Saturday, God’s House of Hope of Kilmichael held its first graduation service for the residents who successfully completed the program, and some may go on to become staff members and help others at the center that first helped them.
The graduation was held on Saturday, April 17 at Kilmichael Baptist Church. The significance of the event being held at Kilmichael Baptist Church is due to the faith of one of their members, Juanda Swanson, that led God’s House of Hope to open a facility in Kilmichael.
During the graduation, founder Amy Shook Coyle took those in attendance on the process of how the centers in Nettleton and Kilmichael opened. It took her hitting rock bottom and entering a rehabilitation center. It was there where God began to work on her, which led to her to help open similar facilities to the one where she entered.
Coyle had everyone stand in place, showing how God fit all of the pieces together that led to the opening of God’s House of Hope in Nettleton in 2017. It was an email and the faith of Swanson that God used to open the door to Kilmichael.
“I never have time to go through my emails. I have 35,000 emails of people from all over the world wanting help,” she said.
But, on this particular day, she opened Swanson’s email.
“I didn’t know who the woman was, didn’t know where she was,” she said. “The email said that she had been following God’s House of Hope, and her son was going through addiction and she wanted me to pray for him. And I replied back, ‘You never know, we’re liable to put one there one day.’ I want you all to see this. Kilmichael didn’t just happen overnight. We didn’t just pop up here one day and buy a building. It was a process, you have to trust the process,” she said.
Coyle said in 2019, she got a call from Mayor Bobby Howell saying that Swanson told him that they were interested in the area.
“I didn’t know what he was talking about, what area? He said ‘A member of our church said that you told her that, ‘You never know one day, we might end up there,’” Coyle said.
She said Howell told her about the elementary school and asked if she’d be interested. He said it was school property, and she’d have to talk to Dr. Teresa Jackson [superintendent of education for Winona-Montgomery Consolidated School Board] and the Winona-Montgomery Consolidated School Board.
She said they went and spoke to Jackson and the school board attorney Lane Greenlee, and Greenlee asked her why she was driven to this.
“And I told them my story,” she said. “And he asked me did we want it as a gift? Were we going to buy the property? And I told him that all good and perfect gifts come from the Lord,” Coyle said.
She said they were told that with $150,000 they may be able to do it.
“But that wasn’t even half of what it was worth,” she said. “Our insurance adjuster said it was a $2.1 million facility,” she said.
Coyle said she began to pray and speak to God. She said she came to the conclusion that they could come up with half of it, and somehow come up with other $75,000.
“God began to deal with me. He told me ‘Amy, I don’t want you to do what man thinks you should do,’ And I begin to see 40. God said that 40 is when things come full term.”
She said they offered a bid for $40,000, and the next day, the district accepted the bid.
She said they began to wonder what do they do now? Coyle said God told her that you can’t do life alone and to ask people and churches to help. She said she reached out to one person and asked them to sponsor a room to outfit and decorate, and soon all of the rooms were assigned.
Each room was dedicated by someone in the community. An encouraging message was left in each, and every room to help those as they go through the program.
But, for so many present Saturday, not only is the program a blessing to those that go through it but it’s one for those who are have helped or have sown seeds into the program. There weren’t many dry eyes as they poured out love for not only the program, but for each other and mostly importantly the Lord.
The speaker for the evening was Apostle Ed Pitts of Orlando, Fla. It was Pitts’s wife, Mary, who Coyle met at a women’s conference. The Pittmans have remained connected to God’s House of Hope. Coyle and co-founder Jennifer Sprayberry were preparing for a trip to Florida to see the Pittmans when they learned of the Kilmichael speaking opportunity.
Pitts gave his testimony of how he thought once thought his hard work was the reason why he’d been successful, but God showed him through a battle with cancer that it was Him that gave promotion and increase.
He said his battle with cancer taught him how to live life one day at a time.
“Tomorrow’s is not a definite for you,” Pitts said. “I thought it was by my effort, work, discipline and that I was likable that promoted me. The whole time it was God, and I didn’t know it.”
The joy and love were seen the first graduates of God’s House of Hope received their certificates.
“I’ve never graduated from anything in my life,” one graduate said. “The only certificate my name has been on were parole papers.”
