Boys' Haven stables   Peter today Peter is currently a groom in Boys’ Haven’s Equine Program. “I want to learn everything I can about the horse industry and hope to be able to work with kids like me someday, maybe even here at Boys’ Haven,” he says. “I don’t think I’d be here right now if it weren’t for Boys’ Haven,” he adds. “But I don’t like to think about that — because I’m here now.”

In Peter’s mind, Boys’ Haven had been, and was still, the only good thing that had ever happened to him. The people there had helped him work through his anger and substance abuse, gotten him back into school. He had learned that there was, in fact, a God, and, moreover, that that God was capable of making something good out of everything bad he had suffered. He had graduated from high school with a world of possibility ahead of him… and then he had walked away. Old habits were hard to break. But now Peter was tired of drifting, so here he was, standing in front of the only door behind which he knew he was sure to find something good. It was embarrassing, but it was his only hope.

“Peter!” Patrice Morrow, a counselor who had become like a mother to Peter during his stay at Boys’ Haven, opened the door with a gasp of pleasure. She hugged him immediately. “I’m so glad to see you,” she said. “Come with me. I have something to show you.”

She led him up the hill in back of the administration building to a construction site. Peter soon found himself breathing in the earthy smell of dirt and grass and listening to the industrious sound of tools on freshly cut wood.

“This is our new equine program,” Patrice said. “Participants will learn to build barns, saddle horses, muck stalls — all the usual stuff .”

“Whose idea was this?” Peter asked, trying not to sound as enthusiastic as he already felt.

“Who’s in charge?”

“Me,” said a voice. Peter turned to see Jay Wilkinson — retired police officer, Boys’ Haven employee, and, most importantly, the man who had taken Peter into his own home while Peter was finishing high school — standing behind him. There were flecks of sawdust in his short brown hair and mustache. His sleeves were rolled up and his boots and jeans were stained with mud and grass. He was a man of hard work and tough love; a man who knew the meaning of compassion but had always pushed Peter to the limit to excel. In seeing once again the face of the man he had looked up to so much, and whom he felt he had just as equally let down, Peter wanted to cry.

Jay placed a strong hand on Peter’s shoulder. The gesture spoke more than a thousand greetings. “Nice of you to come see us,” he said. “Come and have a look around.”

“We’ll have one stable here,” he continued after Patrice left , “and another here. Once everything’s built, we can start the six-month employment-training portion of the program. We’ll bring horses in; it will be a great opportunity for the kids, learning to take care of the horses and all that.”

“Who’ve you got on board so far?” Peter asked.

“No one yet,” Jay said casually, picking up a stray block of wood and brushing the sawdust off it carefully with his gloved hand. “We’re just getting started. We could use a first recruit.” He picked up a saw and began working on a fresh hunk of wood.

Peter slipped his hands in his pockets and turned in a slow circle on the grass, taking in the open space, the wood, the hammer and nails, the saws. Right now, it was only the beginning of a framework. The start of something new.

Having made up his mind, Peter stepped over to Jay and held out his hand. “Hand me that saw, will you? I’m gonna be here a while.” CD

Julie Rattey is managing editor of Catholic Digest.