Helping the mentally ill and bereaved

 Heartfelt Counseling was born out of our own suffering. In 1985, my husband, Steve was diagnosed with clinical depression. Of course, not many people knew what it was then and certainly CHRISTIANS, especially Christian ministers would never get it, whatever it was! We persevered through his depressive episodes over the years until 1998 when his psychiatrist diagnosed him with bipolar II because of the way he cycled downward into depression so quickly. In a matter of three days, he would go from whistling, singing and enjoying life to being deeply depressed and suicidal. Thankfully, since he has been prescribed a mood stabilizer, he has not had a depressive episode.

In 2001, our nineteen year old daughter was returning from a prayer vigil called by our pastor on September 11 (yes, the terrorist day) when she was killed. Lindsay was eight months pregnant with little Emily Hope, our first grandchild who was also killed that night. We were following her car down a main road in Grand Rapids, Michigan when we noticed a car coming in the opposite direction, crossing all four lanes of traffic heading right for her. The driver hit her head-on and we were the first on the scene. We shouted for someone to call 911; two of our three sons were also with us as we rushed to her side. We stood there shocked and dazed as the day of terror hit us personally. We found out within an hour or so (time was standing still for us then) that the driver and his two buddies were shooting up heroin as they drove. The blood tests later verified that the driver had, according to the Michigan State Police Lab, enough heroin, cocaine and marijuana to "put down six men." He lived and was sentenced to 3-15 years for killing them. He served eleven.

In 2003, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and one day as I was driving home from my radiation treatment Steve called me and told me he just lost his job. The Michigan economy was tanking and he was caught in the middle of it all. He applied for over a hundred jobs over the next few years all the while working on establishing Heartfelt Counseling Ministries to help people who had experienced some of the grief, confusion and loss that we had.

We were able to have our book published in 2005 (Kregel Publications) called Broken Minds, Hope for healing when you feel like you're losing it. It is the story of our journey with Steve's depression as an ordained minister and pastor. It has cleared up many of the misconceptions about mental illness and the Christian, especially. We do not blame people for having a biological illness.

Our ministry is helping many people. We counsel on a sliding scale, have never turned anyone away because they don't have the money to pay for counseling. We run a support group every Thursday night at our church (Boca Glades Baptist) for no charge to any of the attenders and we want to dispel the pain of calling mental illness a sin.

We are grossly underfunded. In 2011 we lost our home and are trying to re-establish our ministry in south Florida where I (Robyn) grew up and where many of our family members still live. Two of our sons now live here, too.

Well, why are we fund raising?
1. We really need an office to counsel. Since we don't have one here yet we have been like the old-time doctors doing house calls-we go to the client. 
2. We need to print more support group material that we write ourselves- which can get a little pricey when a ministry is so underfunded. 
3. We would like to continue counseling on a sliding scale or for free as we do quite often.
4. AND we desperately need website help.

We earnestly believe proverbs 19:17 where it says
One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD, And He will repay him for his good deed. We want to help others and would appreciate your lending a hand to help the bereaved of child and the mentally ill wherever they may be.
Christ's servants, Robyn and Steve Bloem