What is Freedom Village USA?

What is Freedom Village USA? Someone asked me that question the other day and it made me think… what is Freedom Village USA? We all know that it is the North America’s Premier Home for Troubled Teens. We also know that it has helped thousands of troubled teens, given them new hope and faith in Jesus Christ and new lives as a result. So maybe the real question is not “What is Freedom Village USA” but rather how and why does Freedom Village work? The answer can be found in God’s perfect orchestration of blessings and miracles.

From the outside it is dormitories, administration buildings, chapel, cafeteria, Ruth house, a football field, basketball courts, on campus bed and breakfast and horse arena and barns. Sounds pretty normal, huh? Now nestle all of that on 150 acres of beautiful countryside overlooking Seneca Lake and surround it with God’s angels. It paints quite a picture, doesn’t it? God couldn’t have picked a better setting to do His work.

And the sounds of Freedom Village are in perfect sync. Birds singing in the morning, kids chattering during mealtime, prayer during morning chapel, staff members sharing stories, voices of the choir practicing in the afternoon, lawn mowers, basketballs bouncing, kids playing on the playground and horses making themselves known. All of these make up the “spiritual music” that is Freedom Village USA.

And God’s wisdom didn’t stop when He chose the people to work at Freedom Village… Mr. Siegfried leading morning chapel, Mr. Fisher meeting with deans, all of the deans who help the teens by sharing their past experiences, Ms. Ginger juggling a million things at once, Ms. Danny tuning up all the new voices in the choir and at the head of it all… Pastor Brothers, the man with a vision as big as his heart, shouting “Good Morning”. The family of God working together towards one goal… spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and redeeming these broken lives through the only hope there is.

Put all of those components together and it adds up to one miracle after another. It’s the atmosphere and attitude… the Spirit that is in and amongst all these things. The knowledge that when you come here, you don’t have a history, just a future. Your disabilities are invisible and your abilities appreciated. There are no races, creeds and colors, just a collection of hearts and souls. And above all, the opportunity to take broken souls and make them whole.

Ira's Freedom Village Story

My name is Ira and I am 21 years old. I was born in the Ukraine. When I was just a year and a half old, I was taken away from my family, who were all alcoholics. I was placed in an orphanage for babies and later, when I turned two years old, was put into another orphanage for older kids. I lived there for ten years.

When I was ten years old, these people we never saw before started visiting our orphanages. ‘Papa Fletcher’ (as he was known to us) and his friends came and brought us all these things we never had before – food, clothes and medicine. They made it possible for us to have heat and other comforts that most people had.

Pastor Brothers and other staff and supporters from Freedom Village USA visited our orphanage several times over the next two years. We celebrated Christmas together each year, and each of us received our own box of gifts – clothes and toys like we had never seen before. It was a big blessing for all of us.

After a couple of visits, one of the families began to talk to me and seemed to take a special liking to me. A couple weeks later, my director came to me and asked me if I wanted to be adopted by an American family. Of course I said, “Yes!” I wanted to have a family that loved me and were not alcoholics. A couple of months later, my new family came from Freedom Village USA and took me home with them.

For a while, everything was fine between my family and me. I had some struggles adjusting and learning a new language, but it was very exciting to be in America. Five or six months later, my mom and I started to not get along. That’s when everything started going in the wrong direction. I started to rebel against my family and tried to get everything to go my way, but that never worked for me. My family knew what I was trying to do and I knew they were only doing what was best for me. Things slowly started getting worse. My dad came to me explained to me that I would have to straighten up and that if I didn’t turn my attitude around, I would have to move out by the time I was eighteen. I had two months left.

For a few weeks I just didn’t care. Then one night, I was just lying on my bed. I said to myself “Wow, I really don’t have any hope left in me.” I had been given this incredible opportunity, but now I was screwing everything up. I didn’t know what to do with all of the hurt that I had been holding inside. So when the time came to move out, I made the best decision I could – I decided to go into the program at Freedom Village USA.

I struggled for a long time after entering the program. I could make it look like things were going well, but on the inside, nothing was changing.

Finally, God broke through everything that was going on in my heart. He showed me His love - that He chose me - and helped me understand how much my family loved me, in choosing me to be a part of their family. He healed the wounds of my past and helped me put my life back together.

All of a sudden, things changed. I started moving up in levels. Soon, I was given the opportunity to be part of a singing group. I started traveling and singing, sharing my story with others.

This past June, I finally graduated from high school. I was given the level of Junior Staff, and I am able to work at Freedom Village USA and help give back to the program that helped me so much.

I can’t say ‘Thank you’ enough to the people who support Freedom Village USA and to those who came to the Ukraine and supported orphans like me. Most importantly, I thank Jesus Christ, for it is through his grace and love that I was able to forgive and let go of all the hurt inside.

- Former Freedom Village USA student

This is How it Feels to be Free

"My name is Jonathan and I am 19 years old. I have been at Freedom Village USA for a little more than a year now. As a child, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would not have been able to give you a straight answer. But I would never have imagined that I would grow up to be a drug addict.

I guess that the first few years of my life were pretty normal; the usual family issues, struggles and growing pains. There wasn’t a close connection with my siblings - kind of a silent, sad separation between us. However, as I got older, I found out that I had an older brother that I had never met - a brother that had committed suicide when I was only eight months old. Now I started to understand why my family was so distant and detached.

Despite the circumstances, my family tried to raise me right. They took me to church, and I learned all the Bible stories and heard about how great God is. Unfortunately, He didn’t seem too great in my life. At the age of seven, as a confused and vulnerable little kid, I was sexually abused. Since I didn’t have a close relationship with my family, I didn’t know who to turn to. Instead, it just continued – for about three years. I was broken. My self-worth was absolutely destroyed. And I became extremely bitter: bitter towards my parents for not caring about me enough, bitter towards everyone else who seemed to have such a perfect life, and most of all, bitter at God for allowing this all to happen to me.

Finally, my parents moved and the abuse stopped. We all seemed to become more of a family. I figured that this was the break that I had been hoping for all of these years. I made new friends and had a fresh start. Of course, there was not much about my past to be proud of, so I began to lie about who I was. No one knew the real me. And that’s the way I wanted it to be. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep faking it, and the problems of my past came back to haunt me.

Before long, I felt worse about myself than I did before we moved. Everything came flooding back, and I fell into deep depression. Around that time, I was introduced to drugs and alcohol. Basically, this was the devil’s attempt at sealing my fate once and for all, as things got so bad that I tried taking my own life.

Things were out of control and I was sick of my life. And after feeling like I hit rock bottom, I knew I needed to change. That’s when my parents presented me with the opportunity to go to Freedom Village USA – and I accepted their offer.

When I came to Freedom Village USA, I experienced what I should have known all along: God loves me. He knew all along that my life would be better than I could have ever imagined. No matter how much I tried to run from Him, He was always there, chasing after me. But God never forced me to serve Him – He waited patiently for me to make that decision on my own.

I have come a long way since I have been at Freedom Village USA. I finally understand how it feels to be free of the guilt and shame of the past. The Lord has blessed me with a solid family at Freedom Village USA. I have had the opportunity to travel all over the United States and Canada, sharing testimony about what God has done in my life. And I have the privilege of being a leader in the dormitory. I also am one of the chore bosses at the horse barn, and have learned a lot of things that I never knew before. Most importantly, I get to be an example – a light to other young people who are coming through the program. I get to show them what Christ can do in a life.

It took going through all of this to get to where I am today. And it took being in the valley for most of my young life for God to show me what I really am worth to Him. Now I know that I have in me what it takes to be somebody special. And while I have only begun my walk along the straight and narrow, I know one thing for sure – I will never look back."

- Former Freedom Village USA student