Jim’s Story

“There are so many people who struggle with their mental health and feel like they are alone,” said Jim Guentherman, LSI Director of Clinical Services. “I am here to tell them they are not alone, and it’s okay not to be okay.” 

Jim has been with LSI since 2003 and serves a diverse client base, but he has a specialty in working with veterans, as he is a veteran himself. This connection to his clients helps build trust in therapy sessions. He finds clients can open up to him, knowing he has had similar experiences. 

“Being a veteran helps me while working with other veterans because I’m able to understand where they are coming from and what they have been through,” said Jim. “I know why some things may be hard to process and move forward from, and I can use my past experiences in sessions.” 

Jim wishes he could help more to erase the stigma around mental health. Many of the veterans he works with reached out to him, knowing his military background. 

“There is a stigma surrounding mental health – for veterans, for men, for different cultures, for society in general.” 

“Unfortunately, I haven’t worked with as many veterans as I’d like, because they don’t reach out,” said Jim. “Most of the veterans I see come to therapy because someone has pushed them to go. It might be a loved one saying, ‘You are struggling. You should go to therapy.’ It’s not the first thing that comes to our minds.” 

Jim sees a high percentage of veterans who have some type of trauma or anxiety, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), among other challenges experienced when going back into civilian life. 

“Many veterans I work with struggle with finding their identity outside of the military,” said Jim. “When we leave the military, we are changed people. Some people that you have known your whole life expect you to be like you were before. But it doesn’t work like that.” 

Jim hopes his personal understanding of veterans will encourage more of them to try therapy as a tool to work through mental health struggles. 

Mindy and Jeff’s Story

After raising their four children, Jeff and Mindy Schechinger felt compelled through their strong faith to open their loving home to children in need of a safe, nurturing environment. 

They attended resource family training sessions through LSI, and shortly after becoming certified foster parents, Mindy and Jeff fostered and then adopted two brothers in March of 2021 to ensure the boys would be raised in the same home.   

Soon after, Mindy and Jeff accepted the foster placement of the boys’ two sisters. It was important to them to keep the group of four siblings together, so they finalized the adoption of the boys’ two sisters in June of 2022.  

Even with four adopted siblings to keep them busy, the Schechingers knew there were more children in need of a loving home, so they continued to maintain their foster care and adoption license. 

Early this year, they again opened their home and hearts to a young boy who is eligible for adoption. They hope to officially add him to their family through adoption this spring, resulting in a home where the children range in age from 4 to 16 years old and come with different backgrounds and challenges.  

Their days are filled with church engagements, homework, extracurricular activities and appointments. They have many animals including chickens, goats, dogs and cats. Jeff, Mindy and their children also enjoy family camping trips and being on the water.  

When time allows, Mindy and Jeff enjoy taking the younger children on trips to visit their adult children, so they can all share new experiences as a family. And, they continue to work in their community to advocate and spread awareness about fostering and adoption. 

LSI is proud to walk alongside families, like the Schechingers, as they continue to grow their family and create a safe, happy home for their children. Even with all of the different backgrounds, ages, and individual personalities, the Schechingers come together as one family united in their love for each other and in their love for Christ. 

Learn more about services that help people like Mindy and Jeff:

Foster Care and Adoption

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Katie and Jaime’s Story

Accomplishing a goal is often not a sprint, but a marathon. Such is the case for Katie* who found the LSI HOPES Home Visiting program in 2017 when she was pregnant and living in a homeless shelter.  

Jaime*, Katie’s LSI home visitor, started working with her, meeting twice a week. Jaime helped Katie create a plan for reaching her two ultimate goals: maintain sobriety and regain custody of her two older children, whom she lost because of her struggles with alcoholism.  

With Katie’s goals in mind, the LSI home visitor helped her set small, tangible goals to set her up on her path to success. For starters, Katie wanted to maintain a healthy pregnancy and to be able to support her newborn baby. Jaime provided education and training during their weekly sessions. Once she reached this goal, Katie’s next step was to find adequate housing for herself and her baby. 

Due to her inability to read, Katie’s home visitor helped her navigate rental websites, read housing applications and understand lease agreements. This support allowed Katie to find a safe home for her and her baby, with the hopes of regaining custody of her other two children. 

Next, Katie wanted to get her driver’s license. Since she was unable to read, Jaime scheduled time out of her own work week to read and audio record the driver’s manual so Katie could successfully prepare for the exam, the test and obtain her driver’s license.  

After four years of participating in the program and achieving all the goals she and Jaime set for her, Katie was able to accomplish her ultimate goal of maintaining her sobriety and regaining custody of her children. The family now lives together in a safe, happy home. 

Katie’s LSI’s home visitor says she learned so much from working with this family and walking alongside them on their journey. “I learned to support Katie’s independence and to empower her by encouraging her to try and to only provide support where it was needed,” she explains. 

LSI’s HOPES program provides support to parents of children pre-birth through age five. The program focuses on supporting families with infant care, parenting, child development, links to community resources and many other aspects of parenting. LSI’s HOPES program offers services in 29 counties all across Iowa.  

 

*Names have been changed to protect the client’s privacy. 

Learn more about services that help people like Katie:

Early Childhood Services

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April’s Story

“I love it when a whole classroom of middle schoolers run down the auditorium hallway for an LSI class shouting ‘April!’ with excitement, ready to learn about healthy relationship skills and self-esteem,” said April Howe, a Program Supervisor for LSI’s Clinical Services team. 

Our LSI Clinical Services team provides various local community programs in schools across Iowa. Whether it’s mental health therapy or programs providing teen pregnancy education, they all share the goal of wrapping care around adolescents at a local level. 

Specifically, April and her team conduct two community programs in nine northwest Iowa counties: Community Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (CAPP) and Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP).  

CAPP supports and educates Iowa youth by providing sexual health and pregnancy prevention classes for healthy and successful relationships. PREP helps youth build social, emotional, and life skills to develop a positive sense of self and to connect with peers in their community. PREP utilizes the Teen Outreach Program and Wise Guys evidence-based curriculum. 

“Thank you for teaching our class and taking time out of your day to come to our school. I learned a lot about healthy relationships and how to handle my anger and other emotions. You opened my eyes to my family’s habits and what I want to take with me when I have a family of my own.” 

– High school student to LSI staff member

“The letters that high school students write to our staff about what they learned in class and how they will use the knowledge in their everyday life shows the programs’ tremendous impact,” said April. “We meet the youth where they are at, but also encourage healthy decision-making along the way, which plays a huge role in making prevention education successful.” 

Furthermore, April’s team encourages conversation and participation by providing incentives in the classroom, such as packaged snacks and other LSI materials. “When it comes to engagement in the classroom, I always say, ‘When their stomachs are full, their brains are full,’” shared April with a smile. “Some students would skip school all day, but they show up to the last class of the day, taught by LSI. That, right there, is a win for my team.” 

April’s team has seen significant success in response to their CAPP and PREP community programs. Based on a post-program evaluation, 96% of students in the CAPP program reported that they learned “some” or “a lot” that they didn’t already know about sexual health topics, and 53% agreed that they are now more likely to start conversations about these topics with others. 

“Pregnancy rates have dropped over the last four years in many of our counties served, proving our services are making a difference in our communities,” said April. “Reaching the youth on their level and prioritizing prevention makes our program successful.” 

Learn more about community programs:

Community Programs

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Michelle and Rachel’s Story

“Without Amy’s support, I would still be an addict, and I wouldn’t be where I am today,” said Michelle, an LSI client. 

Michelle was struggling with substance abuse, legal issues, and mental health issues when she found LSI therapist Amy Davis back in 2021. 

“God helps us in ways we don’t always want him to,” said Michelle. “When the coronavirus pandemic hit, I lost my job. The unemployment lines were long at the time, so we went several months without a paycheck, so I decided to get creative with my finances. I started selling drugs and was later arrested with a large quantity of drugs. They came in, took my kid, and I went to jail. After that, I was referred to work with Amy at LSI.” 

Michelle and Amy worked through Michelle’s childhood trauma, processing the significant losses in her life due to drug overdose and death. Amy helped Michelle work on building a positive support system, a list of future goals, and a relationship with her daughter, Rachel.

“Rachel and I had a lot of problems when we entered therapy because I was a drug addict, and there was a lot of broken trust between us,” said Michelle. “LSI therapists helped us rebuild that trust and helped show her the progress I had made when she couldn’t see it herself.”

Rachel, in therapy as well, has been seeing LSI Therapist Chelsea Zaragoza since 2019. In addition to one-on-one therapy sessions with their respective therapists, Michelle and Rachel also do family therapy sessions with Amy and Chelsea. These sessions help the mother and daughter have time set aside to talk about issues they are having in a healthy, productive way. 

“Michelle has had a lot of struggles, loss, and a lot of people who didn’t believe in her, and her daughter was one of them,” said Amy Davis, LSI Therapist. “We have worked hard doing family and individual therapy to bring those two back together, and it has worked. Where they are now, I don’t think I’ve seen a mother-daughter relationship as healthy as the two of them are.” 

Today, Michelle has her daughter back in her home, she is thriving as a general manager at a coffee shop, and she is going to school for substance abuse counseling. She just received her one-year sobriety chip, and she has a good support system.

“To see how far Michelle has come since I met her is truly remarkable,” said Amy. “She built the ladder, and she climbed out.” 

“I was a mess when I first came to LSI,” said Michelle. “Now, I’m sober, in college, have a high-paying job, and have my daughter back. Amy believed in me when no one else did, not even myself. She gave me hope.” 

Learn more about services that help people like Michelle and Rachel:

Therapy Services

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Firmin’s Story

Firmin Ntakimazi was born in Burundi, where he grew up, received his education, and made a living teaching elementary school. When civil war broke out in 1993, he fled to Tanzania, where he spent the next 15 years in a refugee camp before being accepted to go to the U.S. and begin a new life.  

Today, Firmin works as a community resource navigator for the LSI Global Greens program. He coaches farmers, assists with interpretation, works to find land for farmers, and teaches classes. But this isn’t Firmin’s first time teaching others about farming.  

“I was an elementary teacher in Burundi when the secretary of education appointed me to go work at a school in a rural area where the kids didn’t like school and the teachers didn’t really teach,” said Firmin. “When I went there, I introduced the kids to games so they could love going to school.”  

Unfortunately, the school didn’t have money to purchase balls or sports equipment, so Firmin came up with a different solution: farming.  

“We’d get the land ready, and the parents would provide the seeds. The students grew soybeans, corn, cabbages, and other vegetables.”  

After learning to grow and sell their crops, the students raised enough money to purchase many balls and sports equipment. Additionally, Firmin kept some of the crops to cook at school so he could teach his students new recipes. 

“About 40 percent of the kids who had stopped going to school came back because of the fun we were having at school. I will never forget that.”  

With a passion for teaching and coaching others, Firmin teaches refugee and immigrant farmers in agriculture education classes at LSI. Topics, among others, include land access, risk management, record keeping, and the differences in American farm practices versus farming culture from other countries.  

Due to a lack of education and experience resulting from years spent in refugee camps, many new arrivals struggle to find a well-suited job in Iowa, unable to work long and laborious hours in factories. Firmin enjoys sharing the joy of farming with others and helping former refugees provide food for their families or turn farming into a small business.  

Firmin’s work helps pave a path for refugees in the United States. The skills they learn not only help them feed their families but also provide them with confidence and knowledge in their farming businesses. You can ensure more refugees learn the joys and knowledge of farming by supporting LSI Immigrant and Refugee Community Services. Please consider giving today. 

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Immigrant and Refugee Community Services

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Zoya’s Story

When she heard about the news of the war in Ukraine, Zoya Staroselsky felt compelled to support her fellow Ukrainians, in more ways than one.  

Zoya, who moved to the U.S. with her family as refugees in 1991, was empathetic to everyone being affected by the war, so she helped to organize fundraisers and two rallies at the Des Moines Capitol in March and April of 2022. 

“Once you’re Ukrainian, you’re always Ukrainian,” said Zoya. “I was hit very hard by the news of the war in Ukraine. We still have friends and connections there, so hearing the news was scary.” 

In December 2022, Zoya began working at LSI as an interpreter, speaking both Ukrainian and Russian. “My son called me and said he sent me a link to a Ukrainian Interpreter job at LSI. I thought ‘maybe I can help in that way.’ That’s how I got the job here. I just wanted to help in as many ways as I could,” said Zoya.  

A large part of Zoya’s job is to provide her clients with everyday necessities including clothing, car seats and diapers. “These people came with little notice,” said Zoya. “They brought what they could carry in their hands or small suitcases.” 

When Zoya first started at LSI, she was the only Ukrainian interpreter. Now, LSI has a bigger team that allows them to help more clients.  “As of right now, our team works with about 40-50 clients, but we still have much room to grow,” said Zoya. 

LSI hosts resource fairs for newly-arrived Ukrainians to help set them up with access to community programs and services, but according to Zoya, some people come to the resource fairs just to find someone that they can communicate with. 

One of the most challenging aspects of Zoya’s job is not always being able to obtain items or resources for her clients as quickly as they need them.  “People are very generous, but it’s hard to not be in charge of your own life. Some of these clients depend on other people and that can be challenging for them,” she said. 

Zoya also shared that she is especially happy when she is able to help a family or individual get what they need to succeed or move forward in their lives. “It fulfills me to my core to help people, and this job aligns with that value. I found that at LSI, it’s not just interpretation, I get to help all those families with their needs in many different ways,” she said. 

“It makes me very proud of this organization [LSI] that has done this work for many years, for many different people, of many different nationalities,” said Zoya. “Being a part of this organization makes me feel really proud of the work I do.” 

Learn more about Services for Ukrainian Humanitarian Parolees:

Services for Ukrainian Humanitarian Parolees

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Pree’s Story

From dreaming of big cities, tall buildings and lots of cars, Pree, a former refugee, is now making her dream a reality. 

“I’ve always seen the U.S. in movies. I dreamt of living in my own home and driving my own car. Now, my dream has come true,” said Pree. 

Pree Aung and her family of four moved to Iowa in 2014 from a Thailand refugee camp. Having family in Des Moines, Pree heard about Iowa’s Karen community and the work opportunities in the area. “Iowa has a big community for my family, many Asian grocery stores, and an organization that helps refugees [LSI]. Iowa has everything that I need and want,” she said. 

Pree started taking English Language classes at LSI three days a week. Her interpreter told her about all the LSI programs she qualified for, including the Child Care program. “That’s when I decided to do something for my future,” said Pree. 

“I wanted to become a child care provider because, as a mother myself, I love kids and want all kids to have a safe place for child care. All mothers deserve to go to work without worrying about their kid’s safety.” 

For many parents who arrive in the U.S. as refugees, it is difficult to find quality child care. Families are adjusting to life in the U.S. and may feel hesitant leaving their child with a stranger who doesn’t speak their language, or they may not be able to afford child care. LSI’s Child Care program trains immigrants to start their own in-home child care businesses, which benefits more families in the refugee community. 

LSI staff supported Pree through her training by providing her with a Karen interpreter and helping her through each step of her certification. “LSI staff helped walk me through my trainings, including CPR classes and Mandatory Reporter Training. Two of the most valuable things I learned in the program include how to keep track of children’s medications and what to do in emergencies.” 

Pree became a child care provider in 2016, achieving licensing in just 6 months. “At the start, I thought it wouldn’t be easy to earn my provider license. I was a full-time mom, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to work until I became a provider myself. With the help of LSI’s services, I was able to finally reach my goal.” 

Today, Pree’s Karen-speaking in-home child care business is made up of three children. In the future, she hopes to own her own child care center or school. “I would love for my whole family to work together at our own child care center and be providers together,” said Pree. 

“My advice to full-time moms in my community is to do something that can be beneficial for you and your family. Try to get your child care license or a different license that is available in your area,” said Pree. “You are stronger than you think. If I can do it, you can too.” 

Learn more about services that help people like Pree:

Immigrant and Refugee Community Services

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Thomas’s Story

In 1996 Congolese civil war broke out in the present-day countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Republic of the Congo, forcing then two-year-old Thomas Mbuthu into exile in a refugee camp in neighboring Zambia. After growing up in refugee camp, now 27-year-old Thomas applied to come to the United States.  

When Thomas landed at the Des Moines airport in an entirely foreign land in a state called Iowa, LSI caseworker Patrick Karemera greeted him.  

“I said, ‘Welcome! This is your new home now! I am your brother. This is a new life. Feel free and feel safe,” shared Patrick, recounting his initial meeting with his client Thomas.  

Thomas thanked him, explaining he had not expected to see someone like Patrick welcome him – someone who looked like himself and spoke his native languages of Lingala and Swahili.  

“As a refugee, I wanted a better life. But I didn’t know where I was going. ‘What is going to happen to me?’” wondered Thomas aloud.  

“When Patrick came to me, I could see the future.” 

Patrick is from the same country as Thomas, coming to America just a few years prior. He works as a caseworker to welcome refugees to Iowa and helps them resettle, pursue their goals, and navigate the challenges of an entirely foreign place. 

“I immigrated here, like Thomas. It’s rewarding to welcome somebody like me to come here to Iowa. This is my second home,” said Patrick.  

Patrick admires how courageous, open-minded, and curious Thomas is. He encourages his client to dream big and work hard to achieve his goals.  

“Life is about helping each other,” shared Patrick.  

 

Learn more about services that help people like Thomas:

Immigrant and Refugee Community Services

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