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January 11, 2021 (11:00 AM CST)

December 04, 2020 (10:30 AM CST)

May 05, 2020 (8:30 AM CST)

APRIL 28, 2020 (6:00 PM CST)

Pull up our update video at your next meal and sit-down with our Executive Director, Ron Riley! Ron will walk you through our Covid-19 adjustments, program updates, and answer questions that were coming in during our original Facebook Live event!

APRIL 20, 2020 (9:15 AM CST)

How can you pray over Cookson Hills right now? Here’s a step by step way to pray over our ministry! For specific ways to pray over our Hilltop, visit this post.

• Please pray that the love of Christ penetrates every family and child connected to our residential program for at-risk youth. Pray that the chains of the past sin are released through the power of God’s grace in Jesus our redeemer!    
• Pray over our support staff who have been working every day to navigate a national shutdown. Give God praise for the service each man and woman provides to care for our kids!  
• The majority of our staff live on-campus. Please, pray over these homes of our staff and residential volunteers. They each have an amazing story of how God brought them to Cookson Hills. Give God praise for their daily service. Pray they are able to find rest in Jesus when the work is hard.  
• Mary Ellen Wilkinson recently celebrated 48 years  & Jack Moody, 53 years of service to the Kingdom at Cookson Hills! God is good in bringing faithful servants. Please pray that we can find a few more Mary Ellen’s & Jack Moody’s to step into the roles we need at Cookson Hills!  
• Every morning the mercies of the Lord are made new for those who trust in the Lord. We pray daily that we will trust in the promises of God and not lean on human understanding! Please pray for the leadership of Cookson Hills.  

APRIL 17th, 2020 (2:45 PM CST)

APRIL 13, 2020 (9:15 AM CST) 

How can you pray over Cookson Hills right now? Here’s a step by step way to pray over our Hilltop! 

• Cookson Hills Christian School: We miss seeing our students walking in for class. But we are thankful for teachers and houseparents who are still teaching the kids at home. Please pray for the children to finish their schooling strong this year. Pray for all the students waiting for the virus threat to clear so they can enroll in our school and come live at Cookson Hills.
• Houses 102 & 109: Pray for Michael & Brittany Torkington who are still on quarantine for another week. They are our newest house parents who moved all the way from Connecticut! Additionally, please pray for our other new set of houseparents, Jan and Shane Henson, who moved from Georgia a couple weeks ago. Please pray for both families and their children as they adjust to life at Cookson Hills.
• House 103, 106, 107, 108, & 113: These are all of the “big houses” that have children placed within them. We are blessed by the service of our Houseparents who provide direct care to all our kids. The go by the simplest of names: Mom and Dad. Pray for all of houseparents at Cookson Hills- Mike & Debbie Tinkler, Michael & Brittany Torkington, Javier & Sarah Gutierrez, Jorge & Amanda Zamarrón, Kevin & Pam Etcher, Shane & Jan Henson, and Tony & Sarah Spezzo.
• House 113:  This is our respite home, but the Spezzos are better known as the Aunt and Uncle at Cookson Hills. They provide the vital ministry of giving the Primary Houseparents a short break each month. Because we have hired two new sets of houseparents, we need to hire one more respite couple for this role before the end of the year. Please pray that we find another houseparent couple to join us in House 112 soon.
• Kitchen & Dining Hall:  We are still feeding our kids students, we just can’t gather together here right now.  We can’t wait to get back to our routines like eating in the dining hall. Pray that we continue to have all our needs met by our Heavenly Father

APRIL 9, 2020 (12:00 PM CST)

APRIL 8, 2020 (4:30 PM CST)

APRIL 6, 2020 (11:00 AM CST)

MARCH 30, 2020 (9:00 AM CST)

MARCH 27, 2020 (10:30 AM CST)

MARCH 25, 2020 (10:00 AM CST)

As a residential childcare facility, the care we provide to the children at Cookson Hills is considered essential. Many of the kids that we have here do not have another alternative. Cookson Hills is home. So we will continue providing care, regardless of if other businesses are asked to close. We will continue to adjust our processes and evaluate which portions of the ministry are needed to remain operating to meet the needs of our children. Here are some of the adjustments we’ve made so that we can continue providing a home, school, and therapy for kids who are at-risk: 

Home
• We are continually cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitizing surfaces.
• In addition to staying on campus, we are practicing social distancing by staying in groups of 10 people or less.
• Our houseparents continue to be ROCK-STARS! They are providing consistent and fantastic around-the-clock care for our kids!

School
• Our teachers have created distance learning packets, and provided plenty of online learning tools so that our students can continue their education at home!
• Our students can place book orders with our librarian, Mrs. Green. She then pulls the books, checks the books out, and delivers them to the porch of the student’s home!
• Our school principal, Mrs. Jackson has been recording daily videos to help bring our students and staff together in a time of separation. These videos are uplifting, silly, informative, and can feature book readings, her family pet, or her quarantined children making faces in the background. It’s been pretty awesome so far.

Therapy
• We have purchased tablets and are at the beginning stages of setting-up teletherapy for our kids so that they can continue receiving the therapeutic services they need with the same counselors they’ve already built strong relationships with.

As for the rest of the support staff, we are continuing to practice social distancing as we help support the ministry operations and our houseparents.

We are always listening to the advice of our governor as well as the CDC. As you are well aware, during this pandemic things are changing constantly. As things change, we will make adjustments with it.

But no matter what happens, you can be assured that our Houseparents and staff will still be providing a home for children who are at-risk.

MARCH 17, 2020 (9:45 AM CST)

At Cookson Hills, our goal is always to provide a safe community for our children, staff, and families. At the time of this writing, we have no confirmed cases of Covid-19 on our campus. However, in line with the government’s requests the following changes begin today and will be enforced until April 6th:

• Cookson Hills Christian School and all school related activities will be cancelled as of noon.
• We are not allowing social visits, campus tours, or enrollment visits.
• Our children, staff, and families are avoiding all unnecessary trips away from campus in order to limit our exposure.

If you are the parent or guardian of a child placed in our care, please check your email for additional information from your child’s social worker.

We are not worried. We are not taking these steps because of fear. We are taking these steps based on the requests of the CDC, President of the United States, and countless brilliant scientists and doctors who understand this virus far better than we are able to on our own. Covid-19 is continually evolving and we will keep you updated with any other major changes or needs as they arise. We appreciate your understanding and prayers as we implement these measures.

Urgent Needs!

We need your help! Supplies are low and hard to find! We need to keep our kids at Cookson Hills healthy! Would you help?