THE REFUGEE RANCH

OFFERING WOMEN SOBRIETY, NEW HOPE AND SALVATION

By: Gail Veley • Sponsored by SETDA

A27-year-old woman knelt down beside a bleating fawn. Holding a baby bottle in her hand felt strange yet something about it, at the same time, felt natural. Embracing this new little fragile life, she took the fawn in her arms and began to feed it. As the fawn eagerly smacked and suckled the bottle, the young woman realized within the stirring of her soul something about herself she had never strongly considered before. “It made her think maybe she could be a mother someday,” said Mitchell Dobrow, codirector along with her husband Mike of The Refuge Ranch in Okeechobee, Florida. The Refuge Ranch, dedicated to helping women overcome drug and alcohol addiction, helps women discover many things about themselves including sobriety, self-worth, purpose and hope as well as a personal relationship with Christ.

Broken, devastated woman often with nowhere left to turn, have found themselves on the doorstep of a new life by enrolling in the multi-phase program offered at the ranch. A new life was exactly what 29-year-old JackieSue desperately needed after 14 years of drug and alcohol addiction. Her life was literally spinning out of control as she had allowed drugs and alcohol to completely take over. She had lost every meaningful relationship in her life and was living in a shed. After a friend told her about the ranch “for the first time I felt like God was saying this is where I should go,” she reflected. However, the God JackieSue grew up knowing was, in her opinion, a punishing God. “I felt like God loved others but not me,” she said. In the middle of a group session one day at The Refuge Ranch, the teacher played a random song “and I just busted out crying. I realized right then that God has always been right there with me and has always loved me. I have been given these new tools and new life through God and the ranch to help others,” JackieSue, now 34, explained.

Guiding women through their recovery journey and transformation is the main purpose of the 120-acre ranch, whose employees do not see themselves as merely having a job but instead living out their calling. Yet, it all starts by accepting and developing a relationship with the Lord, Mitchell emphasized. “This program is so much more than sobriety,” said Mitchell, who herself personally experienced along with Mike the struggles of addiction. “We teach them life skills that enable them to become the person that God intended them to be.”

The Refuge Ranch, a 501 (c)(3) organization, was founded by Fred Beeson in 2004 and operates on donations and grants. Participants in the program live on-site and begin their 12-month commitment with an Induction Phase, for the purpose of orienting to the program, followed by a Regeneration Phase for rebuilding their lives and learning to love themselves. For those that desire to stay after graduation, a year-long Servant Leadership Program is also offered. The Refuge Ranch works with indigent and low-income women who do not have the financial resources to pay for addiction treatment and does not turn women away due to their inability to pay for the program. Through the generosity of donors and the sale of deer, The Refuge Ranch can continue this mission.

Through the ranch’s carefully structured program, participants awake at 6:30 a.m. each morning for a walk and devotional followed by breakfast, group sessions, lunch, work outside on the ranch grounds followed by dinner, journaling and quiet time. Ranch work includes, among gardening and other

responsibilities, caring for the sizable herd of deer that reside there. In a quest to further teach responsibility and provide supplemental funds for the ranch to operate, a deer farm, Double R Whitetails, was created on-site in 2017. “The deer were a big influence over me and learning to not be selfish,” JackieSue said. “At first I thought it was crazy to be touching a deer and pretty amazing to be bottle feeding them. They teach you about the importance of caring for something that really needs you to be there for them.” Being there for each other is what the women and staff members continuously do each and every day. The ranch typically serves 10-16 women at any one time while making sure all who participate transition into wellrounded addiction free Christ-centered lives. “I was so blessed to be able to come here,” said JackieSue, who is now employed by The Refuge Ranch. “Before that I felt like I had never grown up. I grew up here. I’ve gotten all these tools and I’m going to school now to become a social worker. They saved my life.”