They look to the Morning Star for guidance

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN LAURA CAMPBELL
The camp and retreat business may slow down this fall at the Morning Star Ranch near Florence, but that means the five young men working there will get to spend their extra time back in the classroom.

And they’ll get to do so without the distractions of the inner cities that they each left to come live, learn and work in the Ranch’s Christian Leadership Training Program.

The two-year program, targeting urban men ages 18 to 25, is just one way the Ranch seeks to serve inner cities and thus fulfill the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20, said director Jim Elam.

The Ranch was founded in 1981 by Tabor College alumni Elam, Joe Graham, Al Ewert and a handful of other staff with World Impact.

“When we received it, it was just an old farmhouse and 560 acres of land,” said Elam of the Ranch. “It’s grown quite a bit.”

Elam said Ewert had the original vision for the Ranch while he was working with World Impact in Wichita.

“He was noticing there were a lot of young men just hanging around his house,” Elam said. “They didn’t have a vision, they didn’t have an idea what they wanted to do.

“But they did have a desire to get their lives together.”

Elam said Ewert and other World Impact staffers began praying about the idea of a facility away from the inner city for young urban men who had made a commitment to Christ but wanted to grow in their Christian walk and be more “rooted and grounded in God’s word.”

When the property just east of Florence became available, World Impact made the purchase and asked Elam, newly graduated from Tabor College with a physical education degree, to join the staff.

“My vision was to go do inner-city ministry,” Elam said. “But they were getting ready to buy a ranch out here in Florence, and they needed someone to staff it.”

Elam worked at the Ranch under the direction of Graham until 1987, when he left to join the Tabor College staff. Elam returned to the ranch in 1999 as director.

Since 1981, more than 85 men have graduated from the leadership training program.

The program begins with a three-month training period at Deer Creek Christian Camp in Colorado, where students are introduced to the program’s core values and taught the basics of the Christian faith.

Students then move to Morning Star Ranch to complete the remaining 21 months of the program.

At the Ranch, students also continue to learn, develop and demonstrate fitness in the program’s five core values: a dynamic walk with God, commitment to teamwork, dedication to servant-leadership, a compelling witness for God and a passion for discipleship.

Elam said the spiritual component is the foundation of the program for a group of young men who have been enslaved with lies.

“They understand that they no longer have to live in bondage, in captivity of the old,” he said. “People have probably told them at some point they’ll never amount to nothing.

“The spiritual component is freeing, because they’re learning to live by Biblical principles,” he added.

The Bible classes, taught by Ron Phelps of Wichita, offer training in discipleship, leadership, spiritual disciplines and work ethic.

But the spiritual component also includes such activities as one-on-one mentoring, Bible study, Scripture memorization, devotions, group prayer time, evangelistic outreaches in connection with church plants, and classes through World Impact’s Bible school, The Urban Ministry Institute.

Elam said it is this part of their program that continues to expand the most through partnership with churches.

“The way I see us growing continually is the way God’s opening doors for us to get involved with other ministries,” he said. “There’s a lot more networking that’s happening.”

The other components of the program-life skills training and vocational training-have grown over the years, too, Elam said.

The life skills component is basically about survival, he said, to help students become better equipped to live in the “real world” upon graduation.

“We need to know how to save a penny once in a while or write a check,” Elam said. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t know how to do that.”

Students learn such skills as “how to cook or separate your clothes so they don’t all turn the same color-all the basic tools of survival,” he added. “It helps them put forth 100 percent.”

Areas for learning skills within this component include personal finances and budgeting, nutrition, house cleaning and washing clothes, dental hygiene, relationships with women, hospitality, multi-cultural relations, exercise, obtaining a driver’s license, menu planning, grocery shopping and cooking for a household.

And in the vocational component, students get down to work, earning their keep at the Ranch and gaining hands-on experience in a variety of work areas.

“The guys are not per say going to get a vocational degree here,” Elam said. “But they may get introduced to something.

“Whatever type of vocation we’re doing at the time, they get introduced to it.”

Areas of vocational work include vehicle and building maintenance, gardening and lawn care, life-guarding, kids’ camp counseling, new house construction, sheet rocking, painting, electrical work, plumbing, laying tile, laying rock siding, raising livestock, computer basics, welding and woodwork.

“You’d be amazed at some of the gifts and talents that these guys have,” he said.

The message the Ranch staff strives to communicate through this component is simple but often necessary.

“You can do it if you’re ready to apply yourself,” Elam said. “For a lot of our guys, they’ve never been told that.

“First they have to slow down and realize that God has a plan for (them),” he added. “Secondly, they have to get rid of the voices that are telling them, ‘Hey, you’re not going to amount to much.'”

The program depends on the one-on-one relationship built between students and staff members, who include Meg and Val Newton, Terrie Riegle, Elam and wife Rebecca, Phelps, Tim Suderman, Troy Rasmussen and Jeff and Margaret Stukey.

“That’s the difference between us and a college,” Elam said. “We spend a lot of one-on-one time.

“We really focus to make sure that their needs are being met and they’re being worked with.”

This fact keeps Elam from getting too carried away with the recruiting he enjoys so much.

“I can accommodate up to 100 if we need,” Elam said of the ranch’s housing potential.

But he intentionally keeps the numbers small, even though these days “it seems like there are more avenues to recruit these guys” than when they first started, he said.

At a cost of about $900 a month to house a student, the Ranch is funded in part through donations from churches and individuals, mostly in conjunction with World Impact ministries, Elam said.

But the majority of the the Ranch’s funds comes from its camping and retreat facilities, with overnight summer camp facilities for 72 campers, a year-round retreat lodge for 40, a dining room that seats 120 and a meeting room that seats 110.

Recreational facilities at the Ranch include a swimming pool, a basketball/tennis court, a sand volleyball area, a horseshoe pit, hiking trails, biking trails, a baseball/softball diamond, playground equipment and a park area.

And canoeing on the Cottonwood River that runs directly through the ranch property is a favorite pasttime.

Ranch students work to maintain and operate these camp and retreat facilities especially during the summer, Elam said.

“That’s how they help fund us, because they’re actually helping us with some of the physical work that happens around here,” he said. “They’re not in the classroom too often during the summer.”

Elam emphasized that the young men come to the camp willingly and stay voluntarily.

“These guys can leave anytime they want to,” he said. “There’s nobody here forcing them to stay. It’s their own personal convictions before the Lord.”

Most come to the Ranch through World Impact church plants, Elam said. But others are referred by friends, family members and church-related contacts.

“Ideally we would like our guys to come through church plants,” he said. “(But) as long as guy is meeting our criteria, I’m open to listening to him. If a guy truly wants to make a difference and change, we listen to them.”

Elam said a submissive spirit is key to a student’s success in the program.

“First they submit to God, and then they are ready to submit to the authorities that God has placed in their life,” he said.

“They spend three months out at Deer Creek really processing and seeing if this is what they want to do,” he added. “Usually if they’ve made it through three months, they come out here.”

Elam said this process has been intentionally slowed.

“When we first started we were getting guys in who were sort of running from their problems,” he said. “It was more of a life-or-death situation, in the beginning.

“Now we’re working with guys who have come to a point in their lives (where they) say, ‘You know, I really am ready to allow God to take care of my life,'” he added. “They’re processing their decision more.”

Elam said the Ranch staffers work tailored to each student’s particular needs and desires.

“We basically sit down and talk to them about their goals and what they want to do,” he said.

“It’s almost like when they settle down and really see their potential and know what they can do, they see the sky’s the limit.

“I never tell a guy he can’t do something,” he added. “If I do that, then I’m putting God in a box.”

The young men come to the program with varying levels of education, Elam said, some with a year or two of college behind them and others without even a high school diploma.

They work to help the men achieve their educational goals as well, he said.

“We’re trying to network with the learning center in Hillsboro,” he said. “Some of our guys will be attending that this coming fall.

“That’s on top of everything else,” he added.

Elam said support from other programs and individuals in the area is what has helped this program thrive.

Such a partnership is evidenced by community attendance at Ranch events like the Aug. 6 graduation of Mike Estrada. The evening ceremony also acknowledged alumnus Alex White and another young man completing his third year, Elam said.

“It just shows us that there are people who are taking interest in what God’s doing here,” he said. “We just want to especially express our thanks for their support and let them know that this is as much their place as it is our place.”

Elam said he wants the program to continue to be as God-centered as it has been over the nearly 25 years it has existed.

“I don’t want to be in the public eye, I want to be in God’s eye,” he said.

“Our hope is that these houses would just continually be filled with young men,” he added.

“Our visions are big.”

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