A meeting in church led to the development of a faith-based program to help people overcome drug addiction and get back into society.

Since its opening in 2013, Beautiful Deliverance, a 501(c)3 corporation, has provided faith-based programs locally to help people overcome their addiction or helped place them in faith-based treatment programs in other states.

“We have really seen some miracles,” said Dale Barnes, who helped found the program with director Lisa Kapp.

“I was in jail ministry,” Kapp said, “and when I stopped jail ministry, people kept calling me. They were seeking help. I just started researching places to get them off drugs. We wanted faith-based programs, because we knew if they could see the love of Jesus, then their life would change.”

Kapp and Barnes met at Living by the Word Fellowship, where Barnes learned Kapp was a hairdresser.

“I made an appointment with her, and after a few times that we had a chance to talk, I realized there were kids coming in a lot where her business was and asking questions,” Barnes said. “Finally, one day we were talking about the kids, and she said she was always going somewhere with somebody.”

As their friendship progressed, Kapp told Barnes, a retired nurse, she needed help and asked her to consider helping her open an office.

“There was this tenderness in her heart,” Kapp said. “Not many people can do what we do, because it’s hard to keep loving people who are so broken because they are afraid to be loved.”

“We come from Refuge Church; we just stepped out to full-time street ministry here. We were all involved with Refuge Church,” Kapp said.

Pastor Tony Winkler, pastor of Refuge Church said he has known Kapp for seven years.

“We’ve watched this ministry grow into something that is probably one of the most needed parts of our community,” he said. “As a pastor, I did not realize for years the magnitude of the negative effect of prescription and illegal drugs and how it was affecting our families, not just outside the church but in the church.”

Beautiful deliverance, he said, has played a role “in helping countless lives, finding a place to find freedom (from drugs) and being a part of that freedom here in our community.” He said the church supports the ministry as a mission in the community.

“This seems to be working. We’re proud to be a part of it,” Winkler said.

The ministry opened a small office on North Frontage Road where they receive requests for help and made referrals for people. It later moved to a larger building on Halls Ferry Road.

“Here we have classes that are faith-based, to help them work off addiction,” Kapp said.

Some people, she said, are referred to other programs.

“We have two houses in the city where we house women and children, and they come here each day (for classes),” Kapp said. Presently 14 women stay in the two homes. According to the ministry’s brochure, it has housed 74 women since 2014.

Kapp said the classes taught by the ministry focus on self-worth; “Teaching them who they are, who God created them to be, and to help them find the truths and the gifts God gave to them in the beginning.”

The ministry offers the women Bible studies, life recovery, parenting and a program called “Walk in Freedom.”

One of the homes is called Hope House. The other home is a secondary house to help women transition back in to society by getting a job and getting their lives back together. Both homes are six-month programs to help women get off their addictions and back into the community.

Besides the women staying in the homes, Barnes said, people come in off the street seeking help.

“A lot of them come, I think sometimes, because they’re hungry, but they stay sometimes, and then some of the girls who have been through treatment come with their families, and they’re doing great, but they still come in sometimes to help us out. A lot of them help teach. They just want to stay around the environment.”

“We’re an open door to whoever needs us,” Kapp said, adding they meet with people and talk and pray with them and help them get placed with an agency if needed.

The ministry also holds religious services at the building.

Kapp said they have seen families restored through the program, and she would like to find a place for teenagers, adding they see a mixture of adults and children at the ministry.

“We minister to all ages; we’ve had to place all ages, from birth up, because we have a place we take children to. We have a place (for children) that works with us in Alabama,” Kapp said.

“We have people who succeed and work with us in the ministry. Some are working and living their lives. There are some who leave and comeback, because sometimes they just have to figure out which life they really want,” she said.

“They’re all good. And those whose heart is so broken, it takes awhile to get to a broken heart, and each everyone is worth being loved. We don’t see a lost case ever.”