Eleven years clean and sober, couple’s ministry to people living with addiction expands
Through Co-Pastors Kevin and Danielle Riley, Washington state church has opened a recovery center, and it's exploring more outreach opportunities
CONCRETE, Washington — The church parking lot where Danielle Riley got arrested is a sacred space to her.
“That's my clean date, 11 years ago,” Danielle says. “So, we've been dreaming all these years about, what if we planted a church there? What if we did something there.”
Danielle and Kevin Riley’s story has become well-known in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). More than a decade ago, the couple was addicted to drugs and living in poverty in Northwest Washington.
“I don’t think we ever got suicidal, but I wouldn’t have minded if my life ended,” Danielle told the Presbyterian News Service in 2022.
Instead, the couple got clean and sober and were eventually called to ministry as co-commissioned pastors at Mount Baker Presbyterian Church in Concrete, Washington, a small town about 100 miles northeast of Seattle.
Pastoring the church, the Rileys lead outreach to people who are a lot like themselves early this century.
“We focus on a population that is rooted in chaos,” Kevin says. “Everything is crisis. The majority of them suffer with mental health or drug addiction, and we're 11 years clean and sober, and we are never more than two steps away from being the people that we're helping.”
In this video, see how the Riley’s ministry is expanding in their Northwest Washington community.
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Clean and sober 11 years, couple’s ministry to people living with addiction expands
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Clean and sober 11 years, couple’s ministry to people living with addiction expands
Here is a transcript of the video:
Kevin Riley: You know, getting to do ministry with somebody that I have gotten to experience so much of my life with is like the icing on the cake. I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Danielle Riley: Ministry is a lot of peaks and valleys, and I feel like, not all the time, but for the most part, we sort of take turns in those peaks and valleys. And it's really important, because the other person can always mitigate that one way or another.
Kevin Riley: We focus on a population that is rooted in chaos. Everything is crisis. The majority of them suffer with mental health or drug addiction, and we're 11 years clean and sober, and we are never more than two steps away from being the people that we're helping. And so having the support of each other to do check ins, to keep each other on track, just not only from a vocational standpoint, but from a relational standpoint, is paramount and healing at the same time.
Danielle Riley: I came on full time. I graduated with my master's degree from the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. It's a master's in theology and culture with a focus on community development, and my capstone is kind of what's informing what we're doing next.
We're now working with Mary and Genevieve, and they are peer advocate specialists, I think is their title, but they do everything, like any little thing that anybody comes in with that's a need, they help.
So, she's going to laugh, because we told everybody this: She used to be our drug dealer, and we met her at a hotel. And then I was doing Bible studies in the jail at Skagit, and she just happened to be at my table one day, and it was like, 'Oh, hi.' Super awkward moment. She went to prison, and I think she just did two years and got out and she's in a Human Services program in our local community college, and we wanted to hire her, and she comes as a package deal with Mary, because they have been really close. They did all of their prison time together. So, we've got 'em both for now, and they are wonderful.
Mary Meyer: We just provide a safe space for people who are experiencing housing insecurities and substance abuse.
Genevieve Ward: Sometimes they come here hungry, and they're like, you know, 'I'm embarrassed, but I need food,' you know, and if we have it, we're gonna pack them a bag. That's the thing I tell people, 'Don't ever be embarrassed, because I've been there,' you know. I know what it's like to not know where you're gonna get your next meal or if you're going to get it out of a garbage can. Mary and I have that lived experience. I mean, we experience what everyone that walks through this door is more than likely ...
Mary Meyer: ... and if we can't provide something for them, we try and find other resources in the community.
Genevieve Ward: We'll find that.
Danielle Riley: There's a property here in Sedro-Woolley that used to be Trinity Presbyterian Church. They ended their service five years ago or six years ago, I think. And there's been another church renting the space, and it's sort of a special space for me, because I was arrested in that parking lot. That's my clean date, 11 years ago. So, we've been dreaming all these years about what if we planted a church there? What if we did something there? So, my capstone project was to reimagine that space as a new worshiping community and the two acres that are attached to it as a transitional housing space. Sedro-Woolley has some really interesting laws around zoning, and so it has to be stacked on top of commercial for us to build residential, the way that area is zoned. So, we want to partner with the local hospital in exchange for some swing beds for the hospital, and probably do a café-bookstore type of situation for folks that are living there to get employment experience and a chance to put some money away.
Our most significant partner is Didgwalich, which is a partner of the Swinomish Tribe, and they offer medically assisted drug treatment, including like Suboxone, methadone, mental health treatment, and a myriad of other resources, and it's free to the public. You don't have to be a tribal member. So, we partner with them, and they're using our space along with all their staff and their medical staff to do walk-in, medically assisted drug treatment for folks. They fund our two employees, my salary, or half of my salary, and a development director that we just hired part time to help us come up with plans, B, D and C for funding in case things fell through, because you just never know, with grant funding.
I spent a lot of my time in my master's program kind of searching out and looking into my indigenous theology. It's been really wonderful to explore and expand upon my understanding of God in that way. It helps me see scripture and the Bible and church from a more decolonized perspective — I guess that makes sense. And I think that the church, I mean, it's done a lot of harm, and it does a lot of harm, and I think coming to that understanding and acknowledging that for folks, especially folks who are on the fringes of society, because either they don't have any experience of church, or sometimes they don't have good experiences of church. For pastors to acknowledge and openly talk about those things is really important for folks to feel safe and like they can explore their own faith.
Kevin Riley: The community sees us as the church that's doing this stuff in the streets. But the overlap between our being the hands and feet of Jesus in the community compared to how many people are attending worship on Sundays — people don't understand that what we're doing in the streets is church.
Danielle Riley: Yeah.
Kevin Riley: People don't understand that what we're doing when we're out there caring for the most vulnerable in our community, that is church. That is another form of worship, that's another form of honoring God, Christ and the Spirit. I'd rather preach to five people and serve 60 on the streets than I would have 60 in a congregation and serve five.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
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