Mended Fences

About me:

What is Mended Fences? Mended Fences is our dream of building a Ranch to provide Christian foster care and therapeutic horseback riding for children of all ages. We look forward to building this dream and blessing the lives of children. This journey that began several years ago for Jill and I has suddenly jumped to “full steam ahead” in just the last few months. Before we married we discovered that we shared a similar bond, a goal, or more accurately a vision - to help children by building a foster care youth ranch. I had dreams of a working ranch where we could take the kids “riding fence”, camp overnight, do low and high ropes courses, and just learn from doing real work. She, with her barrel racing background and Tejas Riders experience (teaching girls in Girl Scouts to ride and care for horses) envisioned a working horse ranch - therapeutic horseback riding. Together our separate visions became Mended Fences. It will be a world class working horse and cattle ranch. On it we’ll have multiple homes that will house 6-8 foster children and house parents. An apartment will be available for a relief house parent and next door will be grandparents’ cottages. In those we’ll have an older couple who can be mentors to the children (and possibly even to the house parents). We will also have a home on the property for unwed teen mothers and their babies and a home for siblings so they won’t be separated from each other. There will be a high and low ropes course with trained professional instructors where we’ll teach leadership skills and teamwork. We’ll also have an outdoor amphitheater for gatherings and a prayer chapel with facilities for a variety of functions. The center of the campus will be the equine facility. Multiple barns, corrals, and riding pens as well as riding trails will all be a part of the equine facility. The children will learn to ride and care for the horses as a part of their treatment while at the ranch. Trail rides, rodeo days and other similar activities will all be a part of everyday life. Mended Fences will also have a transitional living area on the property for kids who are “aging out” of foster care. Too often these kids are pushed out of foster homes with no place to go and end up homeless, in prison, or dead. We must have a way to help them with the transition. We are nearly finished getting our non-profit status and will then be able to accept donations. If you know anyone who would be interested in donating money, land or equipment please have them contact us! The name and purpose of our ranch, Mended Fences is inspired and based on a combination of Scripture verses. James wrote in chapter 1:27 (NIV) that "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." The KJV simply calls it pure religion. Christ Himself said "And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me." in Matthew 18:5 (KJV). So, first and foremost, our purpose is to receive children into our home and to look after and care for them; because in doing so we are touching the very life of our Savior! So why "Mended Fences?" The Darby translation says in Ezekiel 22:30, "And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the fence, and stand in the breach before me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none." The more common expression of this form the KJV is "I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap." We do not want the lives of children destroyed just because there is no one to stand in the gap for them so, just as God built a hedge of protection around Job and his family, we at Mended Fences want to stand in the gap or mend the fence - the fence (or hedge) that protects the lives of children. You can check out our website at http://www.mendedfences.com and our blog at http://mendedfences.wordpress.com.