Our History: "Carol's Story"

While visiting our family doctor, he said some words that would bring me to a "turning point." I was telling him about my dream of a home for young women in crisis--how wonderful it would be to provide a place where she could stay and take a "time out" to get a proper perspective on life, where she could continue her education, where counseling with Christian love could take place giving her hope for the future, where proper nutrition could be learned, a place where she would find that God has a plan for her and her baby. He listened very intently and said, "Carol...many, many people have dreams, but they will remain dreams until you do something about them." That's when I said, "Yes Lord. You are speaking to me. Here I stand in the need of prayer." At that point I knew God was going to do something that only He could do. I knew I certainly did not have the resources to make this happen.

I have a ladies Bible study on Tuesday mornings and I spoke to the women about my dream and said, "what do you think?" I was so overwhelmed at the excitement they showed and they promised me they would take this to the Lord in prayer. Each week someone would come with another idea or suggestion and each week it became more and more of a "possibility." At one point we tried to decide on a name for the home. I believe God gave us the name...Hannah's Home. Hannah is a woman from the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 1 in the Bible. Hannah was barren and she prayed desperately for a son. She promised God that if He would grant her this son, she would offer him back to Him. God heard her prayer and she had Samuel who, obviously, was a gift from God. Our thought in naming the Home after Hannah is to always be mindful that every child, no matter the circumstances, is a gift from God to someone--be it the birth mother or the adopted parents.

One week we sat and brainstormed and on a napkin, I scribbled our first thoughts. I still have that napkin. It was beginning--something was happening about my dream.

Weeks passed into months and I talked to anyone who would listen to me about the possibilities of my dream and requested that they pray for me because I really felt God was going to do something. I didn't know what, but I couldn't get it out of my mind.

Could this dream possibly become a reality?

Each Wednesday I attend prayer meeting at our church. People make their requests to the group for prayer and one evening my sister said to me, "Why don't you ask the people to pray? What are you afraid of?" I suppose a part of me thought that people would think I was crazy for having such an outlandish dream and the I should get my feet on the ground. Finally, because of her urging, I blurted out what was on my mind. The people very lovingly and patiently listened and I'm sure some prayed for me (maybe more for me than for the Home because they probably thought I had lost it.)

But when God has a plan, all we have to do is stand back and watch Him work. Within a day or two I received a phone call from Dave Barr who was also at that prayer meeting. He told me he didn't know what God was going to do but all the way home that night he couldn't get away from my dream story and maybe we should get together and talk about it. We did. I learned that Dave builds houses and he believed that possibly God wanted him to get involved. This was something he could do to serve God and put his faith into action. He could see the need and rather than just talking about it, he wanted to do something to make a difference in the lives of the young women and the babies they were about to bring into the world. He told me that he had a model home that he was presently showing. He would name it "Hannah's House" and would donate funds from the sale of the home to help Hannah's Home get started.

I could not believe it! We were definitely on our way!

I could tell you story after story about what God has done to prove to us that He wants to make Hannah's Home a reality. From the formation of our Board of Directors, to the fabulous donation of 5.3 acres of property from Jerome T. Osborne, Sr. to the donations of time and materials from skilled tradesmen and craftsmen, to the donations of art for all of the walls in the home, to the donation of stationery and printing, to the children at Washington Elementary who went shopping and bought items for the Home, and on and on and on it goes. There are times when I feel like we're strapped to the front of a train engine that is careening down the tracks over which we have no control...but God is the engineer and He knows exactly where this train is going.