During one of my early-morning prayer times, I cried out to God and asked Him what could be done. In His still small voice, He spoke to me and said: “Sara, I want you to start a place and call it House of Hope.” This would be our opportunity to teach Christian principles to teenagers, help heal their hurts and, through the power of Jesus Christ, help change the lives of young people and their parents permanently!
We had no money… no house…no facility, but I had a vision and knew God was directing (Psalm 32:8). One day as I was praying, seeking God about a location, the name of a lady came strongly to my mind, and I felt impressed to call her. I called and asked her if she might know of a location for a home we could use for teenagers. She referred me to a couple who was getting ready to sell their property. After seeing the site and talking with the lady, we immediately knew this was to be the future site of House of Hope. She and her husband were asking $117,000, which seemed like a million dollars to us since we had no money! But I had a dream! We shared the vision with the couple and their hearts were touched. They agreed to pray about it. In the meantime, we wrote a grant to the Edyth Bush Foundation. We had no experience with grant writing but several of us, once again, asked God for guidance. After much prayer, we submitted the grant request for $95,000 in matching funds. At this point, we had no idea why God told us to ask for $95,000.
