One afternoon in October 1983, I was preparing to leave the office when the phone rang. "Dr. Senior," a lady' s voice choked on her words. As I waited for her to recover, her husband broke in. "Last night, Bill, our 14-year-old son, was arrested. He's in juvenile detention and we need your help."
That evening at family worship, I shared with my wife and three daughters, ages 14, 13, and 11, the experience I had with the grieving parents. I felt sad to see hurting Christian families who could not get help for their children.
My oldest daughter, Tamara, quietly said, "Daddy, you've developed group homes for the government, why not develop a group home for Christian families whose teenagers are getting into trouble." That night the idea of the Advent Home was born.
In April 1985, we rented a four-bedroom home in St. Petersburg, Florida and provided residential care, counseling and schooling for teenage boys with attitude and behavioral problems, learning differences, ADHD, substance abuse, school failure, and violent reactions. Calls started to stream in from all over North America .
In the beginning we had many problems because of our limited resources. Being in the city and having the boys attending public school, caused us many problems. The boys were sneaking out at night to buy cigarettes, see their girlfriends, and run away.
After two years, I became discouraged with the mounting bills and the difficulty of operating the program in the inner city. I decided it was time to close down the program, telling myself it was impossible to find funding. I called the parents one by one and told them to pick up their sons. One mother who felt her son was not ready to come home, asked me, "What can I do to help you keep the program going?" "Bring me $10,000 for three months and find me a house on five acres in the country," I reluctantly replied.
"I'm only a secretary, but I am going to talk with my friends," she said. In a few days she found a house on 42 acres in the country. In two weeks she brought me $10,000 and another $5,000 a week later. Shortly afterwards, we moved the program to Zellwood, Florida.
My wife, Gloria, and I became more and more impressed with the great need to minister to hurting families and their teens with ADHD. In September 1988, I resigned from my management-consulting job at Honeywell to work full time raising money for Advent Home. I planned to purchase land in order to establish a permanent program in the country.
In August 1988, Advent Home was selected for a grant by Adventist-Laymen's Services & Industries (ASI). The money enabled Advent Home to purchase property and, in May 1989, relocate to its present site on 225 acres in Calhoun, TN By this time we were receiving over 300 calls a year from throughout the U.S. from families who needed our help.
During 2007, Advent Home Youth Services, Inc. changed its name to Advent Home Learning Center, Inc. We are now focusing on remedial schooling, vocational training, lifestyle changes and total wellness for ADHD students.
In Christian homes across America, there are good parents who feel helpless as they struggle to raise their teenage sons.• Shaun, 14, does not have serious behavior problems. Last year he stopped studying, became depressed and withdrew. His grades dropped significantly.• When Peter was 3, his parents divorced, and he stayed with his mother and younger brother. By age 15,…
