How the household works
A house with a rhythm,and a household that keeps it.
People sometimes ask what living here actually asks of them, and it is a fair question. So here it is plainly, before you ever pick up the phone: the shape of the household, the people we work alongside, and who this is for.
People of different ages live the Word together as one family here — and nobody is handed a room and left in it.
Accountability
To the household, to the Word, and to the person you said you were going to be.
Responsibility
Your chores, your appointments, your court dates, your share of the house.
Functional living
A clean room, a kept schedule, a bill paid on time, a week that holds together.
Spiritual elevation
Prayer and devotion not as a habit we perform, but as the thing that lifts a person.
Scriptural knowledge
Learning the Word well enough to stand on it, and to teach it to your own children.
A more righteous year
The measure we actually use: better this year than last year, by the grace of God.
The shape of the household
A chore list, house rules, and a curfew.
Every family has a shape, and ours is a plain one: work that is shared, rules that are said out loud, and a house that sleeps at a decent hour. It is not designed to control anyone. It is designed to give a person something to lean their days against while they rebuild.
The chore list
Every person in the house has work, and the list is posted where everyone can see it. Kitchens, bathrooms, floors, laundry, trash, the yard. It is not punishment and it is not busywork. It is the plainest lesson there is: a household runs because everybody in it carries something, and a person who has been carried for a while needs to feel what it is like to carry.
Posted weekly · everyone included, from the oldest adult to the youngest child
The house rules
Our rules are short and we say them out loud before anyone joins the household, so nobody is guessing. No drugs or alcohol in the house. No violence, no threats, no cruelty. Guests are welcomed and also accounted for. Respect for the other people under this roof is not negotiable — and it is a two-way street, because it is owed to you as well.
Read together before anyone joins · kept for the safety of everyone, especially the children
Curfews
The doors close at an agreed hour and the house sleeps. A curfew is not a lack of trust; it is the thing that lets a parent in the house sleep at night, and it is the same standard we would hold for our own children. If work, an appointment, or a real emergency keeps you out later, you call and tell someone. Being accountable for where you are is part of what you are learning here.
Set with the household · call if you will be late — the point is the call
Rules like these are kept for one reason: so that the children in this house, and the adults in it, can live somewhere safe and predictable while something better is being built.
“It is not good that man should be alone.”
We do not work alone
We walk alongside the people who care for you — we do not stand in for them.
A household is not a clinic and we are not doctors, counselors, or officers of any court. What we are is the family around a person while they do the work that only they can do. So we cooperate with the professionals in a person’s life, and we never take their place.
Doctors and other providers
If you have a doctor, we encourage you to keep those appointments. We cooperate with the professionals in your life and we do not interfere with their care.
Mental health and psychiatry
Many people come to us carrying something heavy. Where someone is under the care of a psychiatrist, a counselor, or a therapist, we cooperate with that care and we do not interfere with it.
Courts, probation and parole
If you have a court date, a probation appointment, or a requirement to meet, you go — on time, and with the household behind you. Keeping those obligations is one of the clearest ways a life starts to turn.
Agencies and other providers
We work with other agencies, case managers, and providers, and we talk with them about what actually helps the person in front of us. That coordination is for your benefit, never for your harm.
Where someone is under the care of a doctor, a psychiatrist, or a court, our part is the accountability that keeps them showing up for it — and a family waiting when they come back.
Who lives in a household
Individuals and families — it depends on the room we have.
A house can be filled in more than one way, and which way depends on the space available in it at the time. So we tell you honestly what we can offer before you make any decision, rather than after. Our arms are open to anyone who is interested in what we keep, and every person who is interested sits down with us first, so both sides can see whether this household is a place for them.
An individual
Someone on their own — leaving a hard season, a lost job, a stretch of life with nobody in it — who needs a household rather than a room.
A single parent with children
A mother or father raising children without a partner, who needs the weight shared and the children raised by more than one set of hands.
A married couple with a child
A whole family in a hard season that needs one stable household while they find their footing again, with room enough for the children.
We sit down with everyone first.
Everyone who is interested in living here is interviewed — we want to see whether this household is a good fit, and whether it is a place they actually want to be. It is a conversation that runs both ways, not a screening, and we tell you plainly what we can offer.
Eating well
Learning to feed a body properly is part of learning to live properly.
A good deal of what goes wrong in a person’s life starts with what they put in their body and what they never learned about it. So we encourage the people in our house to eat well and live healthier — cooking real food, eating at a table instead of standing up, and understanding what a body actually needs. It is one more thing nobody has to be ashamed of not knowing.
We share educational information about nutrients and different kinds of food, and about how they support the body’s own immunity. We also keep the house kitchen equipped so that anyone in the household can make things like fresh juice. It is encouragement and shared learning, offered gladly — never a prescription from anyone.
Encouragement, never medical care
We are not a medical provider. We do not give medical care, dispense medication, or treat any condition, and nothing here is medical advice or a substitute for a doctor. If you have a health condition, we encourage you to check with your doctor first — and to keep working on that condition with them until it is controlled or better. That is part of the accountability this household is built on, not a separate thing from it.
Who this is for
We welcome you with open arms — and it starts with a conversation.
Anyone who likes what they find here and wants to be closer to it is warmly invited to reach out. We do not take in everyone who asks. Every person who is interested is interviewed — we sit down together, so both sides can see whether this household is a good fit and whether it is a place they actually want to be.
It is a conversation, not a screening, and there is nothing to dread in it. One thing is asked of anyone who lives here, and it is not conversion: a willingness to commit to hearing the Word from a Hebrew perspective — to being at the table, to listening, to letting it be taught to you.
You are welcome to convert if you want to. There is nothing anywhere that says you have to. Nobody has to join, sign anything, or become anything in order to belong here, and no one is sent out from here to recruit. We do not go door to door. If you hear it and decide it is not for you, you are still welcome at our table while you are with us.
Open arms
Whoever you are, and whatever you are carrying — you are welcome to reach out, to come and see, and to take your time.
An interview, both ways
Everyone who is interested sits down with us first. It is a two-way conversation — we are finding out whether this is right for you, not only whether you are right for us.
Convert if you want to
If you come to want it, it is here for you — a door that stands open, never a gate you must pass to belong.
Never required
Nothing anywhere says you have to. What you believe is between you and God, and nobody here will press you.
We are not claiming this works for everybody.
What we are doing here is what was done for us, and it worked. When I needed help, this is the road I walked — the same problems, the same struggle, the same need for somebody to hold me to something better than I was holding myself to. I am simply mapping out that same road for the next person walking it.
Will it work for everyone? No. I do not believe anything does. But the problems that brought people to us in the early 2000s are the same problems bringing them now, and this road had a high success rate then. So we keep it, and we keep the household open to the people who want to walk it.
L’Chaim — that is what it is about. To life.
If this is for you
Call and tell us where you are. We will listen, ask you some questions, and tell you honestly whether this household is right for you. It is how every place in this household begins, and there is no pressure in it — nothing is decided on that call.
(480) 268-5787Come and see the house for yourself. Reach out, and decide nothing until you want to.