Having spent my adult life engaged in various public safety roles that always included adult training and education, some years ago I decided I wanted a change. I took some time off to determine my next steps – not realizing that doors were already open.

Although she did not initially seek out a position that corresponded with her Christian faith, Kim finds that part of her work to be especially meaningful. At the end of each intake, Dee Dee asks clients if they would like prayer, and they almost always say yes. “I’ve been here for over four years and I can think of maybe only two people that have said they don’t want prayer,” says Kim. “And when Dee Dee prays for them, that’s when they let it all go. They almost always walk out feeling better.”

Dee Dee Gowan was only 21 years old when she was commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy. Her first duty station was the Naval Ocean Processing Facility at Ford Island, a small island inside Pearl Harbor. For three years, she lived and worked in Hawaii, but was assigned to her next duty station at the Pentagon during the First Gulf War. On her last day in Hawaii, Dee Dee looked through the plane window and promised herself that when she had a family of her own, she would return. But three decades passed, life got in the way, and the promise she made to herself went unfulfilled.