Rehoboth Ranch rehab looks to heal through faith

EDISON — Roughly a year after God sent him a power vision, addict turned shepherd Rob Morgan; his wife, Selina, and a dedicated group of volunteers from his church and the surrounding community are ready to help other broken souls be healed by the Lord at Rehoboth Ranch Ministries.

Located in Calhoun County, just outside the unincorporated town of Dickey, Rehoboth Ranch is a 90-acre rehabilitation mission where individuals struggling with substance abuse can get started on a road to recovery, and, as the Morgans believe, find the pathway back to their creator.

“The Lord, he changed me,” Morgan explained recently at the ranch. “When I went to rehab, I realized there was a difference between going to church and realizing who Jesus was, Jesus being the Lord. He tells a story about the birds in the field and the flowers in the field and they don’t worry about nothing. Because he made them. It was his design to care about everything he made and mankind is the same way. And I grabbed a hold of that. That was the design from the get-go. That’s what we’re doing here.”

At its simplest, Rehoboth Ranch will be a working farm, one where alcoholics and addicts can stay from four months to a year and begin the healing process. While there, the men will help tend the farm in an effort to rehabilitate their bodies, minds and souls.

“It’s going to be a working farm,” Morgan said. “We’ll have 50 cows here, goats, sheep, chickens, pigs, chihuahuas, rats, rat terriers, whatever we can make money off of while giving people a kind of responsibility.”

Morgan said the property also will be used to teach those men skills and, hopefully, a trade they can use when they leave for their betterment and that of their communities. Having worked in body shops most of his adult life, Morgan is planning to teach auto body work.

Helping Morgan with the farm will be his friend and the pastor at Leary Baptist Church, Craig O. Layton, who, in addition to being a recovering addict like Morgan, is a master carpenter who will operate a wood shop on the ranch, where he hopes to teach woodworking.

“We can bring people here, give them tools,” Morgan said. “While you’re here, you’ll learn a trade, or work in a trade, you’ll volunteer in a trade, you’ll be trained in a trade. That’s how it work. We train people here.”

Although Morgan, Layton and the other volunteers see teaching at the ranch critical for the men to integrate back into society, they also see the work program as important for instilling a sense of community in the men’s hearts.

“There’s work to be done here,” Layton said. “There’s enough space where the people that live here, those that volunteer from in the community, everybody becomes inter-dependent on one another. If I pull my load, then you’re not lacking in the place where you had to do something else.

“If we’re all working together, then we’ll survive together. We’ll make it together. There’s a quality of love that comes from sharing with each other.”

BOTH LAYTON AND Morgan believe the true heart and purpose of the rehab is the ministry aspect — using the scripture to help those addicts find Jesus, who, in turn, will heal them.

The idea that Jesus can deliver someone from addiction is not unique and is used in other rehabilitation programs around the world. Often it is connected to the commonly accepted practice of a 12-step program like the one used in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is something that will not be employed by Rehoboth Ranch.

Morgan said he and Layton visited several other rehabs, including faith-based rehabs like New Beginnings in Christ in Garfield, Ga., and Vision of Hope in Lafayette, La., which also doesn’t employ a 12-step program, before settling on a program for Rehoboth Ranch.

“What we did was instead of inventing a wheel, we’ve taken the spokes of wheels we like,” Morgan said. “They say the 12 steps will lead you to God. Well, the 12 steps will lead you to that well pump over yonder, too. Really, if you look at them, they’re good standards to live by, they’re good methods, but we’re not going to utilize them here.”

What they will use is Christ.

“We believe this — and this is quote worthy — we believe this program is trust in Jesus only, not Jesus plus,” said Layton. “So there’s one step and that’s trust in Christ.”

Indeed, Layton and the Morgans, along with several members of the Leary Baptist Church community, believe faith and trust in Christ can cause transformation in any life, which is why Rehoboth is presented as a center for refuge and healing and not a typical rehab facility.

In its marketing materials, Rehoboth Ranch Ministries is described as a “working ranch, and a Christ-centered community” that can “bring complete restoration to any who are willing to surrender to him.”

“The whole premise here is to introduce people to their creator,” Morgan said, “Jesus Christ, as John recorded it. He said, ‘In him and through him were all things made.’ That same creator when you got to that low point in your life and realized your need for salvation, you go back to that same one that formed Adam in the dust. Trust in the one that made you. The one that made you can fix you. You just have to take the parts back to him.”

And the reason the Morgans and Layton believe so strongly in the restorative powers of Christ is that they have all seen it firsthand, in one way or another.

Despite his addiction and run-ins with the law, Layton is now a conduit through which other lost souls can find a path to Jesus.

Morgan and, by extension, his wife have also seen what God can do with an addict who surrenders his will to God’s plan. It was only a few short years ago that Morgan, despite having a good job, a loving wife and family, was held in the tight grip of drug addiction.

IN HIS INSANITY, Morgan said, he eventually “walked through a store window (in downtown Leary) to get where I’m at. It’s 3:42 in the morning and I live one mile from the store and it seemed like a good idea to walk to the store in my boxer shorts. I walked through a store window, they say it’s like I didn’t even slow down, and got a 12 pack of beer that I didn’t even drink that night and seven packs of Newport cigarettes and never smoked a day in my life.

“Now six years later, my life’s totally different. It opened the way for all of this. God led me to this.”

As Morgan tells it, about 11 months ago he had decided he was going to scale back the time he spent working as an auto body mechanic and devote more time to relaxing when God decided he had other plans.

“I had a mind of quitting doing body work,” Morgan said. “I was going to restore cars three days a week and fish about three days a week and go to church about one day a week. I got a little flats boat and I was going to go down to Florida, me and (Layton) were going to become fisherman.”

To supplement his income, Morgan also decided he and his good friend, Calhoun County Sheriff Josh Hilton, would also start raising cows, which is what brought him to the former The Pines golf course on Country Club Road, outside of Edison.

“So we started searching for a pasture and he tells me, ‘Go look at that pasture tell me what you think,’ Morgan shared. “So I stop there and I just look down the driveway and the grass was (waist high). I parked my little Subaru, got out and looked down the driveway and the birds started singing louder than they really possibly could. I thought to myself, ‘This ain’t normal.’ And I looked back down the driveway and for this fast, (snaps his fingers) I looked down there and the grass was cut, there were cows in the bottom, there were people everywhere and the place looked different. And then it was back to normal. It was just fast enough for me to blink.

“I was sitting there kind of in shock, kind of a little spooked, if you will. So I just got in my car and eased down the driveway and in my head I heard, ‘Rehoboth Ranch.’”

Morgan said he left unsure what had happened. Hilton called, asking what he thought of the property. Morgan told him he’d had a vision and thought “maybe it was a rehab.’”

Hilton didn’t dismiss what Morgan had told him and called property owner Rob Toal, who asked for a meeting. At that meeting, Morgan said, he explained his vision and was surprised Toal did not laugh at him. Toal told him God had put it on his heart that someone would eventually approach the family about purchasing the land for a ministry.

“So that day he said about the vision, he chucks me the keys and said, ‘Consider it yours,’” Morgan said. “And I’m like, ‘What? Wait. I’m just telling you an idea.’ And he said, ‘If the Lord gave you that vision and he put in our heart that a person would come to us and want to buy this place for a ministry, it’s already yours.’”

MORGAN RETURNED TO the property and wandered around. It was a foggy morning and after he walked the property, Morgan said, he went down to a bottom, wet from the morning dew on the waist-high grass, and dropped to his knees.

“I’m saying, ‘Lord you called me out here, surely you want to talk to me,’” Morgan said.

He looked up and next to him was a huge spiderweb covered in dew, which made it look like a swirling rainbow. He saw dozens of spiderwebs just like it and was again struck by a thought. God wanted him to look at the center of the webs and tell him what was going on.

“I said, ‘I don’t know Lord,’” Morgan said. “He said, ‘They’re waiting for me to feed them.’ I said, ‘But look there’s already things in the web, insects.’ And he said, ‘Nope, that’s yesterday’s meal. I feed them every day.’”

That’s when Morgan decided he only had to trust that God and Rehoboth Ranch would be sustained.

Despite his two visions and his growing belief that he was supposed to start a rehab ministry, Morgan still doubted until a moment when Layton had arranged for him to share his vision with the church during a special mission dedication Sunday.

“I go to the Lord that morning we were supposed to speak and I’m thinking, ‘I’m going to tell people that God told me to start a rehab ministry,’” Morgan said. “I said, ‘Lord I’m 98 percent sure that you spoke to me. But, Lord, before I get up in front of that church and speak today and tell them that this was a vision of yours and not some wild acid, LSD kickback trip of Rob Morgan’s, you’re going to have to reveal it. You’re going to have to confirm it in somebody else.’ And he said, ‘I’ll do it by two.’”

The first confirmation came from his wife, who Morgan said is is cautious and worries. She handed him a piece of paper.

“It said, ‘We don’t have the land nor the financing, but we’re going forth with Rehoboth Ranch because God said so,’” Morgan said. “Up to that point she had been like, ‘Are you sure? Are you really sure? How are we going to do this?’”

Morgan said he was still waiting on God to reveal himself in another as he walked to the front of the church, where he had decided he was wasn’t going to speak.

Something unexpected happened.

“I got up there and there’s this old fellow, he just passed about three weeks ago, Bobby Black,” Morgan said. “I don’t know how it is at your church, but there’s some people that sit still, the older crew, and then those that when the Lord moves on their hearts, they’ll lift their arms and wave, stuff like that. Well, Mr. Bobby, he’s a sitter. I got up there to speak and Mr. Bobby’s over there waving his arms back and forth and I thought, ‘Man, the spirit’s in the house this morning.’

“So I started to speak and he said, ‘Rob, I got something to say, I need to speak.’ So I said ‘Yeah, go ahead Mr. Bobby.’ He said, ‘The day before you asked me about that place,’ which was the day I come and saw the first vision, ‘I rode around the place looking at the trees and the Lord just stopped me and I saw a great ministry of the Lord there.’

“And that was that. I said I was 98 percent sure, Selina was 99 and Mr. Bobby, man he was 100 percent. I haven’t looked back since.”

MORGAN SAID SINCE that day the community has volunteered to help. People are donating items that can be used on the ranch to improve it. People started volunteering to help fix up the old buildings. Children volunteered to pick up old golf balls and other litter.

“People call and say, ‘I heard y’all were doing this, this holistic farm,’ and they just start bringing stuff,” Morgan said. “The doors have been opened for the financing, we’ve done that. On July 1^st we closed on this. And it was the 28^th of June when we got the 501C3 Rehoboth Ranch Ministries LLC.”

Morgan said things are moving along, although there’s still plenty of work to be done before the plan becomes reality. He and Layton are just days away from picking up their first of their flock, who they believe will “set the tone.”

Although the main building on the property, planned to be a lodge-style meeting hall and common dwelling area, is just cinder block shell of the old golf course clubhouse, they have camper on-site where people can stay and begin their healing process.

They expect to start adding livestock soon, but in the meantime those who need fixing, to learn a trade and want to become part of a community can begin by helping with the construction of the main lodge and the property’s other buildings. Morgan, Layton and the other volunteers will train those who come on the property and they will have a hand in not only building their future, but building a better future for those who come after them.

“If you think about addiction, I tell people this: It takes the best of you and leaves the rest of you,” Morgan said. “You’ll look just like you, except all the good characteristics will be paved over with this addiction. What you have to do is you start setting goals so people can really re-establish their worth. They can see something, and people who came here are able to say, ‘I came here and people helped me, but you know what, while I was there I built on to this facility.’

“You’re invested in something that’s like putting the boards on a ship that’s going to carry people out of addiction into a new life. There’s a value. I’ve never been a part of anything like this, but I’m telling you this is the plan the Lord has laid in my heart. There’s something inherent in people invested in the hearts of other people. Like I said, ‘I was looking for a pasture and God was looking for a shepherd.’”