Residents Secure Their Future at My Father’s House

By Jenny Pope

Amy Talley is a self-described former addict. “Drugs, alcohol, you name it. I was very ‘of the world,’” she said.

The 28-year-old mother remembers nights filled with drugs and men, going to clubs and coming home to her nightmares. “I could have gone to prison or to jail. My kids could have been taken away from me,” she said.

But all of this is in the past. Since Talley first arrived nearly two years ago at My Father’s House Lubbock, with kids Gavin and Brookelyn, she’s felt “total peace.”

“This place has just been a Godsend,” she said. “When I first came here, I had no self confidence. I didn’t believe in myself. I would cry all the time. Cigarettes were my god. But I gave all that up… and I was scared to death. But somehow I knew God was going to take care of me.”

Today her past is nothing more than a story. She’s decorated her apartment at My Father’s House with photos of family and friends. Bible verses and prayers line her kitchen walls.

“I love this one,” she said, while pointing out the Serenity Prayer. “I read this one every day to myself.”

Change didn’t come easily for Talley. It required hard work and determination, she said. She attended classes at the Christian Women’s Job Corp on campus for 12 weeks and then started to pursue her ultimate dream.

“My goal was to get a GED and get a job. I’m not a good reader or speller, but I have a tutor here who has helped me out. I finished my GED in a year and seven months. And now I have a job as a nurses aid at Coral Ridge (a local retirement community),” she said.

But some of the biggest changes she’s seen are in her two children.

“Being here has made my kids more confident,” she said. “They have good attitudes and their behavior is obedient. I get compliments on them all the time, which is great because some days you don’t think you can do it as a single mom.”

Her advice to other women with addictions is to be honest with themselves. “You have to know – do you really want to change? Everyone wants someone to do it for them. But the truth is, you have to be the one to do the hard work, to give up your habits. You’ve got to want to change.”

Tanji Lamar, 28, didn’t come to My Father’s House with those desires.

“I was an alcoholic,” she said. “Whiskey was my best friend for a really long time.”

Lamar had been married to a man who never let her work, so when he walked out on her and her son Kristopher, she didn’t have anywhere to go. Her family moved her to Lubbock where she began taking classes at the Christian Women’s Job Corp. That’s where she learned she needed “to get right with God.”

“For 13 years I was involved in witchcraft,” she said. “I had the ability to hear and see things nobody else could see. Some people told me that was from the devil, and I thought they were right.”

She described the initial hearing of scripture as something reminiscent to white noise.

“Whenever someone read the Bible or quoted scripture, all I heard was this loud sound – the kind of sound you hear on a TV channel that doesn’t have anything on it.”

One day, after she had moved into My Father’s House, someone came to pray with her. She felt like something was clawing her shoulders before she was released in a physical jolt, literally thrashing forward in her prayer. She heard a loud scream in her head, “like nothing I’d ever heard,” she said. Then the noise was gone.

“I never heard it again. I was able to soak in the scripture after that. I gave my life to Christ one day in the chapel.”

Today, three years later, Lamar works to transcribe lectures from area college professors. She received her associate’s degree at Plains College and works part time. She’s placed a deposit on her first apartment and plans to move on with her life, with son Kristopher, in the coming months.

“I never would have had these opportunities before I moved here,” she said. “I finished college. I never would have done that.”

My Father’s House Lubbock is part of Buckner Children and Family Services, a global Christian ministry to orphans, at-risk children and families.