Exodus Ministries helps women put difficult pasts behind them

DALLAS—Haley Blanton's childhood was what many people long for—loving parents, supportive environment and a comfortable life.

Blessed with scholarship-level athletic ability, intelligence, good looks and popularity, her future could not have looked brighter—until her world was shattered as a high school junior.

She was raped, and her world turned upside down.

Haley Blanton is one of many women helped through Exodus Ministries in Dallas.

Blanton kept that knowledge to herself for a while. When she finally told her friends, they did not believe her version of the event.

The experience crippled her emotionally to the point she simply stopped caring, she said.

One bad choice led to another, and she found herself in a series of increasingly dangerous situations.

She ended up on the streets of Fort Worth, deeply involved in a gang, dealing drugs. By age 30, Blanton was in and out of incarceration.

"The amount of shame you have after something traumatizing like that is enough to just shut you down as a person," she said.

Watching it happen, Blanton's mother felt helpless. She often didn't know where her daughter was living, going as far as posting fliers on telephone poles.

When Paula Blanton saw Haley, it was for short periods when she would get clean and vanish again.

"It was sad," Paula Blanton said. "I would go into her room sometimes and just sit on her bed and look around and think about the fun times that we had."

When Haley Blanton decided to turn her life around, her mother went with her to Exodus Ministries, a non-denominational program for women supported in part by the Texas Baptist Hunger Offering.

The ministry offers a rigorous yearlong program that provides a furnished apartment, life-skills classes, parenting classes and support designed to help women with difficult pasts emerge from poverty.

The classes and schedule—which for Blanton includes two jobs and early morning bus trips to take her young daughter to school—have been challenging and rewarding, she said.

As she nears the end of her time at Exodus, she feels like she's gained a lot.

Blanton has dealt with her past, even reaching out to a young woman who was in much the same situation she found herself in during high school.

She has spoken at churches, using her experiences as a tool to help others.

Blanton isn't sure exactly what her future holds, but she looks forward to it.

She hopes to go back to college, possibly pursue a career in criminal justice—an area in which she has a passion, given her involvement in the system.

She wants to help others who are facing the same struggles she has endured.

"It's just an awesome feeling. I'm doing it," she said.

For more information about Exodus Ministries, visit www.exodusministriesdallas.org.

For more information about the Texas Baptist Hunger Offering, visit www.texasbaptists.org/worldhunger.

To give to the offering, visit www.texasbaptists.org/give.