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said, she planned to attend the program for two weeks. Now, her husband of two years supports her decision to extend her stay for a full nine months. Since arriving at the Women’s Refuge, Butcher has learned how to plan meals, balance a budget and cook. Her husband is a frequent visitor on the weekends and volunteers around the house providing assistance as needed. Butcher draws a triangle on a white board in the residents’ living room, putting the husband and wife on opposite corners at the bottom of the triangle, and God at the top. “My marriage is growing,” she said. “See how the husband and wife as they get closer to God, they get closer to each other.” For more information, please call the Women’s Refuge at 772770-4424.
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located at 1625 10th Avenue, has recently merged with the organization’s resale furniture shop in the same plaza behind Kmart. Currently, a 23-year-old woman from North Carolina, Kathryn Preble, who has been living at the refuge for six months, is making arrangements to extend her stay to two years, enabling her to complete the internship program. Preble was going through “a really rough time in my life, I was in a bad relationship, physically abusive, and I didn’t know who I was or what I was doing,” she said. Now, she maintains a job while satisfying the program’s requirements, which have helped her “feel worthy of much greater things,” she said. Another current resident, Tabitha Butcher, 27, has lived at the refuge for three months. After experiencing a “melt down,” she
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year mental, emotional and spiritual journey as a resident, completing the internship program developed by Robart and she is certified as an addiction professional. “I never left,” said Schaefer, who has been working in various capacities over the past eight years as a counselor, public relations director, and her current role as program director. “Our program helps women get rid of coping mechanisms that no longer serve them,” said Schaefer, who points out that “most coping mechanisms are established by age eight.” The refuge has sprung off-shoots programs and there are now similar women’s refuges in Colombia, South Africa and a sanctuary for women getting out of jail in St. Augustine, Florida called Refuge Ranch. For the second year, the organization is hosting a Leadership Conference August 13 – 18, “to train people who have their own ministry to start their own refuge,” said Schaefer. The cost is $350. The refuge also hosts monthly luncheons to introduce the program’s tenets and principles -- as well as the board of directors, medical and legal partners, and the residents themselves -- to concerned citizens and potential donors. This summer, there are also two weekend retreats offered to women July 19-21 and July 26-28. The cost for these “tune-ups,” as Schaefer calls them, is $75. The organization receives no government funding, but meets its $225,000 annual budget in part through the $600/month for room and board each resident pays, with some scholarships available, as well as funding from grants, annual fundraisers and a physician’s symposium, which has connected the cause with a steady influx of new supporters. As another stream of revenue, the Women’s Refuge Resale Shop,
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port from Robart’s church in Charlotte, N.C., Robart and her band of warriors leased a building on State Road 60 and 9th Avenue – two clapboard houses right before U.S 1. As the organization established lasting relationships with area churches and ministries, demand for the counseling services increased and the refuge flourished. In 2001, the organization purchased the land on Lemon Avenue, transporting a donated house from 6th Avenue onto the property, which now serves as the administrative building, and eventually constructed two new buildings in 2004 and 2005 to house the residents and various programs. Program participants must sign a contract that prohibits the use of alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and sugar, and commits participants to regular church attendance, chores and full involvement in the program’s curriculum. “They receive accountability, counseling, books, tapes, CDs, and programs supplemented with materials to help stabilize participants and help them get to know the Lord better,” said Schaefer. Schaefer, a teacher for 22 years in Ohio, was the third person in her family to avail herself of the healing potential at the Women’s Refuge. Growing up with a sexually abusive father, Schaefer, who has never been married and has no children, said she had repressed the memories until her sister, Paula Bogart, now a counselor at the Women’s Refuge, sought help and became one of the program’s first residents. After that, Schaefer’s 81-yearold mother lived at the refuge for six months. “Then it was my turn,” said Schaefer, admitting her lifelong coping mechanisms intended to cover up the pain no longer worked. “God is so good, he let it catch up to me.” In 2002, Schaefer began a two