In February 2025, historic flooding tore through McDowell County, West Virginia. Sandy's basement filled with five feet of water. Her daughter lost everything. The food pantry she had been running for nearly a decade was destroyed. And while her own home was still under water, Sandy helped coordinate over 50,000 hot meals for her neighbors.

That sentence alone tells you most of what you need to know about this conversation.

Sandy came to Jesus on her own couch in Statesville, North Carolina, after a pastor named J.B. Parker Jr. knocked on her door every Saturday until she finally let him in. She grew up in a home where the family Bible was decoration. None of that disqualified her from the work God put in front of her. It built her for it.

In this episode, Sandy talks about what she calls real church versus play church. She tells the story of a man who walked into a service with a beer can in his shirt pocket and the woman who scooted over to make room for him. She talks about why stateside ministry gets passed over when there's still a harvest field in our own Jerusalem. And she names something most ministry leaders feel but rarely say out loud: the people you keep showing up for will not always meet you in the middle. You feed them anyway. You plant the seeds. You let God give the increase.

If you serve in ministry, lead a church, or you've been quietly wondering if your work matters, this one's worth your time.

Full Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/she-fed-50-000-meals-after-the-flood-took-her-own-home

🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge
🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast
📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info
🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate
📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

He watched God work what felt like miracle after miracle in the NICU. And then, the moment he crossed back home, everything unraveled. Jeremy puts words to a moment many people recognize but rarely admit: the split second where faith feels distant and the old escape routes feel close again.

We talk with Jeremy about the grief of losing his infant daughter, the slow drift from trying to cope into prescription drug addiction, and how clonazepam left him numb and chasing relief. From there, his story moves into meth addiction, the strain it put on his marriage and parenting, and how relapse tends to come back worse. He also speaks honestly about NICU trauma during COVID, financial pressure, isolation, and the role community played through prayer, texts, and practical help.

Then we get into consequences and rebuilding. Jeremy shares what happened after his arrest, why prison became more than a temporary wake-up call, and what it looks like to live recovered while staying aware he's still one bad choice away. We also talk about daily sobriety practices, Christian recovery, staying spiritually rooted, and how he now uses his addiction recovery leadership training to help others through 5:17 Ministries.

If you or someone you love is battling addiction, grief, or relapse, this conversation offers clarity and hope. Subscribe for more stories like Jeremy's, and share this with someone who needs it.

🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge
🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast
📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info
🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate
📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

Yes, his name is Bill Gates. No, not that one. This Bill is from Boston originally, lives in Port Saint Lucie, Florida now, and spent twenty years of his life absolutely convinced there was no God.

Then life fell apart. A divorce he didn't want. A rebound relationship that broke his heart. Friends who kept inviting him to church week after week, and his answer was always the same. Whatever the answer is, that isn't it.

One Sunday night there were no ball games on TV, and he decided to go with them just to not be alone. A young youth pastor named Joe Keefe was preaching that night, filling in for the senior pastor. His message was about letting Christ into your life and trusting Him to bring the right person too. Bill sat there running the math on whether his friends had set him up to hear that exact sermon. When he couldn't make the numbers work, he had to admit something else was going on.

Twenty-eight years later, Bill and his wife Sunseri are stepping into Living Free together because they've seen what targeted discipleship does that a Sunday morning sermon can't. In this conversation, Bill tells the atheism story, walks through sixteen years of children's ministry he never felt qualified for, and explains why the most effective ministry sometimes happens outside the walls of a formal church.

If you love someone who says they don't believe, this one's for you.

Full Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/bill-gates-god-retired-me-from-atheism

🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge
🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast
📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info
🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate
📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

Jeff Arp serves as Vice President of US Operations and Training for Living Free. He gave his life to Jesus at four years old. He went through Bible college and seminary. He pastored for twenty years. And for most of that time, he looked at addiction the same way a lot of church people still do. If you have a problem, just stop. Just say no.

Then he started working with Living Free, and the whole framework fell apart.

In this conversation, Jeff talks about the paradigm shift that changed how he preaches, counsels, and does evangelism. He unpacks what he calls "the trap," the reality that most addiction is people trying to numb pain they never learned how to carry. Emotional pain. Relational pain. Physical and spiritual pain. And he points out something the church rarely names out loud: the things we reach for to numb out are not always drugs and alcohol. Sometimes it's food. Sometimes it's entertainment. Sometimes it's whatever keeps us from sitting with what actually hurts.

Jeff also shares one of the hardest conversations he's had in ministry. A pastor once asked him, "Why would I want those people in my church?" His answer was short. Because Jesus would.

We talk about the Living Free online academy, the Awareness Workshop, and why equipping family members to minister to their own loved ones might be one of the most overlooked opportunities the local church has right now.

If you lead a church, love someone caught in addiction, or you're rethinking what recovery ministry could look like in your community, this one is for you.

Full Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/jeff-arp-living-free-trap-behind-addiction

🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge
🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast
📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info
🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate
📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

In McDowell County, WV, a little girl hides her food kits under the porch so her mom won't find them when she's sober. That's the world Pastor George works in. Bail bondsman, biker church pastor, and missionary to the communities everyone else forgot.

This week on Rebuilding Life After Addiction, I sit down with Pastor George. He pastors Home Church in Dayton, VA, a church built for the people who don't fit in anywhere else. Bikers. People coming out of jail. People with addiction and abuse in their past. People who have been turned away from traditional churches and are looking for a place to belong. George also works in the bail bond industry, where he has built relationships with people at their most broken moments. 2AM phone calls, families in crisis, and conversations most pastors never get to have.

His work has taken him into homes and situations that have shaped how he sees people and how he does ministry. We also talk about his work in McDowell County, West Virginia, one of the poorest communities in the country, where his team is helping build a women's recovery center out of an abandoned church. He shares what life looks like in Appalachia right now. The poverty, the drug epidemic, the lack of healthcare, and the children caught in the middle of it all. If you have ever felt called to do something outside the box, ministry that does not look like a Sunday morning, this conversation is for you.

Episode Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/the-bail-bondsman-pastor-who-shows-up-when-everyone-else-walks-away

🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge
🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast
📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info
🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate
📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

Sometimes momentum matters more than order. I'm at the 6043 Broad Street chapel working on the renovation, and I wanted to talk about why visible progress, even small and out of sequence, keeps you from stalling out. The sober living home page has been up for three days and we've already gotten calls. Monday the painter arrives. And today, I mulched the flower beds before the building even gets painted. If you're rebuilding anything right now, find something you can point to today and say: I moved forward.

Full Show Notes: https://svtc.info/podcast/progress-over-perfection-why-i-mulched-before-the-paint-job

🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge
🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast
📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info
🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate
📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

We recorded this from the empty chapel at Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge. No students, no program, just an honest conversation about what's next. The ministry isn't closing. We're relaying the foundation and building something that serves the community differently.

Full show notes and transcript: https://svtc.info/podcast/were-not-closing-were-relaying-the-foundation/

🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge
🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast
📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info
🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate
📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571

How do you honor the past without getting stuck in it? Sitting in an empty ministry building after sixteen years, Justin wrestles with gratitude, nostalgia, and the fear that the best days are behind him.

Full show notes and transcript: https://svtc.info/podcast/what-i-m-learning-about-letting-go-and-what-you-might-need-to-hear

🎙️ Host: Justin Franich | Executive Director, Shenandoah Valley Teen Challenge
🌐 Full episodes + resources: https://svtc.info/podcast
📖 Faith-based recovery guides: https://svtc.info
🙏 Support this ministry: https://svtc.info/donate
📞 Need help? Call us: 540-213-0571