About
The Well at God’s Resort is an intermediate discipleship house that provides life transformation in Jesus for women who seek true freedom, meaning in life, and love in order to be changed and become His followers.
Vision
To see women experience and encounter true freedom and love through life transformation from the power of God’s love and become his disciples through the gospel.
Mission
• Women understand the true Gospel foundation
• Women grow in their daily life commitment to Jesus by actions and words
• Women be connected with healthy communities (church, mentor, small group, counseling)
• Women love God’s word (Teaching the truth through scriptures)
• Women grow in their relationship with God, prayer, and worship
• Women shine their lives by reaching out and serving their communities and nations
• Women learning to experience basic life skills
The Process
Location: Joplin, MO
Name: The Well at God’s Resort
Discipleship Period: 1 – 2 Years
From my experiences in Laos with our discipleship house, we see that girls that stay at least 2 years in the program will be more rooted in God’s truth and love than other girls
who only stay for a short period of time. That gives them time to process and think through what they heard and learned and they put into practices while our team help them with this process. When they obey God’s word, their lives transform.
Second, from working with women in Laos and here, especially those who have trauma, wounds, and brokenness in their life, I know that it takes longer time for them to trust people and God. We want to make sure to give them space to have time to work with God and be healed before we can work together in discipleship and developing plans for the future. It is impossible to be a disciple without being healed and healing takes time to process.
Target Group:
• Women who are out of a drug program (sober at least 6 months) and want to grow more in God
• Women who are under pressure for their faith (persecution or threats)
• Women who have been abused and experienced trauma
• Women who have a job or funds to cover rent
• Women who are open, hungry, and sharing
Action Plan
• Bible teaching weekly
• Reading Scripture weekly
• Prayer and worship night
• Attending local churches
• Meeting with individual mentors
• Teaching/training (budgeting, meal planning, cooking, developing career goals, etc)
• Activities (movie night, games, go for a walk, ect.)
• Volunteering/serving
Staffing:
We will need two staff to operate the house starting with three residents. Starting with two staff allows us to share workload and responsibilities. Through our experience working with people here in the states and in Laos we have learned it can be draining emotionally, mentally, and physically for one person to do by herself. We want to help others but we have to take care of ourselves in order to keep helping people. We feel that is not healthy to work alone while taking care of others. We will have one full time Staff and one part time staff. Staffing will change as the ministry grows and expands, and we are able to house more young women.
Why does Joplin Need Another Discipleship House?
Noi Welch
Jesus brought me out out of the darkness of slavery, evil spirits, fear, superstition, lies, bondages, addiction, abuse, hopelessness, and meaningless. I was lost and dying before I met Jesus, but now I have a new life, freedom, and victory! I experienced what it was like to be dead without Jesus, and how meeting Him brought me life. It was amazing! I want so much to tell people who are lost and dead in their spirits and souls about Him. My heart is burning to share about what Jesus has done for me.
My heart is not only to share about what Jesus did for my life, but also to train, equip and disciple people to make disciples. We started our discipleship in Laos with 2 houses, and we have seen God change our girl’s lives through discipleship. It is amazing to watch tribal girls who have nothing become leaders and disciples. I would like to see more discipleship happen here in the US, especially in Joplin, where I see a need to have a place for women to experience God’s love, truth, freedom, and victory through discipleship. I am very thankful that God’s Resort has the same heart and desires our partnership, serving together with them.
I would not have come this far if God did not send people along my journey who invested into my life. Those people invited me into their homes and fed me with love and kindness. They showed me how to walk with God. They taught me to get up early to talk to Him, leading me to amazing encounters with Jesus! They laid a good foundation for me. They gave me opportunities to discover my gifts and passions to know myself and to serve others. They challenged me to find my way to trust God. I found my identity as a daughter of the King for the first time in my life through them. My desire is for a discipleship house that will do the same thing for women like so many did for me. Women who come to the Discipleship House will find truth, love, unity, acceptance, safety, understanding, and meaning in life through Jesus. This Discipleship house will be a place where we teach, equip, and disciple women, like we are doing in Laos, to become disciples and make disciples.
Stephanie Bridgewater
I want to invite women into our home where their identity is found in the cross where Jesus invites us to not only spend eternity with the Father but also a life restored to experience heaven on earth through him. In 2016 I moved in to a discipleship home, hoping to receive support while stopping prescription medication known as Xanax that i had become addicted to. I had lost all hope and found myself in a dark hole that I couldn`t get out of on my own. During this short stay I experienced true love in a space where nothing I had said or done could change the love I felt in my heart. Although I had six months in this environment it wasn’t long enough to process all I had been thru in the past 39 years of my life. I grew up in religion and had never heard of a relationship with Jesus or understood what that looked like on a day to day basis. After leaving the program, I desperately wanted to know more about relationship with Jesus and was blessed with people who came around me as a support family and welcomed me into their lives where I got to be up close and personal with them, doing daily activities, they sat with me and listened while I cried, fed me, held my hand and prayed with me as i walked out of the pit into a life of freedom where JESUS has restored me and thru my relationship with him relationships in my life has been restored. My heart is to share my experiences so that other \women will encounter my Jesus and walk in freedom with me as they share him with their friends and we heal our city.
Josh & Ashlee Coate
Over the past 15 years, we have been involved with several local churches and ministries, pastoring and discipling people out of darkness and into the light. We have seen so many lives changed through the gospel of truth, patience, and loving discipline. Many of the ministries we have served over the years have been recovery programs like God’s Resort. What we have found is a need to teach and model personal intimacy with God so these new believers can emulate and practice within a group. Personal intimacy with God is vital for your life to thrive as a believer. Programs, group meetings, church services, events are all part of the process, but without a real relationship with our heavenly Father, transformation is impossible.
We long to see an intermediate discipleship house like The Well at God’s Resort multiple into an entire neighborhood of homes, discipling men and women, pursuing relationship on purpose, and resulting in the Glory of God covering our entire community!