Our car rumbled down the long gravel drive before turning onto the secluded road that cut through the remote Wisconsin forest. I sighed deeply, feeling a huge sense of relief.
For years, Ryan and I walked on eggshells with our oldest son. He was angry, sullen, and out of control, and we avoided him for our own sanity. It was nearly impossibleto get him to participate in youth group or sit through a church service. No amount of counseling, therapy, or medication seemed to help. We were exhausted. When a friend told me about Victory Academy’s residential biblical counseling program, it sounded almost too good to be true. But after much prayer, we enrolled him.
We weren’t sure what to expect when we arrived, but the staff greeted us with such love and warmth that we felt like family. In fact, that was the very environment our son and six other boys would be living in—doing life together under one roof with counselor and house parent Aaron Brewster and his family. While the schedule would be rigorous, this was no boot camp.
After our son was settled, the staff had a private meeting with me and my husband, where they explained what the next several months would look like. Not only would our son receive counseling and discipleship, but we would too, and they gave us a binder packed with program details.
During the long drive home to Pennsylvania, I eagerly thumbed through the pages, bubbling over with enthusiasm and a renewed sense of hope. But beside me in the driver’s seat, my husband was silent. Our son’s last words as we’d said our goodbyes in the parking lot still stung.
“Son,” Ryan had asked, gently, “do you understand why you’re here?”
Bitterly, he’d retorted, “Yeah. You’re tired of being my dad, so you’re giving me to someone else to do it.”
It was a painful reminder of what brought us there. His accusation cut deeply, but it also steeled our resolve that this was where he needed to be. Back at home, we felt a huge weight had been lifted, and we could focus more on the needs of our other two children and begin to heal.
The staff got right to work with our boy. It was weeks before he called us, but that was by design. This was a big adjustment, and we all needed time for our raw emotions to heal. But he did write letters. The first few were terse but gradually became more engaging. The eventual phone calls showed further hints of promise.
At the same time, there were some changes happening in our own hearts through the Bible-saturated counseling. We already knew we’d brought our own sin to thetable, but we’d also fallen for some pseudo-biblical philosophies. For one, we believed “training up” a child meant forcing his will to bend to our own. But in one of our reading assignments, we learned that this “ownership” style of parenting makes us “more reactive than goal oriented.”1 This hit me between the eyes. How many times had I exploded on my son for bad behavior?
Aaron also helped us see that insisting on obedience for our own sakes was like asking our children to worship us. Instead, we needed to guide them to look to the Lord as the one worthy of worship and obedience. This is known as ambassador parenting—representing the Lord in how we raise our children. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.” Applying this concept to parenting was a revelation!
When we returned for Thanksgiving, we noticed how the physical activity and healthier eating had changed our son’s appearance. But had anything else improved? That first evening as we sat together, he told me, “I don’t want to be here…but I know I need to be here.” A huge step of surrender for him! His visit home for Christmas showedevidence of further change. Were our desperate prayers finally being answered?
In February, I packed a Valentine’s Day gift for the boys and host family to share—homemade cookies with words of love on them from 1 Corinthians 13. Unbeknownst to me, as I piped “patient…kind…not envious…” in pink icing on those heart-shaped cookies, the Lord, too, was putting the finishing touches on a heart he had been working on. That same week, our son became convicted of his sin and recognized that he wasn’t a true Christ-follower. In a quiet moment alone, he repented and gave his heart to the Lord. At the end of his senior year, we proudly sat through his graduation ceremony. We brought him home, not a perfect boy, but a different one. And he came home to different parents.
That was in 2019. At the time of this writing, it is now 2025. While there was, and still is, room for growth in all our lives, we’ve learned how to approach each challenge from a different place—one of grace, biblical love, and a desire to honor the Savior. Our relationship with our firstborn is sweet, and we watch with joy how the Lord continues the good work He began in him.
Kim Ahrens
Parent of a former VAFB student
