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Church-led rehabilitation programme that works and can be duplicated

Church in the Community - Media Release in the Herald: 14 August 2023

Source: TCN / Ryan Odendaal
Date Added: 2023-08-14

Category: General NewsTCN NewsIssues - GeneralIssues - Substance AbuseIssues - Social upliftment
Launched in May 2022, FREE, which is an acronym meaning “Forgiveness and Restoration through Ending Enslavement”, operates as a ministry in serving as an outpatient substance abuse rehabilitation centre.

It is located in the Kleinskool informal settlement just outside Gqeberha, operating from Harvest Christian Church’s multisite venue.

Over the last 14 months, FREE has seen many lives changed and set free from alcoholism and drug abuse.

The concept is that of an “outpatient” rehabilitation (rehab) facility, which does not house its “patients” (participants) onsite for the duration of the program, but rather sees the participants return home at the end of each day.

One would assume that this will give participants the unfortunate opportunity to relapse, but this has proven to be not entirely so according to Howard and Joy Myers, the founders of FREE, who were initially both themselves sceptical.

According to the Myers’, who spent 13 years supporting church plants in Singapore before coming back to South Africa during 2021, over 70% of the participants complete the eight-week programme without relapsing, both during and afterward.

The heart behind launching the programme came during the national lockdown when Harvest Missions pastors, Alfonso and Adri Wessels, saw firsthand the level of destruction that substance abuse was having, whilst serving in the communities of Nelson Mandela Bay.

The programme is not entirely unique, as both the Wessels’ and the Myers’ visited a similar ministry program being run at various centres around Cape Town, called Living Hope.

Living Hope has had similar results in that they have also experienced a non-relapse success rate in excess of 70%, and therefore the idea of an outpatient rehab program truly does work.

The force at work behind FREE’s program, which sees behavioural changes brought about by the breaking of addiction, is the power of God and the working of His Holy Spirit.

The lives of the participants are brought to restoration through biblical teaching and encouragement to engage with God’s Word.

For many of them, this is the very first time in their lives that they have been taught how to simply engage and pray through scripture at the start of every day’s lessons.

Participants enrol for the eight-week program, which is cyclical, meaning one can start on any Monday and fall in with the program.

It is offered free of charge and employs a full time, registered social worker.

The day starts off with devotions and then leads into lessons.

Subjects covered include substances and how they affect the body physically and mentally, vision and goal setting, co-dependency, and self-worth.

Afternoons are more hands on with creative classes and community work projects.

Emphasis is placed on serving their community so that they can form part of the solution in bringing about change on their own home soil.

On a weekly basis the participants are issued with tokens that can be exchanged at the Harvest Swop Shop for food, clothing, or personal care items.

Tokens are issued based upon the previous week’s attendance and punctuality, one of the disciplines that the program tries to instil in the participants.

Should a participant drop out without a valid reason, they need to restart from scratch, after a formal assessment is done by the social worker to evaluate the participant’s prospects of successful completion.

The participants are also required to attend church and mid-week church meetings.

Howard was initially not fond of this idea, and it was more something that Joy felt most strongly about.

Now they both agree after seeing the impact that the local church community is having on participants lives through several cycles of the programme.

The proof that this requirement is vital for the participants to walk completely set free whilst on the program, and afterwards is found in multiple stories of participants accepting salvation, being baptized and serving in church spaces.

More powerful testimony of FREE’s success is that past participants are the number one referral source for new programme entrants.

As participant’s start on this journey towards freedom, their friends, a lot of whom are also bound by the stronghold of addiction, start to witness the changes in the participants.

A new presence of peace comes into their lives as they longer have any desire to give themselves over to substances.

Instead, they are driven to get their lives in order and become eager to make healthy lifestyle choices.

Even the church community that participants now get plugged into tell the stories of how, when they first encountered some of these participants, they came across as lost and unkept.

As the program progressed, their appearance changed, both physically from a hygienic perspective for instance, and that they started transforming and having the appearance of a “new person”.

My last question to the Myers was, “what qualifies you to run the FREE programme”.

Their answer, “the stepping out is what qualifies you, to believe God for the impossible.”

“So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed”. (John 8:36)

For further information, please contact Howard Myers: +27 (61) 538 8402.
 
Ryan Adrian Odendaal
– board member
Source: TCN / Ryan Odendaal
Date Added: 2023-08-14

Category: General NewsTCN NewsIssues - GeneralIssues - Substance AbuseIssues - Social upliftment
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