Hope on a Hill

There was a season of my life when I felt like I was drowning.

Not physically, but emotionally, spiritually, relationally. The kind of drowning where you're still functioning on the outside, still showing up, still trying to hold things together… while internally, everything feels like it's unraveling.

At the time, I was serving overseas in ministry when much of the life I had built seemed to unravel all at once. In the midst of profound personal and ministry upheaval, I found myself navigating grief, confusion, betrayal, and trauma in ways I never expected. Much of the support around me, though well-intentioned, simply wasn't equipped to respond safely or wisely to what was happening.

I often felt like I was trying to teach people how to throw me a life preserver while struggling to stay above water.

And then I found Restored and Renewed Ministry.

In the middle of COVID, I arrived at a small retreat center in a tiny French village carrying exhaustion, heartbreak, fear, and more questions than answers. I stayed twice over the course of that season—once for five days and once for ten.

What I found there changed me.

For the first time in a long time, I felt safe enough to exhale.

I was fed. Prayed for. Counseled. Given space to rest without needing to perform, explain, or pretend I was okay. I was met with compassion rooted deeply in God's truth, not condemnation or pressure. In a season where so much felt unstable, I was given something incredibly sacred: a tether back to someone and somewhere who were for me.

That mattered more than I can fully explain.

Restored and Renewed became an anchor in one of the most turbulent seasons of my life. And though healing is rarely instant or linear, I left each stay with a little more strength, a little more clarity, and the reminder that I wasn't alone.

Over the years since, God has continued to weave restoration through my own story. I became certified in trauma and resilience, returned to counseling and caring for missionaries cross-culturally, and began speaking openly about trauma, healing, storytelling, faith, and resilience around the world.

But I never forgot that little village in France.

Nearly six years later, I returned to reconnect with Sherry Pogue, founder of Restored and Renewed Ministry, and to see how I might serve and support the work God is doing there. During that visit, a nearby home came up for sale—a home the ministry had already occasionally used for overflow housing and work teams.

As I prayed, I felt deeply stirred by the possibility that this house could become something more.

A place of refuge.
A place of rest.
A place where missionaries and ministry leaders could come when life, ministry, grief, burnout, or crisis became too heavy to carry alone.

I felt the words "Hope on a Hill" settle deeply in my spirit.

And honestly? I cried.

Because I felt small. Like a little girl standing in front of something impossibly big.

I don't have the resources to casually purchase a home in France. Especially not alone. But I also couldn't shake the sense that God was inviting me not to have everything figured out first… but to trust Him one step at a time.

So I said yes.

Hope on a Hill is my response to that invitation.

Not because I have all the answers.
Not because I feel exceptionally brave.
But because I know firsthand what it means to need a safe place to land.

And I know how profoundly life-changing it can be when one exists.

— Marcy Pusey