Broken Crayons Still Color: Hope House Helping Women Find Healing in Christ
This article was written by Derek Gregory and originally published by Christian Family Radio.
Stephanie Ketchey, Director of Program for Living Women, visits with morning show co-host Derek Gregory to discuss the new trauma class.
At Christian Family Radio, we love spotlighting ministries in our community that are walking with people through some of the hardest seasons of life and showing them the love of Jesus. One of those ministries is Hope House, whose mission is to alleviate physical and spiritual poverty through the hope of Christ.
Recently, we sat down with Stephanie Ketchey, director of Program Living at Hope House Ministries, to hear about the life-changing work happening both inside their residential programs and inside the Warren County Jail.
What Is Program Living?
Program Living is at the heart of Hope House’s work. It’s a Christ-centered residential program designed to help men and women break free from addiction and step into a new way of life.
For men: a 12-month residential program.
For women: a 9-month program, shortened to help mothers who are working to reunite with their children.
Throughout their stay, participants are surrounded by community and discipleship. They take practical classes like Faith and Finance, Healthy Conflict Resolution, Parenting, and Work Life, and they study the Bible together with local volunteers and mentors.
Stephanie explained it this way: “Because they’re with us for so long, it really becomes home. We get to be part of their journey, walking with them through the ups and downs of life, always pointing them back to Christ.”
Bringing Hope into the Jail
The first graduating class of the new trauma course offered to women in Warren County Jail.
Beyond the residential programs, Hope House has also begun a powerful ministry for women in the Warren County Jail. The class is called Broken Crayons Still Color—a simple phrase with a big truth: even when life feels shattered, God can redeem and restore.
The group is intentionally small, no more than 12 women at a time, and runs for eight weeks. Stephanie, alongside former graduates of Program Living and community volunteers, leads the sessions.
The goal is to help women process their trauma through the lens of Scripture, shifting their identity away from past mistakes and pain and toward who they are in Christ.
“Trauma is a result of living in a broken world,” Stephanie shared. “But Jesus has already carried that pain. We don’t have to live stuck in our past—our identity is in Him.”
Stories of Transformation
Change doesn’t always happen overnight, but Stephanie has seen God soften hearts in amazing ways.
She told us about one woman who came to the class reserved and quiet. For weeks she kept her guard up—until one day she shared through tears that her grandmother, the only steady person in her life, had passed away while she was in jail. She felt completely alone and hopeless.
By the end of the course, her outlook had shifted. She told Stephanie, “I’ve learned there are people who love me and will be there for me. With Christ, I’m not alone.”
Another participant began the class joking and deflecting, never serious. But as the weeks went on, she slowly lowered her walls. When emotions surfaced, she confessed, “I don’t know why I feel like this.” Stephanie reminded her, “You’re emotional because that’s how God created you—and that’s okay.” Those small breakthroughs are signs of the Holy Spirit at work.
Why Addressing Trauma Matters
For Stephanie, tackling trauma isn’t optional—it’s central to pointing people to Christ.
“All through the Bible, you see trauma,” she said. “But what makes the story beautiful is that God redeems it. Trauma doesn’t have to define us. Our identity isn’t what happened to us or even what we’ve done. Our identity is in Jesus, who covered our brokenness at the cross.”
In the world’s eyes, trauma can become a permanent label. But Stephanie reminds the women—and all of us—that in Christ, we are new creations. We don’t have to keep repeating old patterns. We can live from His victory, not our past pain.
How You Can Help
Hope House depends on the love and prayers of the community to continue this ministry. Here are some ways you can join in:
Pray for the women in jail, their families, and the Hope House staff leading them.
Volunteer to help with classes, discipleship, or simply showing up to walk alongside women who are learning to trust again.
Write letters of encouragement. These can be sent through Hope House and shared with the women in class.
Donate supplies like folders, binders, colored pencils (yes, even broken pencils still color!), or Bibles for women who don’t have one.
If you’d like to learn more or get involved, submit the volunteer form at www.hopehousebg.com/volunteer.
At CFR, we’re thankful for ministries like Hope House who remind us that no one is too far gone, too broken, or too lost for the love of Christ. In His hands, broken crayons still color—and broken lives can be made whole again.
Interview Transcript
Derek
Christian Family Radio. Visiting with us today is Stephanie Kechey, who is the director of the program Living at Hope House Ministries. If you’re not familiar with Hope House, they are all about alleviating physical and spiritual poverty through gospel restoration. And Stephanie, first off, thanks for being here today. Tell me a little bit for folks who don’t know what program Living is about.
Stephanie Ketchey
Thank you for having me. So program living at Hope House Ministries, have program living for men, which is a 12-month program. We have program living for women, which is a nine-month program. It used to be 12 months, and we shortened that to nine months to help accommodate the needs of the women who have children, women who are trying to get their children back and have open cases with social workers and such. They need to kind of complete their case within 12 months. And so it’s just easier for them to do that and start looking for a place to live and have for their children if they can just be with us the nine months.
Program Living, the program works the same though with men and women. It’s an opportunity to meet with men and women who have addiction to drugs and alcohol or maybe just a history of addiction to drugs and alcohol maybe they haven’t used in a long time. But are still experiencing struggles with sin in different areas. And so it doesn’t necessarily have to be drugs and alcohol, although most of the time that is a part of it.
We are, during the day, we are helping them to develop a relationship with Christ. We’re speaking gospel to them all the time, whether it be working with our workforce development or whether or not they’re just in classes with us. It’s always gospel centered. So they have the opportunity to do some life skills classes like faith and finance, healthy conflict resolution, resolving everyday conflict, parenting classes, work, life, which is a new class. It’s replaced our jobs for life. So we’re doing that now. And then also specific to the men, specific to the women, we’re providing opportunities for them to have volunteers come in and teach discipleship classes, lots of different Bible studies. It’s amazing. It really is. It really is. And when they’re with us, because they’re with us for that length of time, it really is home for them. And we get to be very much a part of their journey.
Derek
Very well-rounded program.
Stephanie Ketchey
And it’s just really a blessing that they allow us to do that.
Derek
Something new that you guys are offering for women in the jail is a trauma class or seminar. I’m not sure how you want to exactly define it. Tell us a little bit about what that looks like inside the jail. What is the program? How does it work?
Stephanie Ketchey
So we’re teaching the class, it’s called, we’re taking it after a study that I have called Broken Crayon, Still Color. And the premise is that we’re trying to not necessarily look and focus on and have that identity being in the trauma or the things that have happened to us or the things that we have done that have, you the consequences of those are very traumatic as well. Instead of looking at that as our identity, instead of always being focused on those pieces, looking to God, looking to Christ as the one who redeems and restores, looking at our identity in Him and how He can take our mess and turn it into a masterpiece. So broken crayon, still color. And so that is the name of the class and that’s what we’re really doing there.
But the women come in, we limit the class to 12 women. We try to keep it very small and intimate. It’s myself leading as well as another female who actually graduated from our program living and then now is an employee of Hope House Ministries. And so she goes in with me and then another lady in the community that has also taught classes for us in the jail. We go in on Thursdays from 12:30 to 2:30. And we spend about eight weeks with these women, getting to know them, really just telling them who we are, letting them tell us who they are, encouraging them to feel safe with us, and just letting them know really that everyone deals with trauma, right?
Because trauma is really just a result of living in a broken world, a fallen world, and sin, and the consequences that come from other people’s actions. As well as our own, and that we don’t have to live like we’ve lived in the past. We don’t have to stay stuck in the trauma. It doesn’t have to be what controls our actions and reactions to this world and the life we live. Instead, we can turn to Christ, who is the one who has covered all those sins for us, and we find our identity in Him, and live from that versus living from the trauma or the results of sin.
Derek
So is a class required or is it voluntary?
Stephanie Ketchey
It’s voluntary. They offer it to the women. I’m not exactly sure how they go about it and which women it gets offered to in the jail, but it’s offered to them, and then they let us know, give us a list of who’s going to be there. Again, we limit it to 12 women, and then try not to have anyone come in past the third week. That’s really just to protect them, a person who might want to come in at a later date as well as the group that we’re already working with. want everyone to feel safe when they’re with us.
Derek
What are some of the main issues that you see participants face as they’re coming into this course? I know that it’s still relatively new and you just kind of had one graduating class, if you will, but what have you seen so far?
Stephanie Ketchey
So the women that come in, first of all, they find it very difficult to trust people. I think a lot of times they come in, they don’t know what they’re gonna get, and they’re not used to really sharing with us on a level of what their trauma is. They have those kind of tough exteriors that honestly, living the life that they’ve lived and that all of us really, we all have our own ways of coping, our own ways of kind of masking what it is that maybe we’re feeling on the inside. So just really giving them the opportunity and encouraging them to let that exterior down, let the walls down and know that for those two hours that they’re with us, it’s a safe place. And we, one of the ways that we help that is by sharing our own stories with them, not just once in the introduction, but weekly.
We’re sharing how we relate to the lesson, they’re sharing how they relate, we’re kind of pulling it, drawing it out of them. And, you know, it’s a beautiful thing to see women come in who are kind of, they’re shut down, They’re shut down, they’re in survival mode. And then those moments of their willingness to share a part of themselves with us…who would typically be people they would not trust, right? To share those parts of themselves with us and to let down that guard long enough to let us see the real them. You can see it in their eyes. Sometimes there’s tears. Sometimes it may be the last class and someone who hasn’t said very much will open up and really just share a part of themselves that you can see that the Holy Spirit’s been at work while we’ve been there.
Derek
Share with us if you’re able to, obviously anonymously, but a particular story or person that you’ve seen just the transformation take place over these eight weeks.
Stephanie Ketchey
I would say, you know, two of them really, one in this class, which we’re just now about halfway through this class. In the first class we had, there was a lady and she was very quiet all the way through. toward the end, just, you know, I asked her, you know, are you willing to share some of what it is that you struggle with, where you feel that God has left you, where you feel that you can’t turn to Him. And, you know, she shared tearfully how it was that, you know, grandmother had passed away, grandmother was the only person who had ever stuck with her the entire time, and while she was in jail, the grandmother had passed away. And that she just really felt like that she had no one and that she didn’t have anywhere to go when she left. She didn’t have anyone. She didn’t know who or where she was going to be without grandmother.
And toward the end, I guess maybe it was maybe one or two classes later, talking to her again about what have you gotten out of the class. And she said, you know, I’ve learned that. That there are people who love me. There are people who care about me. There are people that are going to be there for me. If I want that, it’s available to me. And just seeing that shift from the hopelessness of without my grandmother, no one else is going to love me. No one else is going to care about me. No one else is going to just be there for me. And learning that with Christ, He will bring people into your world. He will bring people in that do care and that do see you and that it’s not about who you’ve been and what’s happened to you, although those things are important. It’s who you can be and who he wants you to be and that those people will walk with you and that’s what we do.
And then recently we have had, in this class there is one young lady that that she came in and tough from the beginning, know, all jokes and not really very serious. There’s been a couple of times that I’ve been able to get the class to kind of the group to just like focus and get her specifically to answer a question. And you can see those walls coming down with her as well. Again, some tears and saying, I’m emotional and I don’t know why. And I’m saying, we’re emotional because that’s how we were created to be. You there’s nothing wrong with that.
Derek
Are there the roles that the community or volunteers can can play into this class or offering this?
Stephanie Ketchey
Sure, so again, we would love to have more volunteers. We don’t need a whole full, big, large group going in all at one time. However, two, three, four people going in is wonderful because again, it allows the women in the jail to see that there are women on the outside who want to be there, who want to come in and be with them. We’re not afraid of them. We’re not wanting to back away. Instead, we’re wanting to come to them. And it allows them to see that and to get to have some other opportunity for support when they get out, that they’ve made connections, they know where to go.
So we’re always looking for volunteers because not everyone can do it every time. And they don’t even have to be there every week during the eight weeks, although we do encourage that. But yeah, if anyone’s interested in going in, volunteering to…teach the class, to be a part of the class with us, with love for them to reach out to me and we would just talk about what the class is and how they may be able to fit in and be a part of that.
Derek
How do you see, or why do you see that addressing trauma is so essential to someone knowing the Lord and being restored to a relationship with Him?
Stephanie Ketchey
I feel like, you know, all through the Bible there’s trauma. It’s a traumatic story from beginning to end, and yet it’s beautiful. And it’s, you know, the Lord, the trauma that He experienced, you know, His entire life really, especially during His earthly ministry, but so many other people. Trauma, it is important for people to understand that. Trauma is a result of sin. It’s a result of living in the broken and fallen world, it’s not the way this life was supposed to be…it’s not what God’s intention was. It’s not what creation was about. And yet, here we are.
And because of that, and God loving us so much, He made a way. He made a way for us to be able to return to Him to be able to be in relationship with Him, to be able to not have to have our identity be trauma, what happened to me, what I’ve done to others, what this world is doing around me, how I respond and react to everyday life situations. I don’t have to live like that because Jesus Christ has shown me the way. He is the way, right? He’s the one who has gone and has sacrificed His life for me. He’s been a substitution. He has covered the trauma, the sin, he has covered it all so that I can now come and live my identity out, my life out by serving Him, by looking to Him and living from His victory and not from my fallenness, not from my brokenness and the fallenness and the brokenness of the others around me.
And it’s just really beautiful because You know, trauma is real. It is. And it’s a word we hear all the time. Unfortunately, in the world around us, it can become, I feel like if we focus on the trauma too much, we are giving it, we’re feeding it, right? We’re feeding it, we’re growing it, we’re, well, it’s a part of who I am. It’s gonna always be who I am. It’s who I’m known for and all those things. And that’s the way the world deals with it. the way secular therapists kind of look at that. They don’t want you to think, well, this is who I am. But it just reiterates that. It keeps focusing on that with us and with Christians and with faith in Jesus. We look at it. It is what it is. It was what it was. I’m a new creation in Christ, I don’t live from that anymore. That is not who I am. It’s not who I have to be.
Let’s look at the trauma. Let’s look at what about those traumatic circumstances and events caused me to react and respond the way I do so that I can recognize it when something comes up and I think, okay, I can either go back to the traumatic, the kind of trauma reenactment, if you will, and continue down this street of basically re-traumatizing myself and not going anywhere different versus, I don’t have to live like I used to live. I don’t have to respond and react like I used to respond because those things were things. They were important, but what’s more important is what Christ has done for me. So I look to Him and I’m serving Him now. I’m not serving the trauma, I’m serving Christ.
Derek
Finally, for those who are listening and maybe reading about this, how can we come alongside—you’ve talked about volunteering—but how can we come alongside Hope House in this way, in prayer support, other ways that you’ve not mentioned yet?
Stephanie Ketchey
Yeah, prayer support for sure. Prayer is most important. It is very important for Hope House Ministries, for our program Living, as well as this ministry that we’re taking into the jail. And really just praying for the women who are incarcerated, praying for their families, praying for their children, praying for, you know, we talk about how through life it’s just one generation to another, to another, to another. What I like to say is, truthfully, it’s just generational sin, right? It’s all coming from the beginning, right? Adam and Eve. It’s all coming from the beginning in the garden. And so it doesn’t have to continue like that, though.
There are children whose mothers are incarcerated who their mothers loved them. Their mothers never wanted to harm them. Their mothers were just living the best way they knew how. But with the help of Hope House Ministries and even the jail, the Warren County Jail, we thank them so much for just inviting us in, allowing us to be a part of those women’s lives, allowing us to speak truth and love. Just prayer. So yeah, the community can pray for us, can pray for the women, can pray for their families.
Letters, they can always write letters. We love the women, love to receive letters. And anytime, anytime at all that the community is interested in visiting Hope House and what we do there, we’re more than happy to have them. But yeah, it’s just volunteers, that’s what kind of drives Hope House Ministries. And I love it. It’s a true ministry. it’s just, it’s an honor and it’s a privilege that God would allow me to be a part of that and to be a part of his plan.
Derek
In regards to the letters, that something folks can, whether it’s through the actual mail or email, should they be sent to you in Hope House or the jail? How does that work?
Stephanie Ketchey
Yeah, if you want to, if anyone wants to write to the women specifically, they can send them to me. My email is Stephanie at HopehouseBG.com and I can print those off. I can send them in. If you want to make them generic, obviously you don’t know their names. I can just continue to each class, each group that comes…I can make copies of them or if you’re just wanting to…let them know that you’re praying for them, specific ways you’ve prayed for them. I can get those to them.
Another way I would say that we can be supported is, you know, they’re not really allowed to have a lot of stuff in there. I make lots of copies. I try to have folders, binders. We take colored pencils in. We color because broken crayons still color. In this case, pencils, broken pencils still color. So anyone who would want to donate items like that, the Hope House covers the tab for getting those items and taking them in, but anyone who would want to donate those things, that would be helpful.
And then also I would say one of the things the women don’t have, a lot of them don’t have, is a Bible. So maybe if anyone wanted to, it’s not something that, you know, we have a…We actually take in ourselves, but if anyone wanted to donate Bibles or something like that, we would be more than happy to take them in for them.
Derek
Well, Stephanie, I so appreciate your time today and even more so the ministry that Hope House and you specifically are doing to change the lives of women in our community.
Stephanie Ketchey
It’s an honor. It’s always an honor.
Derek
If want to learn more about Hope House, in particular the program Living for Women and the jail ministry that they have, Stephanie mentioned her email. That again is Stephanie with a PH, right? That’s right. Stephanie at HopeHouseBG.com or, of course, just directly to the website, HopeHouseBG.com.
