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published: Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Grace Place: A labor of love ready to welcome new residents

By JAN MEROP

News-Sun correspondent

SEBRING -- With willing hands and hearts they came to an uninhabitable building in need of lots of hard work and tender loving care. They brought the TLC along with skills of carpentry, electrical, plumbing, sheet rock hanging and finishing, tile setting, painting, cabinetry, concrete finishing, irrigation, sod, landscaping and more too numerous to mention.

"This place was built by the community," agree John and Eileen Sala, Founders of Little Lambs, Inc., a national prison and teaching ministry with arms that reach out to the community with Bible studies, recovery classes, counseling and more.

"Thanks from the bottom of our hearts to the donor community, trades people, businesses and volunteers. And thank God for sending them."

One-of-a-kind

Grace Place, where the grace of God will be displayed in every area of training and care, is Sebring's one-of-a-kind nine-to-12-month intensive addiction recovery program for ladies. It will be their home, their school, their community.

Grace Place is not to be confused with a safe house or a homeless shelter.

The ladies who are accepted into the program will have to complete a very structured application process, interviews, receive medical clearance and show a sincere, desperate need to change.

"In other words," said John, "they must indicate that they've had it and can't live the way they've been living any more."

At the same time, each lady entering the program must knowingly and willingly accept that this is a Christ-centered Bible program.

They must be open to realize that this may be just what they have always needed knowing nothing else has worked.

"God will be a large part of the recovery," said Eileen.

John recalled how the former founder of Teen Challenge, Dave Wilkerson, used to say that the Jesus factor is what makes the difference.

John recalls when his world consisted of drugs, alcohol and crime from the age of 14 to 40. Only after he fell flat on his face over and over again and reached the point of desperation was he finally determined to never live like this again. It was then he looked up and found his answer in Jesus Christ.

John knows from experience that you can make it and wants to offer that same hope to others through Grace Place.

A vision refined

When John left prison, he left with a vision that would include continued discipleship training for men and women in prison and for Christian inmates upon release from prison. He knew a bridge must be built that connects the inmate to the community.

When he met and married Eileen their hearts burned with a passion to bring Christ's love and practical teaching to those who are hurting because of substance abuse addictions and dysfunction.

"My marrying Eileen was an important part of the vision coming true," he said. "This ministry works as a partnership. We both had skills and perceptions the other did not."

Along the way, the vision has been refined.

The Salas spent five years preparing and going to school accumulating continuing education units in addictions studies and many more years of counseling women.

"They just started to show up at our ministry headquarters about six or seven years ago," said Eileen.

The Salas began to see that God was narrowing the vision.

"The ladies who came to us could not conquer their addiction without being removed from their environment," Eileen said.

The Salas continued training and were equipped and willing for such a task. Interestingly, the downturn in the economy became a motivating factor as it allowed them to purchase the Grace Place property at a fraction of the original cost.

"The only debt remaining is a $50,000 mortgage," John said.

A work-study program

The candidates who come into the program will have much to look forward to.

"We have gleaned from other successful programs and created curriculum and workbooks of our own," said John.

Grace Place is also equipped with an extensive video library and books to help each lady learn and develop skills in a variety of vocations.

"As part of the work study program, these ladies will totally manage a large garden at Grace Place where they will raise their own food - planting, processing, picking and preparing it," said Eileen.

There are many aspects of abuse and addictions that will surface along the way as each lady interviews and is accepted into the program. Throughout the 12-month program living at Grace Place, they will learn how to live without using drugs and alcohol and without thinking and behaving in ways that were adopted to sustain and support that lifestyle.

"They will learn work principles and ethics, responsibility to a boss, money management, and a host of job skills to social skills," said Eileen.

Different teachers, including Eileen and John and others who are being trained, will provide the instruction. A lot of encouragement will be offered along with uplifting Christian music and prayer.

There will be 24-hour accountability and supervision. One of two house mothers will be present throughout the nights and during the days when classes and training is going on.

"Very few addicts have ever developed or have been able to maintain a work ethic because the real boss is the object of their addiction which makes life unmanageable," said John.

He cites Romans 12:1 and 2 from "The Message (The Bible in Contemporary Language)" as a perfect description of how this will work out practically in the lives of these precious needy souls.

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."

One Grace Place rule is: "This is God's house, not the streets. We will treat each other with respect...we are here to learn to deal with things God's way."

Open house

Watch for a grand opening that will take place in the fall to officially open the doors of Grace Place; and, extend a welcome to the community to this special home that will offer life-changing love, care and training for to up to ten ladies committed to life-change.

Contact the Salas at Little Lambs, Inc. at 710 S. Eucalyptus Street. The office number is 863-471-2626.