If you haven’t met Mama Hug, you must! What a precious loving lady. When I asked the Lord who I should interview for the Mother’s Day edition of the newsletter, it only took a second for Him to drop Mama Hug, Barbara Stephens, into my spirit.
     Barbara was born in Kentucky, raised as a Christian by her father who was very active in the church. Her mother had nothing to do with Christianity at the time but praise God, she did get saved when she was 73 years old, right before she died. Barbara lived in Birmingham the majority of her life then moved to Pensacola 5 years ago. Barbara is not only the mother of three biological children but has also loved 56 foster children over the years. Her drawing to foster children began in the drug culture age of the 60’s when she saw so many kids that hated their parents, their homes, and their lives. Barbara said, “I thought if they had a different atmosphere to live in; maybe I could help them. I took in children from the age of 14 to young adults. Many of them were recovering addicts, some from juvenile homes. At one time I had taken in a teen girl, then ended up with her sister and her mother in my home because they had no where else to go. My last foster daughter left my home in 1996, she has now married and started her own life. Out of the 56 that I fostered, 13 are in full time ministry. My three children are active in the ministry and have even become foster parents through different ministries.”
     Since Barbara has had so much experience with children I asked her to share some words of wisdom for young mothers. She said, “Learn to parent, learn the balance between discipline, loving and nurturing. Children need a lot of touch. Learn how to minister to your children's hurts, whether you hurt them or the world hurts them. Learn the secret of healing prayers rather than healing cookies and milk. When they come and have been hurt by you, a friend, or whatever, stop, look and listen to them. Pray with them, asking the Lord to heal their hurts. This really does work.”
      Barbara is a licensed ordained minister. A revival broke out while she was the ministering with a pastor of a church in Birmingham. They went from 300 to 2500 members in 6 months, then into a sanctuary built to hold 10,000. Barbara noticed that they were seeing people getting saved, filled with the Holy Spirit and then

falling away. She asked God what to do. She said, “God showed me thatpeople were hurting and their heart issues needed to be dealt with before they could live an abundant life. Jesus showed me the concept of teaching and how to offer people a safe place to receive their healing.” That’s how Abundant Life Ministries began in 1979. Barbara is the instructor and founder of this ministry/course. Through the leading of the Holy Spirit the course was written as she strived to heal from the wounding in her own life and in her children's. There are two different courses offered through Abundant Life. One, the ‘Solutions’ course, a 12 week course on personal inner healing. The second, a 42 week course, ‘Healing of the Wounded Heart’ that takes you through ‘Solutions’, then equips you to help others. Chuck Colson Ministries has been in contact with Barbara and are interested in her ‘Solutions’ course being taught in the prisons.
     I asked Barbara, Mama Hug, how she ever got such a warm loving nickname. She said, “I was working in a prison ministry in Birmingham, I went out on Wednesday nights. They couldn’t smoke in the house so they stood outside and smoked and as I would come up I would hug each of them. One night it was raining when I got there and they were huddled up on the porch, I was gathering up my stuff to take in when one of them hollered out, ‘Lord, here come that Mama Hug right now!’ and it just stuck.” A hug can go a long way in healing someone's hurting heart.
     Barbara feels strongly when sharing Jesus. She says, “God is not interested in what I can do, He is interested in what I need or will let Him do in me. That is bottom line! It’s us coming with our weaknesses, knowing it is all God who sets us free. God wants to redeem everything the devil set up in our lives, HE wants to say, ‘nanny nanny boo boo to the devil.’ It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done, God can make a difference. God will take you, love you and change you. That is the most awesome thing to me, outside of redemption itself, the actual taking of a life and turning it around so that some area of that life be glorified through Him.”

If you would like to know more about Abundant Life Ministries and these wonderful courses, and I do personally recommend them, call Liberty Church, P O Box 4474, Pensacola, Florida, 32507, 1-850-453-4318 or e-mail her: