As Erika graduated from Connie Maxwell Children’s Ministries’ Family Care Program this spring, she reminisced about the ways she’s grown and developed during the past two years living in Greenwood.
“Family Care is amazing. As much as I was bound and determined to be miserable for so long in the beginning and was struggling to keep hold of my past self, the program really works if you just do it as asked and intended,” she says, having now completed it. “It allows you to focus on yourself and your children, and gives the opportunity to heal from what you’ve been through. It’s life changing in all the right ways.”
THE ARRIVAL
Originally from Reno, Nevada, Erika is the mother of five children aged five to 12. She is an avid reader; in fact, she’s already read 31 books this year. When she and four of her children needed a safe place to live on short notice two years ago, a community contact recommended Connie Maxwell.
“I was hesitant because Family Care was not what I expected,” Erika admits. “The first year was really rough. I was resistant to change, not entirely committed to getting with the program, and determined to be miserable.”
Despite these mixed emotions Erika appreciated Family Care’s generosity and the care her family received as they arrived, noting the immediate sense of relief she felt with being given safe housing and a gift card to help buy diapers. One of her earliest memories is of the family sitting down to have lunch together on their first day in the Family Care house. “We took a deep breath. It was everything I’d hoped and prayed for up to that point.”
The family experienced culture shock as they adjusted, mostly because their new home “was so quiet. There was a strange sense of isolation too, which is part of the process of learning independence and how to drop bad habits.” Erika’s children’s biggest worry was being separated through the Foster Care system, so they were grateful to stay together but struggled with the new house rules in the early days.
After a few months Erika and her children moved into the next phase of Family Care, which included starting her college education, completing a driver’s training course, and obtaining her license. Her children caught up on their medical and dental care and received help getting their birth certificates. One of the hardest rules the family had to get used to was not having access to electronics, with the exception of a landline house phone.
Erika had a pivotal conversation with Connie Maxwell President Dr. Danny Nicholson during the summer of 2024, during which she confessed her struggles with rules and making headway in the program. She knew what had to change but something about that conversation finally made it click.
“I felt defeated when Dr. Nicholson said, ‘Why don’t you try not standing in your own way and see how it happens.’” Erika recalls. “When I started to actually do this, everything got better really quickly. Dr. Nicholson is spectacular and has such a sweet soul. He said the right thing at the right time, and I realized that maybe it really was me that was creating the problems for myself.”
“What we get to do here is amazing, but it’s not us. What God is allowing the Connie Maxwell family to do blows my mind sometimes,” says Family Care Director Diana Johnson. “We bring these families in right where they are and tell them that we’ll love them until they can love themselves, and then we’ll love them some more.”
THE TURNAROUND
Erika began to notice her progress and behaviors changing, and she knew that God had her family at Connie Maxwell for a reason. She started the first of her degrees in business administration and accounting and, despite taking five classes during her first and second semesters of college, she earned a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
“When you go to school when you’re older you just want it so much more. You understand it’s to better your life and it’s your choice. Plus being good at it really motivates me,” Erika says before admitting “I never thought I was intelligent enough for college, and here they make you feels like you can do anything if you just try hard enough. It is achievable.”
As she focused on her own growth Erika’s children also flourished in Family Care. Horseback riding was an important outlet for her daughter and the entire family will always remember Christmastime at Connie Maxwell, especially the horsedrawn carriage ride through campus to see the lights and decorations. Summertime experiences at Lake Greenwood have also provided life-long memories for her family.
“Amazing things have happened to my kids here. Seeing me calm down, be present with them, and control my emotions has given them the ability to do similar things for themselves. They have all requested to attend therapy,” Erika reports. “Today they are confident, comfortable, doing well in school – just everything you could have hoped for and nothing more I could have asked for them.”
GRADUATION SURPRISES
Connie Maxwell and Family Care staff recognized Erika with two special awards during her graduation ceremony. The Proverbs 31 Award is given to an individual or family who has shown a willingness to grow spiritually, a recognition Erika felt surprised and grateful to have received. She admits having a casual, nonchalant relationship with God through the years. She was never active in church but says she was always praying and communicating with God.
“I follow God with abiding faith, so it felt really good to be recognized for something that I consider to be a basic but still important part of me,” Erika says. “My children can now see and partake in this award, too, by showing them they can hold on to God and achieve things through His power.”
Erika also received the Faulkenberry Way Maker Award, considered to be Family Care’s most prestigious distinction, that recognizes a program graduate’s positive attitude to “never give up.” The struggling mother who moved to Greenwood two years ago with temporary custody of four of her children and who had no education and nothing to her name, now has a future and hope because of the commitment she had to embrace and complete a life-changing program.
“Family Care is not for the faint of heart, it’s for people who really want to change. It felt good to be recognized for all of the obvious struggles I’d had throughout the program,” Erika says of the recognition of her accomplishments. “This is a testimony to how this program works if you sign up to complete it. It is truly the grace of God, because my life before felt impossible.”
A PROMISING NEW FUTURE
If Erika could time travel and speak with her former self as she began her journey through Family Care, she would advise embracing the experience with open arms. She says the former Erika had bad habits, sought all the wrong types of attention, and saw no possible future. She’d want her to know that “people here are not the enemy, they’re helping you. Family Care is going to surpass expectations and be exactly what you need.”
Erika has secured a promising job in Colorado, which is just one of the ways this experience has surpassed expectations. She will get to use her accounting degrees in her new role with a financial investment firm, and will be living with a family member in a new apartment that has plenty of space for her children. The family will also receive after-care in the coming year.
For her part, Johnson says seeing Erika and her family move on is bittersweet, but she is “awesomely proud” of them. “Once Erika responded to the structure of the program, it was like watching a butterfly go from a cocoon to being fully evolved and ready to fly away. When you walk beside someone for two years it takes space in your heart. In Family Care we pray that God continues to build up our hearts to have more and more room to do what He is calling us to do.”
As her time in Greenwood comes to an end, Erika admits feeling surprisingly emotional as she and her family prepare for their move. She is grateful for the personal impacts made by Nicholson and his wife Debra, and for Pastor Ed’s special way of creating a church community that has included her children. She also searches for how to express her gratitude for Family Care and its staff, who have guided her through what she calls a time of “amazing blessing.”
“I am a better person for having participated in the Family Care program, and for having them in my life. It’s something that should be treasured and supported. It’s doing great work for people who feel helpless and lost, and don’t know how to be a normal person again after all the things they’ve gone through,” Erika says, before adding “I am really going to miss these people. And I wouldn’t change a thing about this journey.”
