“He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings, you will find refuge; His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 91:4

ROBERTSDALE, Alabama --- What began as a vision 5 ½ years ago and was nurtured independently by three Baldwin County women is now coming to fruition as Under His Wings plans to open its first group home for girls this summer in Robertsdale.

The journey began in June of 2006 with Dr. Lorena “Nena” E. Hunt, an OB/GYN in Fairhope.

“Since I care for women at all stages of life, I have treated a lot of women in tremendous pain,” Hunt, writes of her journey with Under His Wings Inc., the organization she founded and now serves as the group’s Board president. “Some of these women are hurting today (both physically and emotionally) because of the choices made in early adolescence.”

In her practice, Hunt writes, she has witnessed the rise in the number of teenage pregnancies and the problems that develop as a result.

“My heart has ached for the pain of these women (both young and old),” she writes. “I have been involved in church-sponsored conferences where I have discussed sexuality and the issues that confront our teenagers. But I have felt that there was so much more mentoring that needed to take place with young women in crisis situations. I suppose you could say that both my faith in God and my profession have caused my heart to be tender toward God’s vision for Under His Wings.”

On June 17, 2006, during her devotion, Hunt writes, she came across Philippians 2:20-21, which reads, “For I have no one like-minded, who will sincerely care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus.” (NKJV)

Through prayer, she says she was given a vision of troubled teenage girls – some of whom were pregnant.

“In my vision, He wanted to provide a home with substitute parents to show: how much He loves them; how He has a hope, a future and a plan for their lives,” she writes, “how He wants them to see who they were created to be; and how He wants them to discover the gifts He has given to them (and how to develop those gifts).”

Again through prayer, Hunt says, she was led to a group of women, who, for two years, met and prayed for the vision and for guidance. During that time, they were given the name “Under His Wings” from Psalm 91:4.

“We envisioned that the home would be a refuge in which the girls could grow and develop,” she said. “Several of us visited Mercy Ministries in Nashville. It was there that we were able to see our vision lived out as we listened to stories of women who had been helped through that ministry.”

But by 2008, however, the group seemed to have reached an impasse and the original Board of Directors had stopped meeting.

“I began wondering about the vision and questioning what I had heard from God,” Hunt writes. “I was discouraged.”

But the journey was just beginning.

Less than a year later, Hunt would find a key piece of the puzzle to continue her journey in a longtime patient named Cindy Marshall.

Marshall’s story

For 25 years, Marshall served as a teacher, counselor and administrator with the Baldwin County School System. After retiring in 2008, Marshall writes, she was doing a 21-day time of fasting and praying while “seeking the Lord’s direction for the year.”

 “As the time of fasting was coming to an end, I sensed that the Lord was painting a backdrop for me,” she writes. “He wasn’t filling in the details, but I felt he was creating the backdrop for what He was planning for my future.”

On Jan. 15, 2009, Marshall read Isaiah 54: 2-3, “Enlarge the place of your tent; and strengthen your pegs. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your descendants will possess nations, and they will resettle the desolate cities.”

Two weeks later, during worship team rehearsal, one of the keyboard players told Marshall that she had had a dream about her the previous night.

“She went on to tell me that in the dream I was working in a ministry for young girls,” she said. “She asked if her dream meant anything to me. I told her that I had spent the month of January fasting and praying and that I felt like God was preparing me for something new.”

But a few weeks later, during her annual checkup with Hunt, that dream would seem more like a premonition when Marshall shared with Hunt that she had retired six months earlier.

“Out of the blue (she) asked if my husband John and I would ever consider becoming house parents at a home for unwed teenage mothers,” Marshall writes. “She explained that the Lord had given her a vision for a home and that she was working with a group of people who were trying to establish the home.”

Marshall shared her vision and the dream of her friend agreeing to think about the proposition. She discussed it with her husband, who was agreeable to the idea.

It would be over a year before Marshall and Hunt would speak again. By that time the original Board had stopped meeting and the plans for the home were in a holding pattern.

Another six months would go by, but in October of 2010, things began to take an interesting, if somewhat bizarre turn.

On Oct. 5, 2010, Marshall writes, she met with a friend who is a spiritual mentor to her.

“She is a prayer warrior and operates with a Holy Spirit inspired prophetic gifting,” Marshall says. “She has spoken and prayed many words over my family in the past six or seven years.”

She had a very interesting prophetic word for Marshall that day, especially in light of her  conversation with Hunt.

“She began by saying that she saw me in a house with a box of tissue on the table,” Marshall writes. “She said that in her spirit she saw girls who were crying and coming to me. She went on to say that I was providing comfort to them and getting them presentable by helping them with their make-up.  She said that I was helping them become presentable for some task outside of the home.

“Around me she saw a large pile of shoes which were really spiritual shoes to help them walk with the Lord. The people were calling me either Mother Goose, the Lady Who Lived in a Shoe, or Mom. She went on to say that what she saw was a ministry to unwed mothers or something similar and that the girls where there for just a short time.”

Marshall said her friend went on to describe her husband’s role in the home.

“She said that I would be in charge of the upstairs and John would maintain the downstairs,” Marshall writes. “She said that, with his strength, John would assist with the physical things of the home and I would focus on the hearts of the girls in the home.”

Her friend would go on to say that the vision would come to fruition within six months and that the funding would come from God and from charitable donations.

Three weeks later, Marshall received a call from Hunt, saying that a new group had begun working on the project and had identified a house in the Malbis area as a possible location.

“She asked if John and I would still be interested in serving as house parents,” she said. “I told her that I thought that we would.”

A vision in Malbis

Enter Tracey Ciongoli, a Daphne business owner who has served as a youth and children’s ministry director who had a vision of using the plantation house in Malbis, “to be planted and nurtured to glorify Him by serving the broken.”

“Terrified and thinking I was crazy, I didn’t tell anyone,” she said. “I kept repeating, ‘I am putting my husband through school and homeschooling two teenagers. I am too stressed by working hard at my job and trying to keep up with my household.’”

More and more, she says, she would make excuses, but more and more, the idea became a burning passion. The more it burned, she says, the more she tried to make excuses.

“I even took a different route to and from work so I wouldn’t have to drive by the plantation,” she writes.

One morning, she writes, drained from the busyness of trying to keep up and deal with life, she  found myself in a nearly disastrous car accident.

“I remember the Lord telling me, ‘Tracey, it’s okay, you are crazy, but you are crazy for me. You will not die today because I am not finished with you for my purpose.’”

She became flooded with scripture about orphans and widows, she says, and began journaling.

“(I) told my sister first, then my husband, and slowly a few trusted friends who really know me,” she says. “I decided to throw out the fleece and ask the Lord for a sign.”

One day on her way home, she says, she felt led to stop and pray at the plantation.

“Instead of a vacant house, (I saw through love and spiritual eyes) kids running around, small houses on the back of the property for widows, a white picket fence around the creek, swings in the oak trees and a coffee shop/bakery to equip the girls with business experience,” she said.

On July 30, 2009 there was a sign in front of the house. It was up for lease. In August, she stumbled upon an opportunity to meet a member of the Malbis family.

“I took my sister Tina to the house,” she wrote. “We had to huddle under an awning when it started pouring rain. An older gentleman drove up and asked us what we were doing. My sister shot back asking who he was. I froze when he said his name: Tommy Malbis.”

As they talked, Ciongoli said, she blurted out her vision and asked if he would let an orphanage move in the house.

“He didn’t say a word and seemed to want to get away from us (mainly me, because I blabbed and cried so unprofessionally),” she said. “About fifteen minutes later, the rain slowed. When he offered to drive us around the grounds, the sun shone immediately.”

During the tour, Malbis told Ciongoli and her sister the story of Jason Malbis, a Greek monk who had a vision to leave the monastery. He established the Malbis plantation, and cared for many Greek immigrants and orphans throughout his life.

“The Lord told me I needed to start sharing His vision so I would not become prideful that this was of me,” Ciongoli said. “The more I shared and asked for prayers, the more people offered their assistance.  People were excited to be a part of something real that was going to make a difference in God’s people’s lives.”

By October 2009, Ciongoli said, she felt like her vision had come to a halt and it would be nine months before her vision would take shape.

On July 18, 2010, Ciongoli writes, she and her husband were invited to take a boat ride with some friends from church and were stuck in the rain talking.

“Our friend Angie shared how she had decided to take a year off from teaching and had prayed for direction about the possibility of working with younger girls,” she said. “Angie told me about Mercy Ministries, a residential Christian home for girls in crisis situations.”

She shared how some friends of hers had visited the Mercy Ministries in Nashville and one of the ladies and received a word from God to open a girl’s home.

Ciongoli’s friend was Angie Michal, executive director of Under His Wings. And the friend of whom Michal spoke to Ciongoli that day was none other than Nena Hunt.

From there, the journey will be told in Michal’s words.

From Malbis

to Robertsdale

“We met with the Malbis family, but were told that we were just starting out and we needed to come back when we got established,” Michal said.

Bottom line, the 20-room mansion was too large and the $1 million renovation price-tag was too steep for the fledgling group. They were again left with a vision, but no place to see that vision through fruition.

In the meantime, Michal said, the group was developing its website, underhiswings.info with the help of Marlene Messler of Millenial Solutions LLC, which specializes in designing interactive prayer websites. Her daughter, Malynda McLaughlin, designed the logo for the group and was instrumental in setting up the site.

“Soon after we were approached by the Mildorf family,” Michal said. “Their mother, Mary Mildorf, had died about a year before and they felt her home in Robertsdale would be ideal to use for the home.”

The 5 bedroom, 5 ½ bath home was built in the early 1970s by the Mildorf family.

“It was like it was built for us,” Michal said. “I mean, nobody builds homes with 5 ½ baths anymore.”

At her death at the age of 92, Mildorf had spent much of her life caring for others, Michal said. She was even known take in strangers who needed a place to stay in her guest bedroom. Mildorf was also Messler’s mother, McLaughlin’s grandmother.

Through donations, the group was able to enter into a lease-purchase agreement with the Mildorf family for the house and two acres on the more than 200-acre estate. The house was also “adopted” room by room by businesses and groups, who provided furnishings and other materials for the rooms.

“There was nothing wrong with the house,” Michal said, “it just needed a lot of updating.”

An open house and housewarming for the facility has been planned for June 9, Michal said, and the facility will house up to 10 girls, two per room, with an apartment set up for Marshall and her husband as house parents.

“We are in the process of installing a sprinkler system and once the home passes fire inspection, we should be able to begin taking applications,” Michal said.

The home will serve as the backdrop for a six-month program for girls ages 13 to 18, and will provide support for “girls suffering from life controlling issues, such as depression, eating disorders and self-harm,” according to the group’s brochure.

Michal said despite misconceptions, there is no such facility currently operating in Baldwin County.

“People see Mary’s Shelter, the Home of Grace and the Youth Crisis Center and think it’s all the same, but it isn’t,” Michal said.

The Youth Crisis Center only provides temporary shelter for teenage girls, Michal said. Mary’s Shelter provides refuge for pregnant women over the age of 19 and Home of Grace provides shelter and counseling for those battling drug addiction, but is also restricted to women age 19 and older.

The group is privately funded and, while it does receive donations from churches, is not affiliated with any church, Michal said. It also does not receive any government funding.

Right now the group is operating a $10 for 10 Lives fundraising campaign asking donors to find nine other friends to give $10 each for the 10 girls who will be staying at the shelter.

The group is also planning a fundraiser at 7 p.m. April 13 at Jubilee Shores United Methodist Church on Highway 181 just north of County Road 32 in Fairhope. The group Jones Unleashed will perform along with the JSUMCY Band.

Donations can also be received at the group’s website http://underhiswings.info or mail to Under His Wings, 7099 Wood Acres Drive, Fairhope, AL 36532.