Written by: CR - Carl in Celebrate Recovery, Distributed Journeys, Local Sites, Longwood on July 15, 2011

A team of 12 from Northland’s Celebrate Recovery program recently returned from a 10-day mission trip spent in drug rehab programs in Scotland. The men lived at Sunnybrae and the ladies at Benaiah. These facilities are run by Teen Challenge of NE Scotland under the inspired leadership of Pastor Gordon Cruden. Our mission’s main goal was teaching the 8-principle Christ-centered Celebrate Recovery program, and to some extent, re-enacting for the Scots a typical Friday evening of Celebrate Recovery at Northland—complete with worship, lessons and testimonies.

Northland has been sending teams to this rather remote area of Northeast Scotland since 1999. In the past teams lived in private homes and focused on street ministry and a drop-in center, The Solid Rock Café, in Fraserburgh. This initiative was started by Donna Witwer a Northlander who is also a native of Fraserburgh. She was familiar thru family and friends with the devastation that drug abuse (primarily heroin) has caused in the NE of Scotland. Young people in NE Scotland suffer a level of addiction only equaled in this country by the toughest inner city “hoods.” This year’s team was led by Laurie Jean Harrington who was on all three previous Northland teams in Scotland.

In 2004, Teen Challenge took over an existing facility and founded Sunnybrae. This residential program houses 16 men, all in their 20s and 30s. More recently, Teen Challenge leased another farmhouse 30 miles away and established Benaiah a six bed residence for women. Both of these facilities are situated near tiny villages amidst the breathtaking multi-green rolling hills between Aberdeen and Fraserburgh.

Sunnybrae is located 500 yards down a narrow lane from Woodhead. This “village” is 15 or 20 granite cottages with the curious little smokestacks that practically shout out “Hogwarts.” It has no store but it does have an ancient red now-empty phone booth and an abandoned church—complete with a churchyard cemetery. One of our group found markers that bore his family name and for all we knew might have been his distant relatives.

The morning Teen Challenge program consists of worship, teachings called life-lessons and Bible study. They have short 10-20 min counseling sessions called “personal advisement.” These are provided by Adrian Davies, a trained Christian counselor. The afternoons are devoted to work and learning vocational skills. Sunnybrae grows some of their own produce and they tend chickens for eggs. They have a workshop where the men are taught carpentry skills. One of their staff, Paul Ritchie, is a master carpenter called a “joiner” in the parlance of the UK. They build portable sheds to sell. They also have a crew that goes out and does mowing and landscaping. This generates additional income for the program. Their work ethic is impressive. The facilities are immaculately kept and maintained. We were expected to work along with the residents in the kitchen, workshop, garden or mowing crew—or wherever needed. This facilitated further bonding and opportunities for ministry.

The Teen Challenge residential program is 12 to 18 months in length. Participants advance from Induction-level thru four additional levels that have progressively higher amounts of freedom and responsibility. By Level-4 the residents are almost like para-professional staff. For instance, two of them, Kevin and Paul, picked us up at the airport in Glascow and drove us the nearly 200 miles to the residential programs in Aberdeenshire. Level-4s are allowed to spend part of their time in their home community.

Two of our lads, Lee and Dale, had the opportunity to go out on the Teen Challenge bus for street ministry. A bus outfitted as a kitchen and lounge goes out to some of the more high risk areas. People off the street are welcomed with tea, coffee, juice, cookies—and ministry, if they are so inclined. Kevin, one of Sunnybrae’s Level-4 success stories, mentioned that a year before he’d been “living under a bush” and that he came to the bus just to have some “tea and toast” and get out of the rain. He ended up filling out an application and a year later has a transformed life.

One of the shortcomings of Teen Challenge in that area is the lack of a good network of aftercare. Twelve step programs are not plentiful or really encouraged and so churches are expected to pick up the slack. But the sad reality is that many churches are not interested in ministering to addicts. After the intense fellowship of the program many addicts return to a lonely existence in their home community. Consequently, many end up relapsing. And some end up dead. While we were there Pastor Gordon had the unenviable task of doing a memorial service for one of the program’s first residents. The service’s program was posted on the bulletin board. The man pictured in the flyer was handsome, smiling and healthy looking. It was painful to imagine him dead at 32 from an overdose.

Providing a solid aftercare network is where Celebrate Recovery comes into the picture. As a result of our visit Pastor Gordon wants to establish CR programs in Aberdeen and Fraserburgh. He has invited us back for next year and he also wants to visit us in the States to further study CR. All on the team felt affirmed by this endorsement of CR (as well as our personal ministry) and we left with a real sense of “mission accomplished.” Our ladies team was Laurie Jean Harrington, Mary Ann Mannen, Barbara Macon, Maria Garrison, Susan Lumb and Becky Biggers. The men’s team was coordinated by Clint Biggers and consisted of Lee Gray, Dale Shubirg, Ralph LaVigne, Jim Cary and me, Carl G. Austin.

“How good and pleasant it is when brothers ( & sisters) live together in unity! . . . For there the Lord bestows His blessing, even life forevermore.”

Psalm 133