Hope Will Always Find a Way
The Ministry of Rev. Caretha Brown
By Rob Swanson

They advised her it couldn’t be done.
“I was told by prominent people when I got started, Caretha, don’t leave your nursing job. There has never been a program where you can house women together and really be successful. I was told that by people I respected.” But Caretha Brown did leave nursing, and managed to pull together just such a ministry. Sitting across from her as she told me her story, I was convinced that it wasn’t stubbornness that pushed her forward, but a strong – and well-earned – sense of compassion.

Rev. Caretha Brown, Rotary Member, Who’s Who entrant, and pastor of Full Gospel Faith Fellowship Church, is the founder and leader of Living Hope International Ministry. She and her staff are dedicated to breaking formerly incarcerated women from the cycle of destructive behavior. It began in 1985 “born out of a desire I had to see women become stable and secure and productive in society and not keep returning to jail,” Caretha told me.
She had been active in jail ministries, offering counseling and classes over a long period of time. Inmates were from all walks of life; destitute women dependent on prostitution, professional women addicted to alcohol or drugs, black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. She’d been struck by how many women said they wanted to change, to get their lives on track, and yet still managed to wind up back in jail weeks or months later. Jail had become a revolving door. Caretha wanted to close that door. She listened to what the re-incarcerated women said… “I need a place to live away from that life…” “I can’t make enough at McDonalds or Burger King to get on my feet…” “There’s nothing left for me…” “I’m all used up…”

She weighed the facts of their existence: the vast majority of them were molested as children; authority figures are suspect; the slide to prostitution and “easy” money is seductive and pressured; a needy woman is easily exploited; and the anger of it all cements them into this destructive cycle. Caretha wanted to make a difference.

“I had no clue how to start this. I was calling trying to find a place, a house where I could put some women in and help ‘em. That’s all I knew!” Her instincts were guided by the Holy Spirit as a home was found and women began healing. It started as a long-term residential program. Women committed to changing, who weren’t afraid of work, who promised to abide by the rules of the program were accepted into a four to six month home setting. A successful program of counseling and classes founded in Christian principles brought these women to new hope.

Now the ministry includes an out-patient program where women can take classes fitted around their work schedule and targeted to their needs. The residential program has been shortened to as little as two months, and the Incarcerated Jail Program has Living Hope International Ministries in the jail helping women at the wellspring of need. Churches, prisons, and individuals from in and out of state are referred to Living Hope.
As I talked with Caretha, I couldn’t help but notice that despite endless hours visiting jails and prisons, and associating with prostitutes and drug addicts, she remains unjaded. She had no sharp edges. Every word was deeply empathic to the struggles of her penitents. While very concerned about the exploitive nature of our culture, she held no judgment against the women in her charge. They need help and she’s there to give it.
Where does such a ministry come from? That’s a question she’s asked of God, herself. “I said, ‘God, why am I so compassionate about this? Why do feel I need to help them?’ and He said, ‘I called you into a helping profession as a nurse for such a time as this… I have called you to help women to change, to be an example, and because you know pain…’” As Caretha told me of her upbringing, almost all the elements of destruction were there, but through God’s help she walked a different path.

Born to a poor family, Caretha’s parents divorced, leaving her an only child with an alcoholic mother as her sole support. Exposed to the difficulties of racial strife and poverty, Caretha received a surprise when she was thirteen: a half-brother, much older, fresh from incarceration. When he found himself back in trouble, Caretha visited him at Rayford Prison. Seeing the compound and all the prisoners had a profound impact on Caretha, prompting deep memories when she again visited Rayford as part of her ministry. As a young adult, Caretha had the occasion to visit a women’s prison when her mother was incarcerated.

All of these events could have entered Caretha into the cycle of destruction she valiantly fights today in others, but a burning desire to be a nurse took her to college and a new challenge: paying for school. She received a small scholarship, and whatever funds her mother could scrape together, but she still needed to work. Nursing schools normally forbade students from working because of the class load. An exception was made, as long as she could keep her grades up. Her struggle to put herself through college gives her a platform today to speak to women. A difficult goal can be won through hard work; she is living proof of that claim. Her senior year, she met and married her husband and future co-pastor.

They weren’t Christians yet, though, or at least she knew something was missing from her church-going existence. Caretha saw it in a woman who seemed different to her, and she longed for that difference in her own life. Then, at a Billy Graham Crusade, she found the answer and came down the bleachers to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.

Driven to learn more, she entered seminary and received her license to minister, beginning her ministry of spreading the gospel at the same time her husband began his. Eventually, her nursing and ministry collided to begin Living Hope. Between fundraising and her belief that the community needs to communicate to find the answers to our society’s problems, Caretha has become a recognized figure in Orlando. She is a creative individual when it comes to finding resources for Living Hope. Some of their funding comes from the United Way, though she’s confident that UW will not continue to fund them. Banquets, Walk-a-thons, corporate and private funding make up the rest. She has entered into partnering relationships with other ministries and accepts volunteers to supplement her staff of five.

She would not say she’s driven to help women; she is called. She embodies the name of her ministry: Living Hope. The lasting impression I was left with is that Rev. Caretha Brown will always find a way.