Creating Space for Healing: Inside Boys Ranch with Chaplain Mike Wilhelm

Matt Darrah (00:00.155)

This is high tech. I don't know about all that but anyways, let's get started. Hello and welcome to All Things Foster, a place for coffee, connection, and community. I'm super excited today to have Mike Wilhelm with us with Boys Ranch and we'll get to you Mike here in just a minute. But before we do, this episode of All Things Foster is sponsored by Short and Vlosich Family Dental. At Short and Vlosich Family Dental, they believe great dental care is about more than healthy smiles.

It's about caring for people well. Their team is committed to creating a welcoming, family-centered environment where patients of all ages feel comfortable, heard, and valued. We're grateful for community partners like Short and Velocic Family Dental who invest in the health and wellbeing of families right here in our community. You can learn more or schedule an appointment at svfamilydental.com or call them today at 806-374-80-

11 so thank you short and velocity for your for your support of our organization and Guys if you if you need any work done my wife happens to be a dental hygienist there and so she can get your teeth cleaned and And get lots of other stuff done. So thanks for them sponsoring today. So Mike Thank you for coming today and and being willing to talk with us. Well, it's good to be here Thanks. It's an honor. Just thanks for the invitation. Absolutely, know the

purpose of this podcast is to raise awareness for things that foster families could need and really kind of help create a support mechanism for them. So, talk to us a little bit. So, you are the staff chaplain at Boys Ranch since 2005, right? I came to Cal Farley's Boys Ranch in 2005, and it's

have served for 20 years as the senior chaplain. That, I transitioned just a year ago out of that role into director of faith-based outreach at this point. So I I fill in and do chaplain work at Boys Ranch a couple days a week. I'm down there.

Matt Darrah (02:19.853)

Otherwise, I'm reaching out to churches and things, but my body of work and what I've mainly done has been the senior chaplain there at Boys Ranch. So, what drew you were in youth ministry prior to that, right? Yeah. I was doing...

youth ministry started in our barn in Groover, Texas. I wasn't a paid youth pastor. On Monday nights, kids came to our house for Bible study and prayer time and outgrew the basement, so moved over and met in our barn. And then finally, we had a fellow that donated a building that became the place where we did youth ministry and did that for, I don't know, 10 years or better.

ministry continued even after I went on the boys ranch. Awesome. what drew you to boys ranch? How did that happen? Yeah, well, I a call from a friend.

and asked me if I would be interested in going to Boys Ranch to serve as an interim chaplain down there. And it was a transition time when the chapel staff had resigned that were there previously. They were without any chapel staff, and they wanted someone to come in just for a short period of time and serve as interim chaplain. So talk.

My wife and I talked about it, prayed about it, decided, she said, well, how long would that be? And I said, you know, I think it might be a while. It could be two months. So the joke's on her. It turned out to be 20 years. Wow. That's crazy. you get there. What is it like? mean, you see these kiddos that are struggling, and you're there to help them. Yeah.

Matt Darrah (04:17.283)

Well, did not. It's funny, Matt, some of the it seems like there's a lot of things people don't know about Boys Ranch and it seems like some of the greatest misunderstandings are.

bad assumptions are the ones closest to Boys Ranch. People that live closest to Boys Ranch think we're a penal colony, juvenile detention, this or that. I came down from Groover, Texas, which is in the neighborhood, and we play sports with the Boys Ranch and things.

You know, normally we think this is a place for bad kids is what the assumption was. I didn't know. I just know I love kids. I love sharing the gospel. so went down and didn't really know what to expect exactly, but just fell in love with the ministry and the place and the community of staff, the leadership. So it didn't...it won me over pretty fast.

wife as well and then decided that we'd go ahead and I'd throw my hat in the ring and was hired to be the senior chaplain. So what is your role there? Talk as a chaplain. I know you've transitioned, but as a chaplain, what was the work like? Okay. What is it Well, I wear a lot of hats.

We're a whole community there, a little town that takes care of kids for podcast listeners that don't know we are out 25 miles northwest of Amarillo. We're a town that takes care of kids, a therapeutic community, some have called it. So we have Christian education duties as a chaplain and pastoral duties as a chaplain, kind of both of those things.

Matt Darrah (06:21.529)

responsible for home devotionals, conducting Sunday morning chapel service, set Bible study times and things like that. But then also just this, the unexpected, the pastoral duties would be kids in crisis, staff in crisis, going to pray with a kid that's having a hard time.

going to Amarillo to the hospital, you know, if there's a kid or staff in the hospital. there's, you know, those two things together, the administrative, the Christian ed duties, but then also the pastoral duties and crisis intervention. Yeah, yeah. So, talk to us.

Talk to us about building trust with kiddos that are having a tough time. How does that work, do think? Well, your listeners are probably the experts, as you as well. I'm probably the guy that's still needing to be coached up the most. I can just say God has taught me as His remedial project through the years a few things, probably just for making mistakes.

Kids have shown me so much grace as God has as well. As you know, you can't force or push a relationship, right? Kids especially, I mean with anybody, relationships, trust, take some time.

And you can't get around that there's some time it's going to take. Now, what I can do is I can do some wrong things that are going to even make that longer or never happen, right, to really just blow it all together.

Matt Darrah (08:19.835)

The things that to build trust with kids that have been through adverse childhood experiences, for instance, especially if it's an excessive degree of those, well, obviously, they've been burned. And they're not just ready to trust anybody, right? So I get that and accept that and don't have any anxiety over that. just know, hey, this might take two months. This might take two years.

This might never happen on my watch, but I'm just going to trust the Lord, and I'm just going to be faithful and be present and respect this child and not expect some kind of certain result, especially those things that might feed my ego for the kid to like me or to have this close relationship. So to be patient, consistent, and I find that...

especially if it's a newer kid, and you probably found this too with your work and the people that you work with, just some regular small doses of interaction that involve eye contact, voice to voice, but not trying to make everything, not trying to have some big long discussion, but just that quick check in with eye contact, voice, I'm present, I care, and then that's it. Then I'm back in again.

become a familiar person, that's kind of where it has to start, right? Your listeners are gonna have no problem with this because you're just talking about people that meet around a kitchen table every day, you know their names. Our setting, where we have a large community, and average length of placement's two years, so there's kids in and out, lots of different kids' faces and staff, and staff kids, it's not such a simple given that we would know everybody's name.

As senior chaplain, one thing that I would have our chapel staff do is we would make flashcards with the kids' pictures and their names. And it's a great way to pray, to pray through our community of kids, but then to make sure that we know their names so that whenever I bump into this child out on the street or at the dining hall, whatever, I could just ask, hey, good to see you, Johnny, or hey, how you doing?

Matt Darrah (10:48.666)

doesn't have to be a big conversation, but bam, I've used their name and that's a wonderful gift. so, you know, know their name, those.

most frequent intermittent eye contact voice-to-voice interactions seem to be what has to happen. Yeah, sure. you, I would imagine your staff has some trauma-informed care, kind of background training and that kind of thing. Yeah, that's one thing I really like to brag on Cal Farley's, know, Boys Ranch is the big kind of flagship campus of the Cal Farley organization.

We have the best trauma-informed child care trainers and training, I think, going. I'm really proud of the training that we have. I know our trainers are trainers of trainers. they go here and there and do trainings and things like that. So I wish that the things that I've learned in our training room, I would have known, you know.

36 years ago, you know, with...

how to be a better, you know, step parent, how to be a better youth pastor, how to be a better pastor. I'm a better pastor because of the trauma-informed child care training for sure. What stands out to you, I think, or off the top that's like kind of maybe one of the most important pieces to that trauma-informed care, do you think? man, that's a good That's a hard question, I know, because there's a lot of, I mean, we've done, we've had, we did a five-part series here on trauma.

Matt Darrah (12:30.109)

We've had multiple counselors come in and talk about trauma and things like that. So it's a huge conversation I know, but just maybe off the top of your head, what do you think, I mean you've been doing this 20 years. You've been working with these kids for 20 years. What do you think, out of all this training, has made the most impact in your experience? Okay, with your child,

trauma informed childcare training. Have you ever considered looked at what's called the Arousal Continuum? So how people move from calm to alert to hyper aroused to fear terror. Yep. Okay. And we all move along that spectrum based on things that are happening in the environment, right?

But kids that have gone through early childhood trauma will tend to have that curve will spike much. It just doesn't take much as far as stimulation, adversity, surprises, things like that to move from calm to off the charts. Where most of us that moves along much more gradual. Just seeing that and someone talking me through that, it's like,

okay, that makes sense. so if I'm in a room, know, just as far as, you know, it's kind of doing youth ministry, where...

My expectations for the room as far as behavior goes, I might just assume that this room of kids that have been through a lot of stuff should be able to behave themselves and handle this room just like any other kid. Okay, these kids are smart, this is not to be dismissive at all. They're smart, beautiful souls, but they will tend to have this thing that will, if I blow it and I have a

Matt Darrah (14:34.343)

room that's just crazy with too much stimulation. Or maybe a trigger could be a raised voice.

that I might think that's just how we do youth ministry, of kind of doing the screamo pastor thing. That may not work well with the kid that's gone through early childhood trauma. In fact, a male voice elevated might be perceived as a threat, even though it's just done within fun youth ministry or preaching or whatever. So those are some insights that have helped me don't make those kind of assumptions, because they could easily move from even crafting a chapel server

The typical, and I hope I'm not going off on too much on the tangent here, but the typical youth camp package of how to do a service where you're juggling fire and you're telling crazy stories and you're screamo voice and all this.

It's because we think, they're kids and we got to keep their attention. There's a little bit of entertainment baked into that. I'm not saying that's all bad, but don't assume that kids that have gone through early childhood trauma, that that...

They might even, it might go over okay as far as they might be amused, they might laugh, they might seem interested, but they're actually, they're kind of ramped up on that continuum. They're probably not as open to receive the content is what you think. Does that make sense? makes perfect sense. It took me a bit to finally get the memo on that, but stirred up does not necessarily mean opened up. As I'm wanting to share truth with a kid,

Matt Darrah (16:20.061)

ultimately hoping that they hear the truth of Christian gospel. Well, if I'm just got them going up here into this hyper aroused place because of all these transitions and all this novelty and all this stimulation and technology and things like that, sure, they're not sleeping, but they may not really be opened up to content as much. So that's a trauma-informed insight that's helped me a lot. I don't know if you've had any of those kind

No, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we give a copy of this book, Robyn Gobbel's book, Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors in all of our placement packages. She talks about the arousal of continuum and it's, you know, so being being cognizant and aware that this kiddo can go from here to there just.

I mean, it's insane. The research shows that the brain is processing something or receiving something like 11 million bits of data per second. And you can't process all of that. And so so much of it goes back to some experience in the past to determine whether or not I'm safe or not. you talked about that male raised voice.

could bring them back to a male, a violent male in their past, and you're excited and happy and everything, but for them, that raised male voice isn't safe.

and can just set them off. That's a hard one for people to grasp because if your paradigm is such that that's what evangelism looks like or that's what a worship service looks like and things like that and that's your box, it's hard to be open to what we're saying right now. I've watched it before. I've watched in our chapel service we had a guest speaker in before.

Matt Darrah (18:33.405)

loves the Lord, just a great heart for the Lord.

you know, his sermon style or delivery style was that really he was a guy and he had this, you know, he was loud and that room wasn't in a good space when he was sharing. And it was a lot to do with that. It was that loud male voice that that man, most of us would just assume, oh, there's a good brother preaching the word, right? So it's been humbling along the way to learn these. learned from

it sounds like you have even more detailed insights about that than I do, but I've learned from some of our training, some of the authors that we've read, and then just the feedback from the kids themselves. And if you let God teach you and you're paying attention to that feedback that you're getting from the kids, and I'm sure this is the same with folks that would have a child in their home in a foster or a kinship type of a placement,

If you watch, you'll learn a lot, right? And they will teach you. So those have been, here's a time that I really blew it, Matt. And I have just a great, this would be like, have to be a 12 hour podcast to cover all the times that I've blown it. And you'd run out of coffee. But one of my earliest years,

We had an after school group called Powerhouse where the preadolescent kids would come and we'd do, it was an after school Bible time. And one of my earliest years there, well, the kids were misbehaving, imagine that. That never happens, right? No, but they were just off the charts. as you know from the work you've done, the trauma informed training that you've received, you just never know what happened.

Matt Darrah (20:33.979)

Five minutes before or during that day or whatever that might might have them dysregulated But they were they were dysregulated at that time. That's not a word. was in my vocabulary They're just being naughty kids, right? So They weren't listening if you could imagine that right? Well, I mean surely that you know, pre-adolescent kids always listen to you, right? They weren't listening. So the natural thing you do then is what? Started yelling

No, I got a bullhorn. okay. Of course, of course you get the... Yeah. So I'm on the bullhorn because I thought they're not listening and I need to get over all that noise. this is a true story. They... Okay, so I'm on the bullhorn and they're now they're really doing weird things and off the charts. And we had a kid that was down on the floor.

pulling the baseboard off the wall trying to peel it off the wall. geez. And I'm this new...

you know, ignorant chaplain in this environment. And I think, what is wrong with these children? Well, you know, good and well was going on, right? so that arousal continuum. were talking about, well, I just was pumping more into Yeah, fueling the fire. And this kid was, you know, he was just, anxiety level was probably off the charts, but he was pulling baseboard off the wall. Excuse me. So yeah, it's been very humbling. Another

insight and I don't know if you or your community would, is Dr. Bruce Perry is that right? Dr. Karen Purvis has been one that I found very, helpful. incredible. The woman, her legacy is remarkable, it? Loves the Lord and just a kid whisperer that really has some good insight. I've benefited from Purvis from Dr. Perry. Dr. Cross.

Matt Darrah (22:36.413)

But rhythmic pattern.

repeated things is helpful for kids that have had early childhood trauma. Okay, that goes against conventional wisdom of, youth pastor guy, kind of my background, because we're always thinking novelty, stimulation, keep their attention, keep them kind of entertained as we're slipping the gospel in there, whatever. don't be boring, don't do the same old thing. And I had to...

Let go of that and be okay some days if I was being called as boring, but they really need and your listeners know this me as well as anyone.

Boy, they need structure, don't they? And to have... Predictability, consistency. Predictability. And I had to... I learned that from our trainers, from those authors we mentioned, and then just from the feedback from the kids and just watching the environment. So to, say, do a chapel service...

We, I used to reinvent the wheel every Sunday for the sake of novelty and stimulation and all that. The first probably three years I was there until I finally got the memo and realized that was stirred up is not the same as opened up. And so we began to craft a service that had a predictable structure to it, had kind of a rhythm to it, even a little bit liturgical, which is not my background, but some liturgical

Matt Darrah (24:13.677)

the elements are very, helpful. It kind of has a cadence to it. But yet at the same time, you get to the teaching parts of the service and things like that, or the songs that we'd sing, there was change and there was some novelty, but just there was dosings of it that just hit a sweet spot so that the room was open, present. And if you had a couple of exhausted kids in the room, they maybe did fall asleep because they felt so safe.

It was a calm setting. So I had to get over my ego and worry about those two exhausted kids sleeping. And let's just do this right. God in His wisdom knows how He put our central nervous systems together. And let's get on in step with that as we're loving kids in Christ's name. those are kind of rambled a bit, but those are insights from trauma. What about you? Yeah. One of the things that I have learned personally in our home

that has really, really helped us is when it comes time for a transition, instead of just saying, okay, it's time to go do this, we warn them, hey guys, you got five minutes. In five minutes, we're gonna go have dinner. And that gives them an opportunity to say, whatever I'm doing, whether it's watching TV or playing a board game or doing this or doing that, once that time is up,

It's time to go do something else. And so that's something that we've really learned. Hang on one second, my camera stopped.

Matt Darrah (25:51.643)

That's frustrating. We'll edit, it's all good. Give that out. so the transition, the warning, the giving a time frame and saying, in five minutes we're gonna go and we're gonna go do this other thing, that has helped us, like I said, personally in our home, when we're working with kiddos that have come from hard places, that transition, that...

We know that that change is hard. so giving them an opportunity to prepare for it has made a difference in that change for us. we, and you use the word warn. We use the word front loading in our neck of the woods, but yeah, same thing. Warn sounds like something bad's about to happen and have a bad expectation, but no, we front load.

You're so right. And I did not know that coming in. And that's something that the Lord really taught me, showed me through chaplaincy work at Boys' Ranch is, my goodness, front-loading. It is. a loving courtesy, first of all, just in general with just all the people in our lives. kids that have been through early childhood trauma, kids that we don't share that baseline of experience necessary from the crib to now, right?

So there's challenges there.

Boy, just, hey, in 20 minutes, we're gonna have dinner, and if they're in the middle of a game or something like that, give them that, hey, in 20 minutes, remember, we're gonna have dinner, or whatever it is. That is so helpful, isn't it? Instead, if I'm just crashing through the day and just, bam, get to the table, we're having dinner now, or even in a nice voice,

Matt Darrah (27:53.402)

that's going to be challenging. And then, you you might get some negative behavior and then you're all of sudden you're in a power struggle and that simple front loading goes a long way, doesn't it? you know, I found this too on the other side of things. Addressing negative behavior. If we get in the middle of something and there's something inappropriate that happens that

maybe does not have to be addressed right on that moment. And there are a lot of things that do have to be addressed right in the moment. Sometimes there's some things that maybe don't have to be addressed right in the moment. And it might even be better if I'm doing something with a small group or something like that to file that away and maybe I'm going to front load that group about it the next time. rather than the accusation, the defensiveness,

and the shame sometimes that that triggers. But there's a balance of, there are some things that just you do have to address right in the moment and give them that immediate feedback. But I found that sometimes I'm just reacting and I'm not as intentional. It's like, oh, wait a minute, is this one of those things or this might be something, because they just don't know. Instead of inducing shame right now and a reaction and this thing spiraling bad, I'm going to come around the next time and front load about how to do

this or not do this or avoid this and they're able to receive it then they're not feeling condemned or accused. Yeah, because shame is such a big piece. Huge. So let's talk a little bit just about boys' ranch in general. So we've talked about your experience as the chaplain.

What is Boys Ranch there for? Who is it there for? Yeah, we're a community that takes care of kids and we take care, we support children and families in a Christ-centered atmosphere at no cost to the families we serve. So we have kids from eight to 18, and it's confusing, Matt, it's boys and girls at Boys Ranch. So people that aren't from this neck of the woods always have to talk

Matt Darrah (30:17.201)

through that one because they always assume it's all boys and you would. But we're boys and girls. Majority of the placements are family placements. you know, times through the years we might have a few adjudicated youth. But for the most part, it may be some CPS placements. But really, we're mainly family placements. So as you can imagine, they're just

They're all different and it's easy to make assumptions about what kids are placed at Boys Ranch. Every kid's unique, every family of origin placing a child is different. the circumstances are all different. We have a bunch of kids placed by...

loving families that are doing, they're under their roof, their community, they did not have the adequate resources for that child to flourish. And I guess you'd say partner with us, place children with us, and to meet plan of service goals that might be maybe just a two-year placement. Sometimes it could be as long as a 10-year placement, just depending on the circumstance.

maybe a one-year placement. But the backgrounds of those reasons for placement, again, they're loving families, biological families.

Also, we have a lot of children that are from adoptive families that are in placement, adoptions that are experiencing great, great challenges. And your listeners would understand that. We have a lot of kids that, and then some kids that, families that have been suffering just intergenerationally, those kids have never had good...

Matt Darrah (32:16.699)

you know, just to put it, make very frank, have never had good parenting. And if you just kind of rewind the tape and you look back and it's like, well, it's just, everybody has suffered, you know? And if the parents didn't have it, their parents didn't have it. And there's terrible suffering. And we have kids that maybe came into placement because there was, you know,

biological parents are in throes of addiction. Maybe there's incarceration. Sometimes you might have a blended family that didn't blend at all and maybe a child from a previous relationship is being scapegoated and there's just a toxic dynamic at home. So there's some of those painful settings where there's a lot of suffering, but there's not, you just can't paint with a broad brush and make assumptions that that's every placement because man, we have some

You know, there's some there's some parents that are just really making some smart loving decisions that Have used our resources and work with us because they just their there's their community was under resource. Maybe wasn't safe Maybe they had just too much under their roof that they just couldn't hold and you know, if you have an adopted child that came from a hard place and they've

Maybe got a lot of pent up rage that they don't even understand. There are triggers that set it off, but the child himself can't understand it.

Sometimes there's a child like that under a roof that's just beyond what that family can hold, at least right now. That can be diffused out through a community in our setting with some trained folks and hopefully leads to a reunification with the family. So those are some different things that we do. There was a family that lived across the street from us.

Matt Darrah (34:18.037)

She was a single mom and she had quite a few kids. And one of them was a teenager. he, I don't know where he got the idea, but he ended up.

He ended up asking his mom multiple times to go out to Boy's Ranch. He went out to Boy's Ranch, spent a couple years out there. He went on to the transitional housing. He moved up to Borger to go to Frank Phillips. This kiddo, the likelihood of him becoming successful where he was at was low, right? But his mom,

Graciously agreed to let him go to boys ranch and and I really believe that that him being out there for a couple years really Set him up for for success it was

It wasn't that she didn't love him, wasn't that she, you know, whatever, but she, like you said, she didn't have the resources and the capacity to do that, and so he went out there and he flourished. He did exceptionally well out there. so... that's good to hear. you know, as you know, your listeners would know, we're not a perfect place. I mean, we're a real place.

So, and life happens, life's hard, and there are some placements that unfortunately just don't have the results we would have liked. I always am confident that even those boys' ranch placements that for whatever reason just didn't turn out the way we had hoped, that

Matt Darrah (36:17.113)

that prayerful intervention and that short time in those cases, that there is so much grace in that, that it's life-changing. And if you have a kiddo that maybe just unfortunately had never been in a home where there was a safe male that's present, and...

They were at Boy's Ranch for two weeks in a house with a loving male that treats his wife with respect, that's safe and present, strong and truthful. And that kid had to leave after two weeks for some reason. That kid will never be the same again because that paradigm has been broken that all males are unsafe or toxic or dangerous, right? Excuse me.

So yeah, those are some you talked about the story about that that kid that that flourished we yeah I'm thinking about there was a single parent home up by Chicago that was in a kind of rough neighborhood and that mama placed her son with us a lot to do with just safety Wanted her boy to grow up and be alive You know, so what safety and have the right resources to flourish

and that guy went on got a college degree and just just done great great relationship with his mom and it was just the right thing for him had another placement that was a little different there was a from out of state there was a toxic home in the throes of alcoholism excuse me

codependency, alcoholism, all the isms, whatever. Okay, the violent home and this mom's violent paramour that was an alcoholic was really scapegoating this child and it was bad. And they told him, if you find a place, we'll take you there, or dump you there. And so he Googled and found us from, I think, two time zones away, found Cal Farley.

Matt Darrah (38:35.101)

and showed him and they brought him. He was accepted, brought him. And that kid went on and was Oldham County Student of the Year, honor student, went on, got a college degree at a Division I school, has been a teacher and coach, family, wife and two children, and has been coaching for about 15 years now. And what the really neat thing, Matt, was in that case,

God did so much more than just that child's success and the role that boys ranch played in that

He really became aware of needing to forgive and not to be stuck in this toxic place of bitterness towards his family. And I saw God do a real healing work with his mom and his stepfather and baby steps, but steps. yeah, those are some great, you know, some little things that have happened. Amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing work.

I mean, like you say, I know that not every situation is going to turn out great, but lives are changed. And it's the same with the work that your listeners are doing. We're not called to have this certain result, we're just called to be faithful, right? And we just don't know how all these things are going to play out, but just be faithful and trust God, God's grace. And yeah, sometimes we have stories that look disappointed.

from our vantage point, but we're just going to trust God and be faithful, and that's what we do. Planting seeds, right? I mean, you planting seeds. Sometimes it grows up and you can see the work right then and there, and sometimes it doesn't, and you may not see fruit.

Matt Darrah (40:32.667)

You do what you can. Sometimes you might get a surprise phone call, you know, 15 years later from somebody you thought you never got through to and look like you had just an unfortunate outcome. And it's like, no, that wasn't the end of the story. And you get this thank you call from somebody you thought you never reached, someone that you thought fell off into the abyss. And it all makes a difference. So we just trust the Lord and try to be faithful. Exactly. I love that. I love that.

So, you guys are a nonprofit. You like us, you have needs. What are ways the community can get involved in the work of Ranch? We're blessed with, through the years, Boys Ranch has been happening out there since 1939.

So a lot of history. we have been, God has been so faithful and blessed that work with the resources. Started out with an old abandoned courthouse with nine boys and one set of house parents out there. And it was almost like they were camping with the courthouse. I mean, it was very primitive and under-resourced. And it grew and God's been faithful and provided the things that we need, the financial resources. If I were to say, here's a point,

a prayer, how to support the work out there.

pray that God continues to send the people that we need. That's the point of prayer. Since COVID, staffing, we had a drop in our census and, you know, hate to just beat the drum on this and blame COVID for everything, but for whatever reason, COVID did have an impact on a lot of things. our staffing went down. So,

Matt Darrah (42:33.601)

staffing goes down, our census goes down, and we're not taking care of as many kids as we can take care of. So we thank the Lord. We had the financial resources to take care of more children right now, but we can't do that without enough staff. as you would know, it takes...

you know, someone that truly is called to do that kind of work and just pray that God sends those people. And we've had churches praying on behalf of that need for the last probably five months. And since that prayer campaign started, we have had a dramatic uptick in applications and numbers of house parents in our training room and our census. think we're up 47, 40 kids maybe from where we were this

time last year. So praise the Lord for that. Pray for staff. So talk about house parenting for a minute. What does that look like? my, that would be a 12 hour episode. And I'm not the guy that's really... I have never house parented, so I feel like I am so... They're my heroes, our house parents. And I don't even feel like I am qualified to speak on behalf of the Christ.

like cross-centered work that they do because they they a set of house parents of boys ranch well they'll be in a home that will have eight eight kids in the home excuse me they'll have eight kids in that home kids that have come from a variety of backgrounds

They have a variety of temperaments. They all probably have had some, you know.

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kinds of life losses and trauma and things like that and triggers. So yeah, it's not a picnic raising your own teenagers, right? Your own biological children is not for the faint-hearted. Well, you put eight kids under a roof that come from all different backgrounds, baselines of expectations and things. And you could see, anybody could see how challenging that'd those house parents are going to

know, take care of the home's budget, their activities, the day-to-day care, the children, the meal preparations and mentoring, and they're the ones that are going to take the brunt of the...

the hurt that comes from the kids hurt. And as your listeners would understand that very well. the house parents jobs are very, very taxing. They'll work six days on and then be off three days. So that's their rotation. There'll be two on duty. Sometimes there might be a three person rotation with singles. Other times there's two sets of married couples.

We also have the single house parents that work out at Boys Ranch. And we do have some youth workers that will work more like shift type role out there as well. So yeah, that's what makes things go out there as the house parents for sure. For sure. Yeah. Do they get, I mean, they get training? The full plate of trauma-informed childcare training. It takes them just...

a good two weeks in the training room just to get out and start to shadow. So it's pretty intensive up front. And then there's just ongoing trauma-informed childcare training that's going on all the time. sure. Yeah. And God's been so faithful. We have had some of the most amazing people I've ever met have been house parents here at Boys Ranch. Just loving and wise and sharp people that... Many people that

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could have written their ticket, you know, doing whatever for bigger paychecks or more glory and are out there just doing life-changing work that I so admire. So, yeah, that's...

Houseparents. So, prayers for staff, that's the biggest need for Boys Ranch in your opinion. Yeah, it'd prayers for staff. And that could be twofold prayer, It would be one, that God continues to send the people needed, and two, that God would sustain the staff that are currently there in place. And I would ask that prayer on behalf of childcare places everywhere. Not just selfishly for Boys Ranch, but...

but children in placement that they have Christ-centered people taking care of them and then that God would continue to sustain those workers in that very difficult work. Because as you know...

If you're with people that have been through a lot of life loss, there's compassion fatigue and secondary trauma. The fancy words for it drains your battery and it's very difficult work. So God, please sustain those people. Absolutely. Well, Mike, thanks for coming. One more thought after 20 plus years, what keeps you going every day? How does that work for you? How does that work?

Because like you say, it's exhausting, difficult work. This is what... God just had mercy on this dumb boy because when I came down as interim chaplain, the staff had all resigned, the previous chapel staff. Well, that should have been a red flag, like, what's going on here? Come to find out.

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Senior chaplain's life expectancy there was the maximum of three years. wow. And then as short as six months, it was just spitting them out. And I guess I figured out pretty fast why, you know, by design, we hold a lot of hurt and hurt.

hurts and radiates out and I could see why that was happening. it was God did have mercy on us and directed us to

We, and this would be good for your listeners, and they probably have this wisdom somehow in play, we had to be very intentional about having fixed times of withdrawal for restoration. Just many times in the day for that was bathed in prayer, a dose of scripture, but it was a disengagement for the sake of

healthy re-engagement. what God put in place for us was fixed times of prayer through the day. Some of might be as short as five minutes, but short of a call to Life Star helicopter, we would be in that short prayer time and then back in the environment. Otherwise, we just become reactionary pieces out in the midst of all the reactionary stuff. So that's the only reason that I was able to serve there.

20 years was that grace of God showing us that we had to do that, protect those prayer times of disengagement, otherwise, you you just become reactionary. So that's what God did in our case anyway. Yeah, deliberate time of break and rest, as a of fact, preaching yesterday at our church about the work-rest cycle, right?

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work six days, rest. And in our society, we don't rest. I I don't rest. That has been one of my biggest struggles, is stopping and resting. And so, it's critically important. In the Scriptures, I mean, right? God set it out that way. But in our fast-paced life, we're always going, we're always doing, and never taking a step back and taking that breather. And that's just critical.

Is it, I don't know if this is Luke 6 26, it's in that neighborhood, but we're told that Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness to pray. Well, if Jesus saw need for that, for heaven's sakes, I would think I'm probably going to need some of that, right? For sure. And like you said so well, the world that we're living in now,

It's so much more pride than civilization's ever seen. It just continually just grabbing our attention, right? And then if you got your screens and things, you could be on that thing late into the night. But to disengage for that rest.

for the sake of re-engagement, that was key. And otherwise, we'd get toxic and reactionary, staff relationships start to get toxic, and I will start to function in an unloving way in the name of loving. And what I'll do is one of two things is gonna happen. I'm not practicing that balance, I'll either, the setting will spit me out, and I'll just think this is not for me, and I'll be the next guy leaving.

or I'll get seduced by it and wherever I find that attention that as I'm doing my ministry really feeding my ego and I think it's the Holy Spirit at work and I'm getting seduced by the...

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the lack of balance in the activity, the need to be needed, being a hero or whatever, and that's no good. That's not a loving way. It might look good in the room, but it's not authentic, it's not loving. So we just had to discover that grace. It's kind of an old...

monastic practice or Benedictine practice of say fixed hour prayer not from my tradition at all but you know call it what you want to call it but we had to withdraw to the wilderness to pray and we had to put those in the day.

protect them at all cost. somebody's life was in jeopardy, we miss that prayer, fair enough. Otherwise, we're gonna step into that little short moment of prayer, reengage, so that's it. I love that. mean, that's a word for...

all of us, whatever kind of work we're doing. my. I mean... Yeah. Well, I'd recommend it to anybody no matter what work you're doing. Yeah. We've got to do that more now than ever, For sure. Yeah. I love that. Well, Mike, thank you so much for coming on, for sharing the heart behind Boys Ranch, and really just a little moment of some pastor, right? Just great. Well, thanks for the work you do. I just love the work you're doing.

My heart is full. just hearing about the great things that you're doing, thinking about the courageous community that you are helping support. I just want to say thank you to you and to your listeners. I appreciate that. know, in 2023, we did 43 placement packages and then in 24 when I stepped away in June, we did 80 and last year we did 161. So we more than doubled the last three years and it has just been

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It has been incredible to watch God work through this ministry. so, you know, I really kind of get to sit back and just see the impact that God's making through this organization. It's been really, really exciting. Well, praise God. May He continue to bless you. Absolutely. Well, guys, thank you for tuning in. Thank you again to Short and Velocidge for your sponsorship of this episode. And guys, like I said, we did 161 placement packages in 2025.

Most we've done doubled from 2024. In order to do that, we need your support. Monthly donors make a huge difference. $100 a month buys us all the clothes we need for one placement package. $50 a month buys us a case of diapers, and $10 buys us one outfit. So if you're interested, go to our website, panhandleorphan.org/donate. You can set that up, and it just comes out every month. Make it super simple, and just continue to help grow this organization.

There's about 600 kids that come into care in the 26 counties in a given year. So 161 is fantastic, but we've got a long ways to go to get to where every kiddo gets a placement package. So if you would think about that, guys, like, share, and subscribe. Help us grow this podcast. We really want to help foster and adoptive families and the community be aware of the needs for foster families and the organizations and things that are out there to support foster families.

Please consider liking, sharing, subscribing to our channel. And thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you guys next week.