Today we’d like to introduce you to Sara Bartels-Feenstra.
Hi Sara, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
The focus of this interview should be 431 Ministries, but here’s a few things about me: I was born and raised in The Netherlands. My life has been fairly ‘normal’ in the sense that I was raised by loving parents, I have 3 siblings and went to school like most other kids. The one thing that separates me from most young adults is that in 2018, after graduating High School, I attended a ministry school in California and met my husband there. We got engaged in May 2019 and did long distance (I was back home, he was in the US) while waiting on my visa until August 2021 when I moved to Colorado so we could get married. We moved to Tennessee in 2022 and have lived in Franklin since. I started working at 431 Ministries in March 2024 after volunteering with them.
431 Ministries started when founders Justin and Rachel Peck invited a single mom and her daughter to live with them when she was facing homelessness in 2016. In the nine months they lived in community in the Peck’s 700sqft home, the single mom gained practical skills, confidence, and grew in her faith.
Due to this woman’s story, and the ones that came behind her, the lack of resources in Middle TN for women facing hardships became extremely evident. So far, 431 Ministries has served 1000 women. These women have been and are being equipped with tools and knowledge to face everyday’s hardships, challenge false beliefs that negatively impact their growth and actively participate in creating an independent future for them and their families.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s definitely not been a smooth road for 431 Ministries. Starting and running a ministry is in and of itself a challenge. Working with women who are going through incredibly difficult things makes every day a challenge.
One major struggle has been the building we tried to renovate back in 2022. We had purchased it, but it did, and still does not have to this day, a roof! The contractor who was going to replace the roof disappeared on us and we had to repay every sponsor their investment into this new building.
Another major struggle has been capacity. With a staff of five and a rapidly increasing number of women wanting and needing our services, we’ve had to implement a waiting list. This is especially painful for the women who are actively engaged with our services and ready for our application-based Side-by-Side Program (our most intensive program where a woman gets assigned a personal mentor, financial mentor and access to discounted professional counseling). We want so badly for these women to be able to jump into this program, but we don’t have enough volunteers who are trained mentors to assign them to. And even then, we carefully consider these pairings. If a volunteer was available but we don’t believe they would be a good fit for a particular woman, our client still has to wait. At this time, we only have the space and time to host this volunteer training once every other month.
A third struggle, as many non-profits face, is fundraising. We’re continually seeking more people to partner with us financially to serve the women who need our services. This means that our directors have to invest a lot of time into meetings with individuals, businesses and local churches. While public appearances are a top priority and we definitely want to be and work hard on being in the public eye, these appearances more often than not don’t equal funding. A lot of careful wording and effort has to go into conversations, grants and funding requests.
Despite all that, we are honored to have done and do all these things in the name of God. He has provided for the ministry in many major and minor ways and has been with us in all these struggles.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
431 Ministries’ mission is to serve women who have been through hardships, offering opportunities to find hope and develop a plan for an independent future. This hardship is self-defined, but for a lot of our ladies it means single motherhood, divorce or widowhood. We accomplish this through classes on a variety of topics such as safety, commitments, communication, and grief. We also offer opportunities for women to make friends with other women in this area who are going through the same things. This way they can build a community of support to help them go through their hardships. We also offer one-on-one coaching to our clients and advocate for them on their behalf.
When a woman reaches out to us, she frequently feels very stuck and alone in her situation with no clue what to do next. After being in contact with her, we ask her to take our developed in-house Re:Store Me Assessment. It is an assessment that evaluates 16 areas of life we like to call the ‘building blocks of life’. The areas are: safety, finances, planning, commitments, communication, asking for help, community, resourcefulness, rhythms of stability, learning to trust, achieving goals, restoration, emotional health, value, purpose and independence. The areas correlate to 16 questions, with multiple choice answers scoring from a 1 (lowest) to a 5 (highest). The average initial score is 62.50%. After 6 months of attendance with us, the average score is 80%! When these women take the time to let someone love them and help them, they grow.
What sets 431 Ministries apart is that we do not offer tangible resources (housing, vehicles, finances, etc.), we offer time and education. While organizations who offer tangible resources usually help during a crisis (like eviction or food insecurity), we help with regaining stability. We equip women to not have to depend on another person, a government check or a service like a food pantry. We are actively battling things like food insecurity, poverty and repeating cycles in families throughout generations.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
There are three major ways to support us: prayer, volunteering and financial support. We believe God hears our prayers and has answered prayers on behalf of the ministry and its staff. This ministry would not exist or function properly without volunteers, and we are always looking for more. What we currenty need most is volunteers who want to become a mentor, either financial or personal. If someone has a heart for serving the women we serve, please consider attending our training and becoming a mentor. Lastly, we cannot do this work without financial support from people, churches and businesses around us. We are a non-profit, 100% donation based ministry. Even a small, monthly commitment makes a big difference. If all of Spring Hill were to donate $1 to us on a monthly basis, we wouldn’t have to do any fundraising for a really long time!
Pricing:
- $199.13/month supports one new (intake) client
- $597.40/month supports one actively engaged client
- $796.53/month supports one woman in our Side-by-Side Program
Contact Info:
- Website: https://431house.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/431.ministries/#
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/431ministries
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@431ministries5
