Welcome

Hanceville, Alabama

Karen is Founder and President, she serves our team as Ordained Chaplain and Project Leader. 

She holds a cum laude B.A. in Ministry; certified in Mental Health First Aid; certified QPR (Suicide Awareness) Instructor; serves on the board of ASPARC (Alabama Suicide Prevention and Resource Coalition) and also serves as volunteer Chaplain with Billy Graham Rapid Response Team. She is a piano player and singer who loves to share her testimony as well as sing for God.

Since 2010 she has served primarily in the Christian Street Ministry atmosphere, filling various leadership roles. 

She has spent time serving the homeless, the trafficked and addicts, from being inside recovery centers to being on the streets.

She has taught Recovery inside the jail system, as well as in public settings, and even served as Chaplain at the local police department along side one of her mentors, who helped guide her into finding the path she's on today with suicide prevention.

After her brother died by suicide it was then, that she found herself struggling with the path she was to be on, and it was through that grief and pain, the vision for this ministry began, and is named for her brother, Johnny 

Hanceville, Alabama

John and Kathy are from Alabama and lifelong family friends of the Cook's, as well as Kathy’s entire family.
John serves as Vice President and pastor of our ministry.

Kathy serves on our Board of Directors. 

They are both leaders with our Discipleship Program, S.H.A.R.P.

They both serve as volunteers where and when their help is needed, and you'll see Kathy at most all of our events greeting people and running our table.

Cullman, Alabama

Sheila serves as Mentor and Advisor to our ministry, as well as on our Board of Directors.

She is married to her best friend & biggest supporter; Gary Self and they are founders of The Cross Ministries.

In December 2012 she had a supernatural encounter. She felt the presence of God & was set free from all her sins & delivered from bondage. She was given a new heart, had an open vision & received anointing all in a short time. The experience radically changed her life forever! She had a vision of a sign that read: The Cross that is where everything began. 

In January 2015 She started volunteering at a women's home in Cullman. It created a hunger in her to learn more & she found herself growing in a sense of leadership. Soon after a friend invited her to go to the Cullman County Jail & witness to the girls. That very first visit moved her spirit so much that she made it the heart of her ministry. 

With the Lord's grace, she continued to pray & after several months she and Gary felt led to open one of their rental properties for a women's home, The Grace House. The Grace House facilitates 10 ladies. Since it has opened she's noticed that the very same changes she saw in the jail are still happening there at the Grace House & the ladies are thriving as they learn who they are in Christ. 

She is now serving as Director of The Cross Ministries, where she Biblically counsels with ones searching for freedom.

It has been a long hard journey, but it has been worth it. They are both so thankful to God for the transforming work he is doing in their lives. 

All praise honor and glory to Jesus Christ our Savior.  

 Hayden, Alabama

   Susan serves on our team as Endowment Coordinator. 

She is a Clinical Coordinator in the dental hygiene program at Wallace State Community College where she has been a faculty member for the past 24 years. 

Prior to that she was a pediatric and special needs dental hygienist in the Birmingham area. 

Susan is a mother, daughter, and sister with a heart for service and a love for helping others. 

She recently completed QPR Gatekeeper Certification and is a member of several healthcare and education related professional organizations including the Birmingham Women Leaders. 

Brent, Alabama

Bro. John serves as Mentor and Advisor to our ministry.

He is founder of Compassion & Hope Food Basket, a 501c3 nonprofit organization that provides hot meals for the hungry.
He has been going to the streets actively feeding the hungry since 1996 & in 2019 opened the Soup Kitchen in Brent.

It was on the streets in Birmingham AL in 2011 that Bro. John first met our founder; Karen and it was then that God bonded a friendship.

It was Bro. John who helped spark the vision for our program, The Food Basket. and he continuously gives guidance and encouragement not only for that program, but our ministry as a whole. 

He continues to teach us that "we get to serve" and to love others.

Jasper, Alabama

Miranda serves as our Intercessory Prayer Warrior. 

She has experienced first hand God's miraculous healing power from a sickness that doctor's could not explain or treat, it was then through her physical  healing that she realized the importance of prayer for others and her desire to pray for others deepened. 

Cold Springs, Alabama

 Gene is from Alabama.
He has been a lifelong family friend of the Cook’s and serves with our team as a volunteer.
Gene is always ready and willing to facilitate any moving, he has a heart to help others & always first in line to see that needs are met to help families 

Cullman, Alabama

Rachael serves on our Board of Directors. She is married to her best friend, Jason Justice. She believes God chose her to be the mother of one wonderful child. 

Currently God has her serving in Deliverance Ministry, where she has a passion for serving the elderly, homeless and the abused or neglected. 

She loves watching God’s people come out of bondage and be healed in Jesus name.

 Matthew 10: 1-8

 Hanceville, Alabama

Captain Potter, as most refer to him as, serves with our team as Leader with the HELLO Program. Ed is Captain at Cullman County Sheriff's Office and has worked in law enforcement for 30 years, currently working with victims of crime & a problem solver for the community. He works with individuals with mental illness, drug addiction, domestic violence, and the elderly. Captain Potter is also a volunteer firefighter with Johnson Crossing Volunteer Fire Department and works with nonprofits and government agencies to make our community a place where families know they are cared for. 

 Birmingham, Alabama

Eddie serves as Advisor, he is a former District Judge and holds a Master's Degree in Christian Apologetics from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. 

He is Founder/President of Faith Fortress Ministries, organized in training apologetics ministry, their mission field expanded into supporting and establishing an orphanage in Northeast India to the communities of the Naga people.

Hanceville, Alabama

Grace serves on our team as leader with the HELLO Program. She has been a licensed professional counselor for eight years, working with adults and adolescents with alcohol, drugs, and mental illness. She was at the Bridge of Cullman for seven years, but recently began her own business, Choice Family Counseling in Hanceville. She is an advocate for children and adults who are challenged with substance abuse and mental illness and has been a member of nonprofits that benefit our community to help those individuals that need a little help with life. 

 Birmingham, Alabama

Susan is founder of One Touch Freedom. She serves with our team as Legal Advocate, Certified Counselor and Suicide Awareness Advocate. 

She currently assists with various cases at The Lovelady Center and is an advocate at the Pardon and Parole Board in Montgomery AL. She has a passion fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves and loves for God to use her in all areas of His kingdom.

Susan is a Certified Ministry Leader; an Addiction Recovery Certified Christian Counselor, an ordained minister with Joan Hunter Ministries and Heaven of Earth Ministries.

Crane Hill, Alabama

Keith serves on our team as leader with Hope's Anchor, our weekly recovery program and also facilitates a weekly SAA Meeting.

Born in 1959 he would barely qualify as a “baby boomer”. Born a Methodist, raised theologically Baptist and spent time in Church of God.

His family was in church every time the doors were open. His mom sang in the choir & his dad was a Sunday School teacher and a very prominent lay leader in every church they attended.

The middle of three boys who are all less than three years apart and have a sister who is 10 years his elder. The three boys attended a Christian school for 6 years where he first drank liquor and smoked his first marijuana.

After Christian school and high school, he graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in Accounting.

After that first taste of liquor and marijuana in 10th grade he was mostly abstinent until after college, when he then got hooked up with the wrong crowd and drank and smoked off and on for 10+years.

He became VERY adept at balancing himself with church on Sundays but smoked and drank the other 6 days of the week. His family was mostly unaware of his double life. By the time he was in his late 30’s he was a mess, and eventually received a foreclosure notice on the house he had bought, which was a major wake up call and he began a 2year stint in Alcoholics Anonymous. He basically only attended meetings but no work on himself at all, eventually stopped going to meetings all together and spent almost two years being high literally every waking hour until he found himself in the back seat of a police car with his hands handcuffed behind his back.

He began to take AA and the 12 step seriously and within the next two years got completely sober and met his beautiful wife, Jackie.

The rest, as they say is history. he now takes God seriously and daily sees how God has begun to do marvelous things with his life.

Hanceville, Alabama

Hope serves on our team in all aspects of ministry.

Our namesake, Johnny Cook is her uncle.

She holds a degree in Criminal Justice, has an amazing testimony of how she overcame addiction and is very passionate about helping others through restoration and addiction recovery

Orange,Texas

Korey serves on our team as a Suicide Prevention Advocate and Motivational Speaker. He is president of Suicide Prevention & God's Helpers, a Chaplain and a Certified Clinical Christian Counselor. He is a suicide survivor and has a heart to help others. 

Tyler, Texas

Susan serves with our team on our social media team. She facilitates our Facebook page as well as our Facebook grief support group.
Susan has a heart to uplift and encourage others and we are so very thankful for her faithfulness to God and to our ministry and to help others! 

 We have many volunteers who help on a regular basis and some periodically, but no matter how often they are with us, they are family, we love & appreciate them and couldn't do all that we do without each one of them.