Support a Home. Invest in a Family.
For many of our children, Big Oak Ranch is the only true home they’ve ever known. Before coming here, many had never experienced a sense of security, love or being part of a family.
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of the Boys’ Ranch
In our homes, we are breaking the cycle of pain our children have known, redirecting their future toward the plan God has for their lives. We are giving children a chance and seeing God bring change that will last for generations.
In our homes, we are breaking the cycle of pain our children have known, redirecting their future toward the plan God has for their lives. We are giving children a chance and seeing God bring change that will last for generations.
As we scale our impact so we can serve more children, two new homes have been added to the Girls’ Ranch with another home soon to follow. An additional home is also under construction at the Boys’ Ranch. These four new homes further position us to serve children in need.
The cost of operating one of our homes is $250,000 per year.
The construction of each home at Big Oak is fully funded before breaking ground, and you have the opportunity to partner with us in sustaining the annual operations of our homes.
Your investment helps cover the daily operational needs for a home for six to eight children. This includes equipping each home with full-time houseparents, home and vehicle maintenance, utilities, fuel, landscaping, furniture, appliances and property, auto and liability insurance. It also provides for family expenses such as outings, vacations and much more.
But more than that, your donation will give the six to eight children in each of our homes the chance to trade chaos for childhood, loneliness for belonging and hurt for hope.
So many children need help.
There are millions of children across the country who need intervention. We are currently addressing this great need by raising the children placed in our care at Big Oak Boys’ Ranch and Big Oak Girls’ Ranch and equipping other like-minded ministries to do the same through Planting Oaks.
We are also growing strategically and responsibly in order to serve more children in need.
Your investment helps us make an immediate and lasting impact in the lives of more children who need a chance. It positions us with strength, helping us fulfill our mission regardless of external economic conditions and challenges.
Your investment will have an eternal impact. You will be a part of redirecting cycles of abuse, neglect and abandonment toward Gospel hope on display through the family — forever changing the generations that come after us.
We are also growing strategically and responsibly in order to serve more children in need.
Your investment helps us make an immediate and lasting impact in the lives of more children who need a chance. It positions us with strength, helping us fulfill our mission regardless of external economic conditions and challenges.
Your investment will have an eternal impact. You will be a part of redirecting cycles of abuse, neglect and abandonment toward Gospel hope on display through the family — forever changing the generations that come after us.
Abandoned as a teenager, Hank’s journey shows how God’s love can change generations.
Read Hank's Story
“I grew up in a rural part of Etowah County. My family was extremely poor, often going for extended amounts of time without running water or electricity. As a child, I would heat a pot of water on the stove and stand in the washtub to take a bath. I lived with my mother, stepfather and several siblings, and emotional and physical abuse were always present in the home. My biological father, who was rarely present, altogether stopped visiting me when I was in the 3rd grade. The only other time I saw him was right before he died.
In March of 1993, I was thrown out of my house. I was a teenage boy desperately in need of a place to stay, terrified and unsure of where I was going to sleep each night. I walked to a friend’s home where I was welcomed to stay during the snowstorm and then for the next several weeks. I attended church with them one Sunday at North Gadsden Baptist, which happened to be the same church where Joe and Sherry Fain attended, a couple preparing to be houseparents at Big Oak Ranch.
Joe and Sherry Fain saw the need I had for a home, for a family and stability, which I had yet to experience in life. They spoke with John Croyle and Big Oak Ranch social workers, and it wasn’t long before I was on the winding country road that led me to the entrance of the Boys’ Ranch for the very first time. I was met by people who listened to me with genuine concern for my well-being. Their actions, their character and their words told me that I mattered. Big Oak saw my need, and in it they chose me – I will never forget the feeling I felt that day of being wanted.
At 17 years old, I entered the Perkins Home and was Joe and Sherry Fain’s first child at Big Oak. Upon my arrival, I got to pick and live in my own room, an experience I never had before. The Ranch helped me get my first job at Jester Door and Trim. There I experienced people who counted on me to be consistent, to be trustworthy and work well. When you grow up without structure, it is really easy to get sidetracked. However, the Ranch family that had surrounded me, continued to be a stabilizing force through young adulthood. My boss at Jester Door, Wes Ingram, and his wife, Virginia, even ended up becoming my Resource Family for the Ranch. I loved staying with Wes and Virginia’s family for resource weekends. They treated me like I was their own – often eating meals together, visiting their extended family, working on cars and going on fun day trips. I wasn’t just a kid from the Ranch that they kept for the weekend, rather, I was a part of their family. I was introduced and treated as one of their own, and I thrived because of that relationship.
Before coming to the Ranch, I was exposed to a lot of fighting that took place between my mom and stepfather. However, my houseparents and resource parents didn’t fight that way. They always seemed to love each other and work through disagreements together. Pop Fain and Wes also prayed with and for me – they were the first men to ever show me what a relationship with Christ is supposed to look like. The first time I ever felt the love of Christ in my life came from my houseparents and resource parents. They faithfully invested in my daily life, expecting nothing in return from me, yet waiting in full expectation for the Lord to work in my life in His timing.
In high school, I met a girl named Leslie Baker who worked at a local grocery store. After making several trips there and ultimately asking for her number, we dated and went to several school dances together. After going our separate ways through early adulthood, the Lord brought us back together. Leslie says, ‘When Hank and I reconnected, my first response was to try to run him off in any way that I could. I had been through a painful situation and did not want to end up there again. Though I held him at a distance, Hank’s consistency in his character, in attending church with me and involving his boys with mine softened my heart. I realized that Jesus was telling me that Hank was safe and that He had brought him to me. Then, I was confident about our families uniting, and we were married within a few months.’
Many may look at my life and say that I have a habit of being in the right place at the right time. I would say that the Lord has been sovereign over my every step. The Ranch gave me a foundation, while my houseparents and resource family invested in me day after day. Then when I reconnected with Leslie and we began serving together, it all came full circle as I finally realized my desperate need for a personal relationship with Christ and received Him as Savior. We are pouring into our family, including one young grandson, we get to share the Gospel all across the world – from Uganda to Peru to local missions in Florida. Through those important roles, and in my law enforcement career, my prayer has been that God would use me – my story – to help others who have faced the same hardships.
After all, I have learned that children who come to Big Oak are often closed up and scared to let people in – just as I was at 17. But if they are given the chance to work through this, and choose to do it, the opportunities to be a blessing will come.”
How God answered a 9-year-old’s prayer for a home, for a family.
Read Melody's Story
“During my childhood, my mother fought but she could never truly win the battle against addiction and depression. Nor could my father, as he struggled with mental illness and addiction as well. It was typical for him to be home for a couple months only to disappear for a year or two. I attended seven different schools before the 4th grade, often packing one suitcase and leaving everything else behind.
My mother always had a new job, nothing was steady and I didn’t really understand why. I remember her saying, ‘I promised to give up alcohol a long time ago so that you won’t be taken away.’ During those seven years my mom was sober, my biological sister and I were often latchkey kids. My mother couldn’t afford daycare so she would drop us off at the library and tell us to stay quiet, to read and to not bother the librarians. Because of this, I became an avid reader, often reading fictional stories about children who grew up in orphanages, boarding schools, or who were adopted. I began to get the idea that growing up away from my parents might be a better solution to escape the reality I was living in.
At nine years old, I realized my home was not a good place to live anymore. My mom was in and out of psychiatric treatment facilities. One day she left the hospital accompanied by a new boyfriend, who was also an alcoholic. I knew the moment that I saw the alcohol in the cupholder of her car that it was only a matter of time before I would be taken away – and I was scared to death. But I held on to hope for a place like those I read about. A place where I could be a kid. I remember the day I prayed for Big Oak Ranch – praying a simple prayer that any nine-year-old would pray: ‘Dear God, I want a new place to live. One where I can have a mom and a dad. I want to have a house with a trampoline, and horses, and a swimming pool. A lake where I can fish and a bunch of kids my age to play with. I don’t ever want to have to change schools again.’ That same day, my biological mom told me that she had found a new home for me. I knew God heard my prayer.
On the day my mother took me to Big Oak Ranch, I was amazed as I watched my prayer materialize in front of me. As we drove under the arches I saw the horses, then the swimming pool, the lake, and ultimately the home with a trampoline in front! I learned I was going to have a new mom and dad. I learned the school I was going to was an elementary, middle and high school so I would never have to go to a new school again. Everything I prayed for was there! God answered my prayer with Big Oak Ranch.
My houseparents, Steven and Christy Gum, showed me nothing but patience, kindness, and grace. I remember my understanding of love transforming as my housemom didn’t wrongly punish or humiliate me when I disobeyed. Rather, she showed me truth wrapped in incredible grace, and in doing so, introduced me to the Gospel. Together, we navigated rocky circumstances as I worked through what I had experienced before living with them. At first, I hid my battles with depression, terrified and determined not to make the same mistakes as my biological mother. Yet, the consistent love of my houseparents soon led me to open up, to be honest about what was going on internally. The Gums taught me that I didn’t have to earn their love, that they chose to love me no matter what. They and other staff at Big Oak connected me to the therapeutic support I needed.
The support of my Big Oak Family and a fantastic education at Westbrook Christian School led me to receive a full ride to Jacksonville State University. After graduating from undergrad, I went on to receive my Master’s in Clinical Nutrition at UAB, which also led me to meeting my husband at the library while studying for an exam. Matt and I now live near Destin, FL, where he works as a family nurse practitioner and I work at three long-term care facilities as a registered dietitian.
Every day I go to work, I think about Big Oak Ranch. Once, I had a resident’s family member call me and she said, ‘Thank you for doing for my mom what I couldn’t. I am forever grateful.’ In that moment, it hit me – the Ranch did for me what my biological mom couldn’t. I get to be family for my residents every day and take care of them when their families aren’t able to. In that moment, I had a new understanding of my relationship with my biological family and mother – one filled with the grace very similar to the grace I was shown by my houseparents. Without Big Oak, I cannot imagine where I would be. The influence and love of my houseparents, the teachers at Westbrook, Mary Graham, and the entire staff at Big Oak are all a huge part of the person I get to be every day for the people around me. And because of that, I am forever grateful.”
