Heart & Soul for Helping Others
/As the Executive Director of Haven Homes and ministry leader of Celebrate Recovery, Jeni Eldridge carries out her favorite hobby of loving people
by JENNIFER JORDAN
photo by ALAMOND PHOTOGRAPHY
Jeni with her sons – Daniel, Josh, and Billy – enjoying family time last Thanksgiving in Louisiana.
Jeni enjoys some sand and surf time at Anna Marie Beach last November.
Peggy Goodwin, Jeni, and Stacey Smallwood during Haven Resale Store’s Grand Opening on October 15, 2020. The store is located in the former Bryce’s Cafeteria at 2021 Mall Drive.
There are ups and downs in everyone’s life. For most people, the positives outweigh the negatives. For some people, though, life is full of constant struggle. They don’t have the personal and spiritual resources to get through the dark times. They need to know that they are valued, that they have self-worth, and that God loves them. They just don’t know how to believe this. But they haven’t met Jeni Eldridge yet.
Jeni has a heart and soul for helping broken people. As the Executive Director of Haven Homes and Ministry Leader of the Celebrate Recovery program at First Baptist Church Texarkana, Jeni gets to see people healed every day. A friend once described her as a “weeds person.” “I love pulling people out of the weeds when they are ready to come out,” she explains. “The word tells us some plant, some water, and some get to see to the finished product. At Celebrate Recovery and at Haven Homes sometimes we are planting, sometimes we are watering, and sometimes we get to see all of the weeds in a person’s life weeded out. Then we get to see the absolute beautiful product of what God meant them to be.”
As a mother, grandmother, and retired teacher, Jeni has served people much of her life. In June 2013, two years before retiring from public school teaching, Jeni received a phone call from a friend while she was walking around her block. “My phone rang, and the voice on the other end said ‘Jeni, you have to do this.’ A very dear friend who I had visited with on several occasions about her home for women was very strongly encouraging me to open a home for women who struggled with drug and alcohol issues,” Jeni recalls. “I promised her I would ‘pray about it.’ The rest is history. Haven Homes was birthed because I did pray, and God spoke. Once you say yes to God you give it to Him. He will guide, direct, provide, and give you wisdom to follow through with what He has called you to. He will put the right people in your path to help guide the mission.” Today, Haven Homes is living its mission by providing two homes for women who have graduated from Bowie County Women’s Center. “We opened our Haven Men’s Center in September of 2013,” Jeni explains. “This facility can house 44 men, offers a 12-month program, and does not charge any man coming into our program.” As of now Haven Homes has had over 170 men and women come through its program. A very large percentage of these men and women are restored to their families, living productive lives, and are being viable citizens in their communities through the grace and healing of Jesus.
Four of Jeni’s greatest blessings are her grandchildren, Liam, Cruz, Hava, and Poppy Kate.
The Celebrate Recovery ministry also teaches healing through Jesus, specifically through the eight Beatitudes and the traditional 12 step program. Celebrate Recovery (CR) is a worldwide ministry that began over 30 years ago through Cheryl and John Baker with Rick Warren at Saddleback Church. Today, over 30,000 churches host a Celebrate Recovery group, with materials translated into 19 languages. Millions have healed. The FBC Texarkana group began in 2013. In 2015, Ada Ferguson, the church counselor, approached Jeni about leading the group after the original leaders moved out of town. Jeni prayed about it, and thinking about how intertwined the CR and Haven Homes ministries are, why shouldn’t she take on the leadership role?
These ministries, in fact, helped Jeni as much as they have helped other people. “I have been told that you minister out of your own pain,” she comments. “Drugs and alcohol were never a habit or a hang up for me personally, but I minister from my hurt and experience it has brought to my life through my children. When you find your own children in the throes of addiction and alcoholism, it can cause some of the deepest hurt a parent can ever experience because you want to help. Isn’t that what a parent is supposed to do when their children are suffering? I prayed and pleaded with God to heal my children of this dreadful dark disease. I have been called a codependent, an enabler, a protector from the system, and I am guilty, I have been a rescue Mom on steroids! I did it all thinking I could save my child, what parent wouldn’t? Finally, after many years of counseling and well-meaning people explaining to me one more time that until they were ready, they will not stop, until they hit their bottom, there was nothing I could do, I finally let go.”
The Celebrate Recovery banner lists many reasons that people become involved in this program.
Working with both Celebrate Recovery and Haven Homes and witnessing her own children’s struggles has taught Jeni much about addiction. It has also given Jeni hope that her children will get through their own journeys of recovery. She credits both ministries with helping her to navigate to the other side of “my insanity.”
While Haven Homes focuses on women and men recovering from alcohol and drug addiction, Celebrate Recovery reaches a broader audience of people who are hurting. Jeni elaborates, “Today, only one-third of the people who come to Celebrate Recovery come for alcohol or addiction issues. Through the program of CR, we invite everyone to come who has any hurt, habit, or hang-up. Who hasn’t been hurt in life? We believe through CR that you commit your life to Jesus Christ as your higher power and as your Lord and Savior. We will have troubles in this life but to walk in the confidence that we can live in eternity totally healed is amazing and life changing.” Jeni notes that some of the “hurts” that bring people to CR include PTSD, trauma from racial injustice, and living as an adult child of family dysfunction. Some of the “hang ups” or issues we have developed as a result of hurts include resentment, bitterness, negativity, low self-esteem, and lack of trust. Habits used to cope with the hurts include addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, food, shopping, as well as anger and control issues. Jeni elaborates that “we never really graduate from recovery because we live in a fallen world. Some of our hurts take years to heal from, and some we just need to say out loud, and God will heal. Some of us in recovery are here for a season and some are lifers. Some will find other ways to maintain their healing while others know the only way is to stay in a place of encouraging others, of serving others.”
Jeni could not lead the CR ministry without the invaluable aid of Chris Schroeder, the wise FBC counselor who teaches most lessons on Tuesday evenings, or the support of pastors Dr. Jeff Schreve and Larry Sims. She invites anyone to join their “forever family,” as the group members refer to each other, on Tuesday nights from 6-8 p.m. Jeni also remarks that other CRs meet on other nights in the Texarkana area.
When she’s not serving Haven Homes or CR, Jeni enjoys time with her five grandchildren, whom she considers her greatest joy. She also likes going to the beach with a good book or lying in bed with a good book. Yet, her favorite hobby is loving people. “I get to serve the most incredible people on earth today. The people who are brave enough to say I have a problem and I need help. What better hobby to have!” Indeed.