Advent Home Learning Center, Inc.

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.