Silver Dollar City -- Where Flowers Bloom, People Care
by Randall Murphree
October 19, 2006
(AgapePress) - - JoDee Remien was a college coed when she first came to Silver Dollar City for a summer job in 1962. "Silver Dollar City had opened a few years before," JoDee remembers, "and a friend of mine said, 'They're looking for girls.' I qualified, so I went down and applied." But the Springfield city girl didn't have a clue what a turn her life was going to take. Over the ensuing summers a romance blossomed between JoDee and Pete Herschend, whose father Hugh had founded the park.
JoDee and Pete married in 1966 and, as principals in Herschend Family Entertainment, have been an integral part of the Silver Dollar City success story ever since. But Pete Herschend, his business partner and brother, Jack, and their parents never spent too much time counting their coins. On the contrary, a family trait is to look outside themselves, and find places and people they can help.
It is a reflection of their strong Christian faith, and the same qualities have become a mainstay in JoDee Herschend's life. After three decades and five children, JoDee embarked upon a unique ministry to reach single mothers for Christ. Caring People was incorporated as a non-profit in 1997 with the goal of putting hands and feet to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
"I was actually awakened in the night," JoDee said, "with the Lord speaking to my heart to start a company to create an awareness of and desire to meet Jesus." She didn't immediately know that it would be for single mothers, but that focus was planted in her heart -- and Pete's -- soon enough.
They chose single mothers for three reasons. First, they are a large percentage of the population. A third of our households are headed by single moms. Second, they can influence others because they usually have at least two children.
"The third reason was a very personal one," JoDee said, "one I saw in the Scripture -- that those who have been in a great deal of pain and have a lot of hurt in their lives have a great deal of love for the Savior."
She admits her naiveté and laughs at herself today. "What I had hoped in the beginning was that I could place ads which single moms would see and then, in the quietness of their own homes, give their lives to Jesus."
Then she commissioned research to help her refine the goals of Caring People and was shocked by the results. She had to face the truth. Reaching single moms was going to be an emotional, challenging, and sometimes difficult, road.
"I didn't know that 95 percent of single moms are outside the walls of the church," JoDee said. "What we discovered was that single moms feel judged and rejected by the church and by Christians. And because of that, they don't want anything to do with us. When I read that research, I just sat and cried."
But the good news is, the research also gave Caring People insight into what makes single mothers respond to Christ. JoDee and other leaders in the ministry saw that their concept of "church" had to change. They would have to carry their faith to the single mothers God had called them to reach.
JoDee said, "If we're going to be able to speak to them, we're going to have to go where they are, and the means we have of reaching their hearts is unconditional love, unconditional acceptance and our acknowledgment that they are unconditionally forgiven."
That's the guiding principle behind Caring People. The method, the "delivery system" JoDee calls it, is the small group. It takes about five caring women volunteers to lead one group of 20 single mothers.
Caring People has an administrative staff of 15 in Springfield, Missouri. But their vision is not small. "Our desire is to be able to replicate this across the nation," JoDee said. "We want to go as far as God wants us to go. We think He wants us to go across the nation and even across the ocean, but that's probably for a later day."
It's not exactly Silver Dollar City. It's not families getting soaked in the park's water rides. It's not cotton candy and Ozark craft shows. But Pete Herschend is quick to say, "This, too -- Caring People -- is a part of the heart of the Silver Dollar City family."
For JoDee Herschend, it's a matter of call and ministry and representing. She and a small cadre of caring women are, indeed, being the hands and feet of Christ as they reach out to single mothers.
"We're like flowers," Jodee said. "Our roots are in the church, but we bloom in the world. I think that's the call He has on every one of us."
Earlier articles in this series:
Silver Dollar City -- Where Cowboys, Crafts and Christmas Fill the Calendar
Cave Spawns Silver Dollar City, Family Theme Park, as Leader in Branson Tourism
Randall Murphree, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is editor of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association. He visited Silver Dollar City near Branson, Missouri, over Labor Day weekend. This is the third in a five-part series of stories about the people behind Silver Dollar City. For more information on events, schedules and days of operation during the theme park's Christmas festival and other special events, call 800-831-4FUN or visit SilverDollarCity.com.
