Today we’d like to introduce you to Carmen Welch.
Carmen, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I grew up in a small town in Arkansas with a population of approximately 200 people. I went to college and then shortly after being in college and losing my scholarship, it left me with paying for school on my own due to my own poor decisions… During this time, I began to make poor decisions out of frustration. I grew up in the church and was still working in the church at the time, but my lifestyle didn’t match up with the values that I professed to have. During this time, I seen so many young ladies get addicted to particular lifestyles such as drugs, alcohol, sex for money, committed suicide, remaining in domestic violent situations because of their low self-esteem and etc.
A few years later, I finally cried out to God for help and trusted him with my life and within moments (actually a long story short) a miracle happened and he provided me with what I needed to get out of the situation that I was in. During this moment, I realized I wanted to go back to reach other young ladies that may have been left behind and I want to make sure that I continue to give to them what I didn’t receive. At the same time, I want to create a safe network of women that meet on a regular basis and help encourage one another, share their stories and hold each other accountable in a safe environment. I want to prevent someone else from going through what I went through as well as challenge other women to rise above the pressures of life.
I am a Christian and I base everything that I do off of my faith. I have my own non-profit outreach, C & C Ladies Outreach and under the outreach I host a Ladies Retreat once a year and I gather women from all cultures together to help minister, encourage and inspire one another. The Ladies Retreats are not just not another Retreat, my team and I actually target other ladies who the world may call “the hard cases”, we go out and get them and bring them in for an entire weekend to love on them and let them know most of all that we care and we also have spiritual support and professional support on site the entire weekend. I use to be a hard case as well but I want other ladies to know that when you know who you are and who’s you are and why you are who you are, you are able to honor God with your life and you will win….
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely has not been a smooth road. I struggled a lot with worrying about what other people would say or think about me. I grew up in the church and was pretty much known as the “good church girl”, When I decided to share some of my story and testimony in a book, I started doubting myself because I was so worried about what others would think about or how they would look at me. I get it, some of our stories are not for the entire world but some of our own personal testimonies may be for one on one conversations but there comes a time also when you sharing your story may help someone else healing, we have to move when our “gut” tell us to move and not people.
Also the latter part of my life, I struggled again with making decisions based on what others thought I should do or how it would make me look, etc., and I became stuck again because I made major decisions to make other people happy and not myself. We should be confident enough in our abilities that we trust ourselves to listen to our “gut” (ladies, we know exactly what that is”)
Just remember, making your own decisions also allows you to make your own mistakes and learn from them…
Please tell us about Spring Ladies Retreat.
I am a wife, a mother of a 3 & 4 years old and a bonus mom to a 17 and 20 years old. I currently work for Texas Family Child & Protective Service as a case manager and have worked with the state for over 11 years. I am also a member of Whosoever Will Worship Ministries, under the leadership of Pastor Melvin Bouldin, Jr. and wife Minister Fannie Bouldin.
I am also the Host of the Ladies Spring Retreat that’s held in Galveston County once a year. I believe what sets the Retreats apart from others is that we target and actually go out and get some of the ladies that may be on the streets, living in domestic violence facilities, struggling with substance abuse issues, grief issues and etc. We provide a hotel for the weekend for a certain amount of ladies to stay in, we show love and love on them, we give out gifts for them to take back, we provide food for them an all ladies to eat and most importantly we provide spiritual food that will remain in their hearts forever.
What advice would you give to someone at the start of her career?
I would say that starting off your career. Make sure your career is something that you absolutely love doing, with or without the paycheck and make sure its the career that you want for yourself and not anyone else.
Second, be careful who you surround yourself with and find people that will support you in every season of your career, it’s nothing wrong with doing most things on your own but there will be times when you may need help in various areas and there will be times when you will need a strong support system and its okay to have that.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 832-801-5073
- Email: springladiesretreat@yahoo.com
- Facebook: Spring Ladies Retreat Facebook
Image Credit:
Image Credits Goes to Jamal Law for 2 of the pictures
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