October Update

The Interior Spaces Are Taking Shape!

Interior finishes are making the spaces feel real. Even with many hurdles and challenges left to finish the building Now we set our sites filling the spaces with all the supplies needed to open.

Help us open Grace Harbor!

There are several ways that you can help continue the work at Grace Harbor and Teen Challenge Monterey Bay as a whole.

Pray

First and foremost, would you consider praying for our staff and students? We know that the challenges we face are opportunities to see God work! Pray for the continued health and safety of those working on the project, and that barriers in the way of finishing construction would be overcome. Pray for provision of all the financial resources and supplies needed to open. Pray for connections to women in need of the resources.

Visit Grace Harbor

Come and take a tour with staff and students from Teen Challenge Monterey Bay on Wednesdays at 12pm and 4:30pm. Numbers are limited to 10 guests per visit. RSVPs are needed. Closed-toed shoes and face masks are required.

Donate Needed Items And Supplies

Grace Harbor needs many material items, like pots, pans, linens, dishes and more to start operating. You can sign up to donate something specific from Our List. You can also buy items from our Amazon Wishlist and ship them right to Grace Harbor.

Give Financially

There are several ways that you can help continue the work at Grace Harbor and Teen Challenge Monterey Bay as a whole. First and foremost, would you consider praying for our staff and students? We know that the challenges we face are opportunities to see God work!

All donations to Teen Challenge are tax deductible.

Thank you for continuing to pray for us, our students, and those we serve. We look forward to sending more updates on Grace Harbor and all of Teen Challenge Monterey Bay as we witness God doing amazing things in and through the lives of those we encounter.

Grace Harbor Update June 2020

Grace Harbor Women’s Center
continued construction

Grace Harbor Women’s Center, Teen Challenge Monterey Bay’s newest center is currently under construction. This center will provide beds for 50 women on a multi-month recovery & Christian Discipleship program, and an additional 42 beds for at-risk & homeless women (& children) on a day-to-day basis. The center will also contain the Lighthouse Treasures Shoppe, TCMB Catering & Rustic Table Restaurant, and a Pregnancy Resource Center.

We have been able to move forward on Grace Harbor construction because of its essential role to the community to offer a safe place for women to find freedom from life-controlling addictions and issues. As an added bonus, students from our Pajaro Men’s Center in the trade track are able to put their knowledge and skill toward this amazing project.

Construction is moving fast. Here are just a few things that have been accomplished:

  • Wall insulation
  • Wall framing
  • Plumbing Electrical rough-in
  • Attic HVAC ductwork and equipment
  • Attic Fire Sprinkler
  • Piping
  • Wall and ceiling drywall
  • Exterior windows

Here’s what’s next:

  • Roof parapet extensions
  • Roofing removal
  • New roofing
  • Utility service connections
  • Seismic upgrades
  • Kitchen equipment

We’re striving to complete the Grace Harbor Women’s Center by Thanksgiving of 2020!

Our current women’s center is at capacity and sadly have to turn away women who are seeking the help they need. Grace Harbor will allow us to immediately get women into the program. Teen Challenge Monterey Bay has been and is committed to offering our programs for free.

While we are a self-sustaining ministry, with funding coming from our endeavors of the Rustic Table and other programs, in this time of uncertainty, we need your help. Most of our services that our students participate in have been slowed or ceased. The need to provide a safe place and a way of freedom for men and women facing life-controlling issues has not. We need your help to not only raise funds to finish the Grace Harbor project but to also help sustain our staff and students through this time.

Would you be willing to help?

There are several ways that you can help continue the work at Grace Harbor and Teen Challenge Monterey Bay as a whole. First and foremost, would you consider praying for our staff and students? We know that the challenges we face are opportunities to see God work!

You can also contribute financially, if you are able.

Lastly, you can donate assets to Teen Challenge Monterey Bay. We have partnered with Orchard Alliance on the ability to donate assets in lieu of a monetary donation. They manage donations of Shares, Assets, Land, Yachts, etc.

All donations to Teen Challenge are tax deductible.

Thank you for continuing to pray for us, our students, and those we serve. We look forward to sending more updates on Grace Harbor and all of Teen Challenge Monterey Bay as we witness God doing amazing things in and through the lives of those we encounter.

Teen Challenge Monterey Bay Staff Spotlight: Peter

Staff Spotlight: Peter

Teen Challenge Monterey Bay has some of the most amazing staff. People from all walks of life who have dedicated their lives to helping others. Our staff is deeply committed not just because it’s “their job,” but rather because people are their passion.

The mantra at Teen Challenge is “We don’t give up on people.” How powerful is that? When someone is rescued from a life-controlling issue, there are so many things they have to walk through, recovery, discovery, and then freedom. This journey is not for the weak of heart and how important is it to have someone by your side through that journey encouraging you, praying for and with you, and looking you in the eye seeing what you can really become.


Meet Peter, the Program Director at the Pajaro Men’s Center. Full of Grace, full of Life,

and full of compassion. We had a chance to sit down with him and learn more about

him and his impact at Teen Challenge.


What brought you to Teen Challenge?

 I came to North America from South Africa originally to work in the ministry of music and that’s what I was doing at the time I first heard about Teen Challenge Monterey Bay from a friend of mine who worked there. At the time I was working as the music director of my church in Hollister, CA. My friend invited me to come and check out the Teen Challenge Program. I was a little hesitant at first, but eventually, I went and met the director and gave my testimony in a chapel service. Soon, after visiting a few times I became so impressed with the way God was working in the lives at Teen Challenge. It became like a magnet that drew me in and I wanted to become involved with this ministry somehow. The more I saw lives being changed, the more I wanted to become a part of it.


What are your job responsibilities?

As the Program Director my job is making sure the men are being ministered to and discipled in a godly manner. I am engaged and invested with the lives of the men here. I make sure that we are holding the standard of what it means to follow Christ. Helping students gain a healthy faith and relationship with the Lord.


“The more I saw lives being changed, the more I wanted to become a part of it.”


 

Can you tell me about a time where you saw a life transformed?

There are so many stories of transformation in men’s lives I could tell. One specific story that really amazes me is one of the men I have personally assigned to disciple. This young man came into our program and shortly after he joined the program he decided he didn’t need our help and left the program. He eventually made it back to where he was from and was shot by someone he was trying to sell drugs. After recovering from his gunshot wound, he came back to Teen Challenge and God changed his heart and his life. He is now a completed student intern whose emphasis is on The Grace Harbor project. He has a passion for the ministry and to see Grace Harbor come to completion.

You mentioned Grace Harbor. It’s Teen Challenge Monterey Bay’s newest project. What excites you the most about Grace Harbor?

It’s exciting to know that there will be a safe place for women and children whose lives have been robbed by the enemy have a new chance at life. Women who have lost all hope can have peace and have their lives transformed by the power of God. Families who are hurting and have lost hope in their daughter or mother can have restoration and joy in knowing their loved one’s life will be forever changed.


What part of your job brings you the most joy?

The privilege and honor to be a part of these men’s lives and to see their success. Seeing men step up and into their purpose for life. It brings me unspeakable joy to see the men reunited with their parents and children. Seeing the reconciliation with families brings such intense joy to my heart. It makes this life and this ministry all worth it.


“Seeing the reconciliation with families brings such intense joy to my heart. It makes this life and this ministry all worth it.”


 
In your opinion, what would your life look like if Teen Challenge didn’t exist?

If there was no Teen Challenge there would be a lot of hopeless people out there, including families and children.

Grace Harbor Update May 2020

Grace Harbor Women’s Center
continued construction

Grace Harbor Women’s Center, Teen Challenge Monterey Bay’s newest center is currently under construction. This center will provide beds for 50 women on a multi-month recovery & Christian Discipleship program, and an additional 42 beds for at-risk & homeless women (& children) on a day-to-day basis. The center will also contain the Lighthouse Treasures Shoppe, TCMB Catering & Rustic Table Restaurant, and a Pregnancy Resource Center.

We have been able to move forward on Grace Harbor construction because of its essential role to the community to offer a safe place for women to find freedom from life-controlling addictions and issues. As an added bonus, students from our Pajaro Men’s Center in the trade track are able to put their knowledge and skill toward this amazing project.

Construction is moving fast. Here are just a few things that have been accomplished:

  • Installation of the under-slab plumbing and electrical work for the interior has finished
  • Poured all of the interior concrete
  • The interior framed walls and the attic flooring is complete
  • Completed of 50% of attic MEP piping and ductwork

The completion of Grace Harbor Women’s center is at the top of our list of projects for Teen Challenge.

Our current women’s center is at capacity and sadly have to turn away women who are seeking the help they need. Grace Harbor will allow us to immediately get women into the program. Teen Challenge Monterey Bay has been and is committed to offering our programs for free.

While we are a self-sustaining ministry, with funding coming from our endeavors of the Rustic Table and other programs, in this time of uncertainty, we need your help. Most of our services that our students participate in have been slowed or ceased. The need to provide a safe place and a way of freedom for men and women facing life-controlling issues has not. We need your help to not only raise funds to finish the Grace Harbor project but to also help sustain our staff and students through this time.

Would you be willing to help?

There are several ways that you can help continue the work at Grace Harbor and Teen Challenge Monterey Bay as a whole. First and foremost, would you consider praying for our staff and students? We know that the challenges we face are opportunities to see God work!

You can also contribute financially, if you are able.

Lastly, you can donate assets to Teen Challenge Monterey Bay. We have partnered with Orchard Alliance on the ability to donate assets in lieu of a monetary donation. They manage donations of Shares, Assets, Land, Yachts, etc.

All donations to Teen Challenge are tax deductible.

Thank you for continuing to pray for us, our students, and those we serve. We look forward to sending more updates on Grace Harbor and all of Teen Challenge Monterey Bay as we witness God doing amazing things in and through the lives of those we encounter.

Teen Challenge Monterey Bay Student Spotlight: Steffanie

Student Spotlight: Steffanie

One of the most unique things about Teen Challenge Monterey Bay as a recovery program is the focus on the healing of the whole person. This free 13-month program allows students (people who become a part of the program) to not only face and heal their life-controlling addiction but to engage in a safe community that helps them reintegrate into the world through education, work-study or trade.

Why is this significant? In typical rehab programs, it’s 28 days and out. This offers limited support and limited life skills to help students really keep their life-controlling addiction at bay. Teen Challenge programs offer so much more. We’re doing a series featuring a few of our students nearing the end of their program and what Teen Challenge has done for them.

Meet Steffanie — full of life, passion, and vigor. It wasn’t always like that for her. We sat down and asked her a few questions about her experience and what’s next for her. 


What brought you to Teen Challenge?

 I was in jail in June 2018, I was charged with 2nd degree armed robbery, sentenced to 1-2 years in prison. I had been in and out of jail for years and was addicted to heroin for 10 years. I was stuck in a destructive cycle. I had heard about a new thing they were doing that instead of sending you to prison, they were giving an option of the Felony Drug Program. The judge agreed to let me do this program since going to jail and getting back out again wasn’t helping me make better decisions. I had never heard of Teen Challenge before, but instead of going to prison, I was blessed to come here. 


Can you tell me about the transformation you saw in yourself?

I don’t have an exact moment. I would say the entire program and the love I received when I got here and falling in love with Jesus again. I was a Christian before I got here, but I had gone my own way. 

 I never had love, I never had any self-esteem, nothing that made me feel valuable or worthy. The love of Jesus, the amazing staff, and my loving sisters is what did it for me. Just slowly every day engraining Jesus, reading the Bible. Reminding us that we are worth something of value. Reminding us that we aren’t just a junkie to be thrown away, or that we should be in jail or be on the street is what did it. It took a long time. I wouldn’t say that there was a moment that just ‘clicked’, but it just ‘clicked.’ 


“The love of Jesus, the amazing staff, and my loving sisters is what did it for me.”


 

What excites you the most about Grace Harbor (Teen Challenge’s newest center)?

When you enter phase 4 of the Teen Challenge Program, we are allowed to pick from 3 different tracks for the Intern program. I presented the Rescue Mission for my track. I am the outreach coordinator for Grace Harbor, that’s my 4th phase assignment. I want to give women what I have received, I want to show them that if I can do it, they can do it. Anything is possible with Jesus. 

I tried to get free from addiction on my own strength, and it didn’t work. I want to be the voice for the ones who don’t have a voice. Freeing women from human trafficking and those who are in abusive relationships is my passion. I just want to help people the way I was helped. I just want to give back the gift that I was given. 


What about Grace Harbor will provide women the help you are describing?

Women knowing they have some place safe to go. Love. You aren’t thrown away and you are worth something. I’ve never had that before, and that is what the Teen Challenge Programs bring to people. Grace Harbor will allow us to help so many more women and women with children. Allowing the homeless to come in, and we serve them. The staff aren’t just a bunch of ‘normal’ people who have never experienced drugs and alcohol. We have been through it, and we understand and have compassion, sympathy, and kindness for what they are experiencing. That is what makes the difference. 


What is one thing that you could tell people about Teen Challenge?

 We don’t give up on people. There is such a thing as hope, we do believe in you. The answer to everything is faith. Nothing is impossible with God. If you want it, we will help you. And we will never ever give up on you. That is what is so amazing about Teen Challenge. 


“We don’t give up on people. There is such a thing as hope, we do believe in you.”


 
In your opinion, what would your life look like if Teen Challenge didn’t exist?

 Before I came to Teen Challenge, I was running around the streets of Stockton. I was homeless, I was a heroin user, I was involved in gangs. Without the Freedom Women’s center, I would be in prison or dead. 

 
What makes the Teen Challenge Program Different than other programs?

 What I love about Teen Challenge is that I came straight from jail, but a lot of the other ladies were rescued in the state they are in by the Teen Challenge staff members. When they get here, we help stabilize them and then we help them become a functioning member of society. We don’t keep them for just 28 days, and then send them along. We teach them how to have a new way of life — how to be the person that God made them to be. Not only do we focus on helping them with their addiction, but we teach them life skills, and job skills. There is Hope & Life.


“We don’t keep [people] for just 28 days, and then send them along. We teach them how to have a new way of life — how to be the person that God made them to be.”