Would you give, you know, this amount of money? And he writes a check. And so it's, it's also a great opportunity for us to model to him what the Christian faith does in and for a person and why we do what we do.
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It sounds like such a great bridge between churches and sort of the social services in the state. Because you said they are referring and are recognizing the work that you're doing at some level. Right. That you said Idaho bit is like, okay, I guess you guys are going to try and seeing that, you know, God is blessing. Your work is really neat. You're based in Northern Idaho. So that's where if someone is hearing this and wants to get involved, they have to live in Northern Idaho at this point. Right?
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Right.
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Yeah.
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Yes. Now with that said, we, we gathered our model from a national organization called Safe Families for Children. We are different, but pretty close to the same thing. And they're national. So if someone's in need and they're, you know, elsewhere, they can contact, say, families for Children and go to their locator and see if they can find assistance. They. They do things similar but not exactly the same.
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And people can go and find more about you guys@idahopefamilies.org I'm sure that you would welcome any kind of financial support, donations. Right. To your organization. People who are far away, who can help. It is really neat. I mean, the crisis pregnancy centers, the pro life organizations that are doing all this work, some of us maybe feel like we're not in a place where we could host or be a mentor or we don't live in Northern Idaho at this moment. But you're hearing about this Organization. And that's the thing you can do is you can support financially or get involved at a local crisis pregnancy center and, you know, help people there.
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Yes, yeah. Or pray. I mean, we would love it if people around the nation would be praying because we, you know, we started this model and we're in a rural area. So, you know, typically big cities have a lot more resources for, for families to be able to take advantage of. In rural areas, they really don't. So we're, we're thinking that, you know, God would like us to branch out at some point. We're, we're not quite there yet. We, you know, what's on our, our radar this year is the teen boys home. And then we would like to possibly branch out into other rural areas. We have been approached by a couple of others in the adjoining states, but we just weren't ready for that yet. But one day maybe.
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That's amazing. So I guess your primary goals are, are always to be recruiting mentors and kind of that church support close to where you are based right now. You want to open this voice home. And then eventually I'm in the Washington area and I can imagine, you know, especially eastern Washington is the more rural part for us, close to like Spokane or Pullman and things like that. And so close to northern Idaho. And yeah, there's never going to be a lack of the people who need the support and the church just needs maybe the understanding of here's all the, you know, complexities around helping people. And then like you're saying they don't have to be afraid because you are offering the training and you have this model and a picture of this is working. It's going well. It's not all on, you know, it's just signing up to be a mentor doesn't mean you're on the hook financially. And now it's all on you. It just means you're a part now of a network around some people who need help and you get to be a part of something that's happening. It's not just all on you.
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Yes. You're one of the many who are going to be surrounding the family.
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Awesome. Well, Christine, thanks so much for your work with Idahope. Again, it's idahopefamilies.org I'll make sure we put your website and your information in our notes so people can come find you and donate or maybe just tell their friends about you if they, if they have friends in northern Idaho. But thanks for your work and for joining us today.
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Oh, thank you. Thanks for Your work done before us was a game changer for us. So thank you.
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Oh good. Everyone, I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Thanks for listening to the Them Before Us podcast and thanks for joining the movement.