The trajectory of our lives changed, drastically, in the year of 1996. We were coming out of several, grueling, seasons of confusing times on our family journey. As parents, we found ourselves in places far outside of the framework of the shiny and safe family portrait we envisioned. Psychologists, psychiatrists, juvenile justice offices and court room, principals’ offices: we had not planned for these to be on our Monopoly board of life.
We were in the midst of a battle we did not understand, spending vast sums of money looking for answers, only to find our-selves spent and defeated. Dave was a stockbroker. I had recently completed a master’s in counseling. We were, and always had been, involved in church but did not actually come into a saving knowledge of and relationship with Jesus Christ until six years prior (me) and 1995 (Dave). We were among the spiri-tually dead brought to life. (Ephesians 2:6). We came to understand there was a level of darkness far beyond ourselves which we were battling. Typically in our Sun-day School class a legal pad would be passed around with prayer requests. Line after line would have a name and then “anonymous” in the column for prayer request. Although these folks had been together for years they did not entrust the burdens of their hearts with one another. One day I said OUT LOUD that we had a need for prayer. I then shared that all hell had broken loose in our home. There was absolute silence in response to my request. The teacher said, “Let’s turn to today’s study” quickly filling the awkward tension in the room. It was what occurred afterwards as well as days following when other parents reached out to us sharing this was the state of their homes as well. They thought they were the only ones. Such is how the enemy uses shame and fear to silence. We began a Parents in Prayer group which met every Sunday afternoon. And told the folks we didn’t have the answers but we could all at least approach the throne of Grace on behalf of our families. There was something quite beautiful in these gatherings as we realized we were no longer lone rangers.
One day, out of the blue, Dave and I heard the craziest suggestion from the still small voice of God: “Go and find a place set apart for the restoration of youth and families through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
Us? What a joke!
Mind you, these were not people saying this to us. This was not us saying this to ourselves. It was God. “OK,” we said. “We’ll begin a non-profit and hire people to do this place set apart work and still just keep on keep-ing on in our careers”. By the way, our life plan was to retire young and have a second home at the beach.
We received non-profit status in 6 weeks. Then everything began to abruptly shift in our-kingdom-come – our-will –being-done plan. Dave told me the most earth shattering news: “God wants us to both quit our jobs and step out on faith and be the people who run this place set apart.” My response: “You are crazy, Dave. God would never say that to the likes of us. Besides He wants us to be responsible. This would be irresponsible.” Thinking my heart had a more, static free, pipe line to God I said, “I will pray about this and see what He tells me.”

Well, lo and behold I heard the same preposterous instructions. And so……….we both took that leap of faith. At the time we quit our jobs our oldest son was in the Coast Guard, our daughter in college, and our young-est son still a prodigal at home with us in middle class America. We were both 43 years old.
Scripture says, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.” 1 Corinthians 1:27-31 He doesn’t choose us according to our pedigrees or our degrees. He chooses us according to His plans. And boy oh boy, is He ever creative and colorful in writing the scripts of His narratives.
God weaves His stories using every aspect of our his-tories, including the screw ups; the “all things work together for the good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes.” Romans 8:28. That is ALL THINGS……..the good, the bad, the ugly. Everything.
We were convicted that everything we had was to be put into the non-profit of New Direction Ministries; that Dave was not to keep his licensure renewed (so there wouldn’t be an escape hatch “just in case of fire”); and that we were to first open a counseling office with the policy of sliding scale with nobody ever turned away due to inability to pay. Also, we were never to take govern-ment money.
In scripture there is a phrase “just happened to end up…………” : “So Ruth went and gathered grain in the fields behind the harvesters. Now she just happened to end up in the portion of the field belonging to Boaz..” Ruth 2:3. This encounter which occurred between Boaz and Ruth was not coincidental. With God there are no coincidences. There is only providence and what He sovereignly allows to be used for His glory and the good of His Kingdom. Dave is no Boaz and I am no Ruth. But the Author is still the same. And there are so many “it just so happened…” providential pieces to the story of New Direction.
In this day and time of so much unrest in our world I think it is good for us to be reminded of the truth that God is still in control. And He still moves in righteous-ness and love and mercy and grace. For this reason I want to share some of the “it just so happened” pieces of the story of New Direction.

It just so happened………

Christian radio WMIT inter-viewed us the first month we started New Direction. We told of the vision of “a place set apart” (we still weren’t quite sure of what that might be other than we thought a farm, outside of the city) We received calls from all over the country from desperate parents wondering when we were going to open. One of the people listening to that program ran her family’s foundation and was our first grant donor and con-tinues to support our work to this day.
I would have about 40 hours of counseling appointments a week; the majority could only pay a nominal amount yet we always had enough money to pay for office rent and our mortgage on our home.
Dave would go out with realtors looking for property for this “place set apart”. He had no money to purchase such a tract of land but the realtors never asked about our financial resources. Folks would tell us to look in Madison County to which we would quickly reply “we don’t want to go to Madison County.” It had a rough reputation.
After months of searching for property Dave was having lunch with one of our board members when a man came up to the table who was a friend of Henry’s. When Henry told the man that he and Dave had been out looking for property and why, the man said, “Why, we have just the perfect piece of property owned by my family. We al-ways thought it would make a good camp. It’s in Madison County.” Dave and Henry followed the man up to Madi-son County to see the property which was on the top of a high mountain; a 150 acre tract with a barn and shacks and no road……just a cow path to drive on. There was a hermit, named Will Honeycutt, who was once a sharecropper at the farm at the base of the mountain and had been living in one of those shacks for 20 years and wasn’t real thrilled at the prospect of city folk coming to visit.

Standing on that ground Dave had a strong assurance this was the property hand-picked by God.
Dave came, immediately, to get me to drive me up to “The Promised Land”. Number one I was fearful of steep roads having slid backwards during a snowy day a few years back. This road leading up to the farm was 1 ½ miles of steep with no guardrail. Number two: I had al-ways lived in neighborhoods. This piece of property was in the middle of nowhere. We parked our car, got out, met the hermit who was not much taller than the weeds in which we were standing…………….got back into the car and drove back in total silence. I really wanted to throw up. I remained numb for days because I, too, knew “this is where New Direction Farm” will be.
The owners of the property were willing to enter into a contract with us of owner finance. The amount required was the exact same amount we were paying monthly for office rent.
The month before we were speaking at a church in Weaverville, 30 minutes from the farm. The pastor approached us that evening and wondered if we would want to move our counseling office to their church as there were several rooms specially meant for that. In return if I would counsel members of the church we would not have to pay for rent which freed up that amount for the farm mortgage.
We needed to have a road built instead of just a cow path. One of our new neighbors just so happened to have begun such a business. We hired him to plow up and prepare about a mile of road that would lead up to our first build-ing site.
When the gravel company came we had no money to pay them (which they didn’t know). When Dave was handed the bill for $20,000, he said: “check will be in the mail next week” (we usually didn’t have money at the time projects began). On the way back to our home he dis-cussed this situation with the Lord Who told him to stop off at the Smith Barney office from which he had re-cently resigned. Dave asked who would like to purchase a ton of gravel. The brokers began competing against one another. When he got back in the car he had the total payment for the gravel.
We felt led to allow Will to stay in his home on the prop-erty since that is all he had known for 20 years. The Lord providentially was in that decision. We had 13 ma-jor snowstorms our first year. Will the hermit taught us how to survive on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

When people heard of this “place set apart” they wanted to donate animals. We ended up with herds of Scottish High-land Cattle, Flock of sheep, goats, chick-ens, horses, Texas longhorn cattle. Will, the hermit, was able to teach Dave how to build fences to keep the animals in the pastures. We realized that we needed to have someone working with us that knew something about animals as we did well in our former lives to keep a dog and cat alive. Joel Williams, a Marine sergeant major, was moving back, with his young family, to his hometown of Asheville upon retirement. He heard through the grapevine we were looking for an administrator. Even though in the interview it was apparent we needed someone who knew about animals we all had a strong sense we were to work together. A stock broker, a marine, a counselor, a hermit and our prodigal son were all the original boots on the ground when New Direction Farm took root in 1998.
Whew!! This is a lot of “it just so happened” and this is only the beginning of the story of New Direction Farm. More to come.
Oh there are some “by the way” pieces as well. By the way nobody mentioned to us that a couple of months before us purchasing the property a man had been left naked and duct taped to a tree at the entrance. We didn’t know this until a year after moving onto the farm. Will, the hermit, rescued him.
By the way we were not aware that although Will the hermit was known as a master tomato grower he was also well known as a master gardener and dispensary of marijuana. We wondered why helicopters with THC monitors would hover over the property. Once Will began earning an honest wage from us he stopped his illicit behavior.
By the way, nobody told us people would threaten to shoot us if we didn’t give them hunting rights to the property. Nobody ever told us that rumors would fly around the community about us opening up a prison camp and that Dave would be surrounded by a group of men. Nobody told us we would receive letters about being destroyed or a neighbor would consistently try to run us over with her car. There is a reason the Lord gives us only enough information for a step and the grace to empower us to take that step…….and then the next step…….and then the next. Had we known these other “by the way” pieces……….we never would

have taken that initial step. It has been quite a rich journey.
It has been 28 years since we took that first step out of the boat. Our Lord has faithfully and abundantly provided for our every need as well as those with whom we are walking over all of these years. Ephesians2:10 says “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” It has been such an honor. By the way over 300 teenagers lived on New Direction Farm over an 18 year period. And 150 acres grew to 400 acres.
Thank you for continuing to invest in the lives of families.
Bridget and Dave