Healing Shattered Dreams — Part 1
This is the first part of a two-part special report. See Part 2 here.
JACKSON, Tenn. — For many women who find themselves in crisis situations, they may feel they have no place to turn. One faith-based organization in West Tennessee is helping women and children whose dreams have been shattered by offering hope and healing.
“I knew I was going to die,” said Pamela Styles, a former resident of The Dream Center.
“I was so broken when I came here,” said Lauren Turner, a current resident of The Dream Center.
“I was in an abusive relationship, unstable,” said Sherry Overton, another Dream Center resident.
“Just kept going around that same mountain,” said London Gearing, a former resident of the center.
“This is probably the most humbling place for anybody to come to,” said Gail Gustafson, director of The Dream Center.
The Dream Center is a faith-based facility providing a safe harbor for 30 to 40 women and children every month who are in crisis.
“You have to understand, over 85 percent of the women that come in these doors have been sexually abused before the age of 18,” Gustafson said.
Lauren Turner, a current resident of the center, said it happened to her. “I was raped when I was 7 years old. I was left at a pedophile’s house and I was raped, and it was either my 3-year-old sister or me,” Turner said.
Turner said at a young age she had to step up and fill a void when her mother left the family. “She was constantly in and out of our lives, and so I was left to raise my little sister and my father raised us. He did the best he could,” Turner said.
For London Gearing, a former Dream Center resident, she said it was a different kind of abuse.
“It wasn’t physically abusive, but it was more emotionally, verbally, financially, that’s where the abuse was in,” Gearing said. “I didn’t want that anymore, because it made me snappy with my kids. I wanted to go back to being ‘London’ — the ‘Happy London.'”
“What I saw was death,” said Pamela Styles, another former center resident. She said substance abuse ruled her life.
“I started drinking at a young age and using drugs, and I ended up using more drugs and more drugs and more drugs, so I was a heroine addict,” Styles said. “I knew I was going to die. I mean, I don’t know how else to put it — I was going to die.”
“I had a victim mentality,” Sherry Overton said. “I always thought I was a failure, I wasn’t good enough.” She said personal tragedy pushed her over the edge. “I had a son. He passed away when he was 6 weeks old from SIDS, and it just tore me apart. That’s when my real heavy drug addiction started I was really mad at God.”
For more than a decade, The Dream Center operated out of the old Regional Hospital building on Old Hickory Boulevard. But director Gail Gustafson said late last year, the “dream” turned into a rude awakening.
“These people that owned the building, they sold the building and so we have to leave,” Gustafson said.
In part two of “Healing Shattered Dreams,” WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News takes a look at how The Dream Center has been able to relocate its facilities and reveal some exciting plans it has to expand its services to minister to even more families across West Tennessee.
You can see Part 2 of this special report here.
If you would like to find out more about The Dream Center and how you can you help it to continue its ministry, you can visit their website at dreamcenterjackson.com.
