Annual Report and Disclosure for 2019: Titus 2’s ministry is a state-incorporated, 501c3 authorized small, 5 bed intensive discipleship ministry for women with life-limiting dysfunctions including substance abuse, mental health challenges, unresolved grief and trauma, child state dependency cases, and more. Generally, we can work in residential life recovery with 12-15 women in an average year. 2019 was, by no standard of measure, “average” due to the lengthy (and continuing) recovery from October 10, 2018 Hurricane Michael. There were months in which we had no use or limited use of the residential facility, yet we soldiered on! Even when we had access to the facility again we were working most of the year around limitations due to the house’s renovations, limited volunteer participation, and community resources’ disaster recovery, as well.
In 2019 we had 35 applicants for residential life recovery care. 17 women were admitted to the program during the year. The average student was 31 years old. The average number of days in the program during the year for those who completed in 2019 was 121. 7 women completed their program goals. 4 are still in residence as of the New Year and 6 left without completing, either by dismissal or personal choice to leave.
We also worked in active out patient case management, spiritual formation counseling, and life skills development with 14 individuals/families in timeframes that ranged from 1 week to 12 weeks.
Our program is staffed entirely by volunteers. It is licensed by the Dept of Health as a group home and certified by the Dept. of Children and Families as a Faith-Based Exempt Substance Abuse Treatment Facility. No one on staff receives compensation for the mentoring, case management, and instruction that is done with students. All volunteers serve because they have been led by God to serve this population. The program’s expenses for residential care, housing, supplies, utilities, transportation, etc. are covered entirely by donations from individuals, churches, and businesses that support what we do in ministering to families at the margins of a subculture of drugs, poverty, trauma, and spiritual misinformation or ignorance.
What we do is not for those who sit with pleasant countenances in well-provisioned, educated-staff managed, cushioned pews (although some of them find their way to us for counseling when in emotional or spiritual crisis.) It is for the spiritually and emotionally desperate. We believe with all our hearts that God directs them to our door because there is no where else they can get what they need in a timely enough manner to spare them further trauma and abuse. About 30% of the individuals we serve have experienced psychosis which, if treated well can be managed and prevented from recurring. If it is not, it can topple into a lifetime of confusion, paranoia, anxiety , and limited mental functioning.
When in graduate school I made a conscious choice to forgo mental health licensure explicitly because of the limitations in using proactive evangelism and spiritual formation, pursuing a ministry modality instead. I decline working with individuals who will not accept the reality of their lives, the truth of the human condition, and the necessity of a relationship with Christ to overcome their life-limiting dysfunctions. They learn to allow God to use circumstances to help others as well as themselves. It is part of the transparent and interdependent ethic of community upon which the program is built.