Blessed to live heart’s desire

Published 6:00 am Sunday, April 1, 2018

CHARENTION — “A Bridge Over Troubled Water,” a once-popular song, has a meaning that still captures hearts of people who live their lives as the arms, legs and feet of Jesus Christ, people like the Rev. Dawn Rambo. 

Rambo is director of the Bridge Adult and Teen Challenge Center for Women in Charenton, a faith-based initiative that helps teen and adult women escape the trap of drug- and alcohol- addicted lifestyles.

 “At 15 because of a very traumatic event in my life, I started using all types of street drugs and by the time I was in my early adult life I found myself in an abusive relationship,” Rambo said. “I got a divorce, got married to my current husband and had two small children and because of that addictive lifestyle of drug and alcohol it was destroying our marriage.”

Rambo said she and her husband were not raised in church but, in an attempt to save their marriage, they started attending. Through that experience Rambo said she had an encounter with God and built a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The relationship has taken her out of the bondage of drugs and into her role as minister, director, fundraiser and mentor to the hundreds of women being helped through the Bridge Adult and Teen Challenge Center.

At the Center in Charenton women begin what Rambo calls an induction phase of service. No cell phones, in-house mentoring, encouragement, physical health opportunities, life skill training and positive reinforcement from other females who have made the decision to do a total overhaul on their life choices. Women begin to take part in microenterprise opportunities by making items for their gift shop and working shifts at their thrift shop and coffee house.

Rambo said she is blessed to live out the desire of her heart, seeing others life  a life of freedom in Christ. 

“I get to help women in that same place in life that I was in go on to get jobs and careers some go into ministry and their kids are spared from that lifestyle,” she said.

Sylina Dominguez of San Antonio, Texas, is a resident at the Bridge who found out about the service from a person who once went through the program and was a part of its pioneer efforts. 

“Mrs. Dawn has been a great inspiration for us students whater we need to know, she’s like the mother we never had and she never takes credit for it,” Dominguez said.

Rambo shares her testimony with women who come to the Bridge for help and exemplifies the life of an overcomer as she gives her testimony as a person who is 21 years sober. 

Her story of redemption captures the Easter message of the power of resurrection in an individual’s life, she said.

“From the very beginning it’s always been God’s plan for us to walk in his identity of who he created  us to be,” Rambo said. “He (God)  sacrificed it all through Christ so we could find redemption and that reconciliation with him to go on and live that life he always intended for us to have.” 

Rambo ministers at Crossing Place Church in Bayou Vista when she is not at the Bridge. She and her husband, David, have two children and two grandchildren. Her daughter, Chelsea, 25, and husband, Jeremiah, have her grandchildren, Cassidy and Adelynn, and she has a 21-year-old son, Dillen. Both her children are in ministry as well.

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