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Planting and Praying

Planning and looking ahead to the future seem to come a little more frequently at the start of a new year. With so much having changed and developed at the Kinloch Price Boys Ranch in 2013 – opening a second house, doubling the number of boys we’re able to serve, moving up a placement classification – we are heading into new territory.

The words of Deuteronomy 11:10-11 come to mind, “The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven.”

The challenges and blessings that lie before us are new, and yet in many ways the same ones we have encountered during all the years we’ve offered residential services. And so the question comes to mind: What does success look like?

Success is faithful investment.

 Two of “our” boys graduated the program in December. For Andrew and Davi, their time at the Kinloch Price Boys Ranch is part of their larger life story.

“At first I thought that adults didn’t care for me, because my birth mom left me. But when I came here, I saw that you could trust in adults, that they weren’t bad people. That they were always there for you,” said Davi. He says he learned this through his experiences with the staff at the Ranch.

“Whenever I got mad,” he said, “They wouldn’t blow me off. They would talk to me and calm me down. They never gave up on me.”

 It may seem like a “small” vision to quantify investment like this, to measure in terms of faithfulness in one life. But it’s true. Investment in one, in seven, or in 14, can have immeasurable impact in those boys’ lives, the lives of their families, and continue to ripple into the future.

Andrew knows his life after the Ranch will look different.

“Before I came to the ranch, I didn’t really talk to many people. At home I was one person, at school a different person. Outside of those two places I was a completely different person as well. I wore a lot of masks. Now, I know that it doesn’t matter what people think about me. I’m still me even if they don’t like who I am.”

I learned from Mr. Earnest to be myself. “Don’t try to hide who you are, because you think it will make you less of a person for people to know who you were before you got to the Ranch,” Andrew says.

“Mr. Earnest kept at it,” Andrew says, “He never stopped pushing to get me to open up.”

As Andrew thinks about his future, he knows he needs prayer.

“Pray that I won’t get back in the same habits I had before I got here. That I won’t hang out with the same people. That’s sort of the reason I got here in the first place,” he says.

Davi doesn’t hesitate when he shares his prayer request.

“Pray that I do not fall back were I was. That I would walk forwards, and not fall backwards and have to come back because of behavior,” he asks.

Not all of our boys have homes to return to like Davi and Andrew. Would you pray for these boys? Are you willing to ask God if He’s calling you to open your home and invest your life?

Andrew and Davi are just two of the boys who have been a part of life at the Kinloch Price Boys Ranch. Please pray with us for them, for the other residents, and for those who will come in the future. Pray that they would be open to the instruction they receive through the program, that they would know through the investment in their lives that they are persons of value, and they would be courageous and wise as they make choices for their futures.