FORTVILLE — There was a time when Barbara Terrell found the local church a convenient way to send the children away for a while.
“I partied all weekend,” she said. “I wanted them out of the house.”
Terrell’s path of addiction began at age 11 with drinking and sneaking cigarettes from her mother and stepfather. From there it included some harrowing incidents with a boyfriend in a motorcycle gang and his friends, as well as a stay at a girls’ home that operated in Fortville.
By the time she was a wife and mother, her interest in the church bus passing by from Fortville Church of the Nazarene revolved around getting the kids out of the house for a while. She showed up for a Christmas program they were in, but she sat on the back pew drunk — “so drunk,” she recalls.
“I just figured, ‘This is the way I’ll be for the rest of my life,’” she said.
But she was wrong.
For many more years than she was addicted, Terrell has been clean. She’s been going to that church that used to pick up her children, and now she hopes a new group forming there will help others find hope and healing as she did.
A Better Life — Brianna’s Hope is launching a Fortville chapter. A March 13 training session was the largest one the support and recovery group has ever done, said the Rev. Markus Dennis, president of its board of directors. The group’s meetings will begin Thursday at Fortville Church of the Nazarene.
Terrell and others will volunteer there, hoping to provide a welcoming place for people wanting to break free from addiction.
“We want to be a lighthouse to those people who are searching,” said the Rev. Phil Edwards, lead pastor of Fortville Church of the Nazarene. “Some of them may be at a point where they feel like they may not be set free.
“We want them to know there’s hope. We feel like that’s what Brianna’s Hope does.”
A Better Life — Brianna’s Hope began in 2014 when about 20 people in Redkey gathered after the death of Brianna DiBattiste. She was a vibrant youth who became addicted to heroin, and people in the community were rocked by her death and determined to make help more available for people struggling with addiction. A desperate prayer from Brianna’s journal for “a better life” is shared at group meetings. Today there are more than 40 chapters in Indiana and Ohio.
Edwards, who is also part of the Christians United group of Fortville-area churches, said that group has been talking about a recovery ministry for some time. He’s longtime friends with Dennis and his family, and when he learned Dennis had moved back to Hancock County several years ago, they got together to catch up. Dennis told him about Brianna’s Hope and later came to talk to area ministers about the recovery group.
Dennis said Fortville is a good fit for a chapter because it’s situated in the space between chapters in Greenfield and in Marion, Hamilton, Madison and Henry counties. “With the growth of Hancock County and a population nearing 100,000 this is an essential corridor for our Recovery movement,” he wrote in an email.
He and others describe Brianna’s Hope as “faith based, not faith required.” People who don’t consider themselves religious participate and are welcomed.
Still, the spiritual element resonates with Edwards and makes him optimistic about the possibilities for people to find life change.
“It’s not easy … but God promised that he would give us the strength and grace to do what is right,” Edwards said. “It is through Christ. It’s not through a church, it’s not through a movement.
“If people are desperate enough to reach out, God is going to listen to them.”
Terrell became that desperate in 1979 when her husband was diagnosed with melanoma and given a short timetable. She downed a bottle of sleeping pills; fresh out of the hospital from that, she went straight to the liquor store.
Terrell’s young daughter smashed the bottle and called a pastor. He and his wife came, and Terrell knelt by her couch.
“I said, ‘If there’s a God, wherever you are, you need to change my life and deliver me now,’” she said. “If God can do that for me, he can do that for anybody.”
In the years that followed, Terrell’s husband did die. She ended up living next door to former missionaries who mentored her.
She became a church camp counselor who took a special interest in encouraging campers facing problems. She became the person attuned to a fellow grocery shopper who could use a kind word, or someone who’s helped others get connected with Brianna’s Hope meetings in Greenfield.
Now she’s excited about helping create a place of welcome and hope for people who will come to the Fortville group’s meetings. She wants to help point them to the same freedom she found.
“I know that God can change a person’s life,” she said. “I never want to forget where God brought me from. …
“I want God to use me for his glory — anything I can do to help people see there’s hope and a better life.”
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A Better Life — Brianna’s Hope will have meetings in Fortville from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursdays, starting March 25. Gatherings will be at Fortville Church of the Nazarene, 701 S. Maple St., Fortville.
The support and recovery group for people struggling with addiction also has chapters in Greenfield and Knightstown, among others. Find a list at https://www.ablbh.org/locations-1
For more information, send email to [email protected] or call 317-509-3930 or 253-381-1358.
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