Western North Carolina Marriage & Family Initiative Blooms Amidst Disaster

By Amy Morgan

It’s not easy starting a marriage initiative. Shane and Renee Bowman launched the Western North Carolina Marriage & Family Initiative in 2022 with a desire to equip and support local churches to start or strengthen marriage ministries.

From the beginning, they faced some serious challenges. Gaining traction with pastors and church leaders was difficult, and relationship-building proved slower than expected. Even worse, they had trouble being taken seriously.

Then everything changed.

Massive Hurricane Helene struck their region, displacing many families and leaving devastation in its wake. Instead of retreating, Shane and Renee leaned in. They launched a disaster relief effort and, over time, built tiny homes for 36 families.

This unexpected mission opened doors they had been knocking on for months. Through their compassionate response to crisis, trust was built with local pastors, and from there, opportunities to serve marriages in those churches began to flourish.

Their story is an incredible picture of how God works through unexpected means, using service to create pathways for ministry. We want to highlight both the struggle and the surprising strategy God used to bring a breakthrough.

Before becoming interested in ministering to marriages, the Bowmans needed to resuscitate their own. Shane and Renee attended a Couples Summit retreat in 2017 after 24 years of lackluster marriage. Immediately, they realized their problem was the lack of Christ in the center of their relationship.

“We had an epiphany we needed to get that right,” Shane said. Once they recognized the difference putting Christ first made to them, “We didn’t want anyone else to have to go through what we did, without somebody showing them a better way.”

Couples Summit is an independent, faith based, non-denominational experience modeled after a Walk to Emmaus style-retreat. Couples Summit intentionally keeps a low internet profile so couples can experience the surprises inherent in its process.

Shane and Renee saw how Couples Summit improved their marriage, and they “jumped in with both feet.” They joined the leadership team and eventually felt God’s call to leave their other work and minister to marriages as full-time missionaries.

“We knew we needed that connection with those people and the growth opportunity,” Renee said. “It changed our lives, and we wanted to be part of that for others.

“The Lord laid on our hearts this was what our ministry was going to be somehow, someway,” Renee said. Their purpose further solidified when a mentor couple told Shane, “Your testimony is where you have been broken, and your ministry is where you have been healed.”

They moved to Tennessee in 2020 and took a position at a pastoral retreat center, but they realized their work left them little time to fully minister to marriages, so they moved back to their roots in the Hickory, North Carolina, area in 2022 to immerse themselves in marriage ministry. The Bowmans created non-profit Tataciksta Ministries, named with the Pawnee Indian word meaning “I cherish you,” as their talisman.

They searched for other likeminded leaders and spent some of their precious savings to travel to the 2023 NARME conference in Charleston. They knew nothing about marriage initiatives or grants, but a chance meeting with Michelle Ellis from the Arkansas Marriage Initiative led Shane and Renee to the Marriage Initiative’s grant writing breakout session. “We stepped into that session and realized there were more of us,” Shane said. They hoped the connection and support of the CMI network would give them a push forward as they established the Western North Carolina Marriage & Family Initiative.

Sadly, although the Bowmans had made some valuable friends, they were immediately faced with challenges gaining traction. One of the first obstacles was raising support. When they decided to be all-in, Shane gave up his taxidermy business and Renee stepped back from her position as a pre-school director. Finances were a struggle. But even more discouraging was the lack of credibility within the church community.

They longed to make connections with local churches to help them launch relationship programs, but ministers didn’t see the need.

“Getting pastors to commit to an hour or thirty minutes for coffee or breakfast/lunch was and still is a challenge,” Shane said. “Also getting those pastors to accept that the church has failed by not making this a part of their ministry efforts was also difficult, to say the least. Many hours of emails and phone calls went unanswered.”

Shane and Renee realized being missionaries didn’t legitimize them in the pastoral community. They were snubbed due to their lack of degrees and formal training. A deflating moment came during one of their first meetings with a local pastor (who has since become a friend and supporter) and a well-connected local leader who could have opened many doors for them.

“He wasn’t concerned with the state of the marriages in his churches but dismissed me because I did not have a degree in any type of ministry or marital counseling,” Shane said.  “As much as this cut deeply in the moment, it only made us more determined to lean into our calling of discipleship through marriage ministry.”

Renee remembered the example of Truett and Jeanette Cathy. “Truett didn’t hold a college degree, and look at all he accomplished, which includes Winshape Retreats for marriages!” she said. “God will equip us as we go along.”

Shane and Renee leaned on the many people praying for them – their Sunday School class, their monthly support partners, their fellow leaders from the Couples Summit team, and eventually the CMI group. “Faith and prayer kept pushing us along,” Shane said. “Steff (Steffanie Oltmans, Director of Community Marriage Initiatives) has always been so encouraging and knows the answer to every question. I don’t think I’ve ever been in that kind of situation where everybody wants everyone else to succeed.” They also built on the relationship with their first pastor friend.

Then, the unexpected happened. On Sept. 27, 2024, Hurricane Helene slammed into the region in force. Once the winds and rain ceased and their internet and electricity were restored, revealing the destruction, the Bowmans didn’t hesitate. They packed supplies from their pantry and went out to provide snacks and water to the linemen working in the area.

“I saw the devastation firsthand, and I knew we had to do more,” Shane recalled. “That night I paced the floor of our mission house until the revelation of Isaiah's words came, ‘Here I am Lord, send me.’ (Isaiah 6:8) We didn't have a plan, we just woke up early, got in our car and went to where we knew the impact was great, praying all the way, ‘Lord send us to where you need us.’”

As the Bowmans obediently went where the Lord led, He kept opening their eyes to new needs. Their work distributing supplies turned into helping a church set up their own food bank. A chance connection with a Tiktok influencer helped them find a way to coordinate the arrival of heavy equipment to clear roadways and excavate.

Shane realized winter was coming and people were going to need places to live.

“Tents and campers were not going to be sufficient in the brutal cold that was headed to Western North Carolina,” he said. On a fundraising trip to South Carolina, he clearly felt God asking him to build some tiny homes to provide housing for a few of the displaced people.

Years before any of these events were even a thought on the horizon, Shane had researched tiny homes with a dream of someday building one as a getaway cabin. “Little did I know why God had prompted those years of discovery,” he said. He and Renee set a realistic goal of building two tiny homes from scratch and approached their church for help. While they impatiently waited for the green light, God was orchestrating a bigger plan behind the scenes. A church member connected the Bowmans with an organization that pledged up to 50 pre-built tiny homes on a handshake partnership.

“God turned our tiny plan into a massive undertaking!” Shane said. “Out of our surrender and obedience we saw the loaves and fishes happen in reality.” But receiving the homes was just the beginning of their endeavor. It fell to Shane and Renee to organize the delivery and setup, clear the ground (which often included demolition of a ruined structure or downed tree), remove debris, construct underpinning, build a small deck and hook up water, sewer and electric utilities.

“I questioned several times, ‘Is this really part of our mission?’” Shane asked. “This wasn’t really what our initiative was about – we were talking about marriages and families. But it became more and more evident this was what God was calling us to do.”

One day God prompted a woman from out of state to call them. She had seen one of Shane’s Facebook posts and wanted to donate to the tiny home initiative. She asked how they had gotten involved, and when they shared the story of their marriage ministry and personal journey, they could hear her crying. She confessed she was in a rough season of her marriage and asked Shane to reach out to her husband to ask him to talk through some of their struggles. The Bowmans forged a relationship and continue to minister to this couple. Shane credits this connection to God’s providence.

The tiny home ministry eventually completed and gifted 36 residences. In the process, Shane and Renee learned how resilient people can be. They also witnessed how people want to help – even those who aren’t following God.

“We were able to speak some light into their lives,” Shane said. “We even evangelized the equipment operators!” Renee added.

They were able to help one couple with three young girls who had lost everything – their home, cars, belongings – even their jobs. All while the wife was battling a blood cancer. The family had moved into their grandparents’ basement and “didn’t have a lot of hope,” Renee recounted. They received a tiny home, which also provided the hope they needed to pull through.

“They recommitted to their marriage, to their family,” Shane said. “The husband got baptized. There was an excitement that hadn’t been there. They just needed an organization to show up — they weren’t expecting us to minister to their marriage. We were able to put the two together and give them a new beginning. Our Sunday School class still sponsors them.”

Another benefit the Bowmans could not have anticipated — their work in disaster relief opened doors with pastors and churches that had previously been closed.

“We quickly became the connecting point for supplies, building materials and even heavy equipment,” Shane said. “When someone called with a need and we came through, we earned the much-needed reputation that we get things done. Pastors began seeing we were doers, and that built trust.

“Teaming up with our church and other organizations gave us a legitimacy we didn’t have before,” he added. “We started to get requests for marriage and family resources, which also opened the doors for future fundraising.”

They were gratified when the ministry leader who had originally been so dismissive about their lack of education contacted them for help. “His perspective changed,” Shane said. “Now he’s calling us for marriage and family resources. He realized who are: we do tiny homes and marriage ministry.

“We were surprised that it took a disaster to get to the point of building relationships,” Shane said. “But God uses everything. We stepped into the tiny home initiative because we felt called. We are just doing what we are supposed to do, ‘Love one another.’’’

“Never discount anything you feel God has called you to do. Always be open to his leading,” Renee echoed. “He uses even the disasters of this world to bring forth change in all kinds of ways.”

Throughout the year of disaster recovery and tiny home building, the Bowmans continued to build their marriage ministry. They have coached couples weekly, held several marriage retreat weekends, taught multiple marriage classes and hosted date nights and enrichment gatherings.

When they started the first marriage class in their own church, the need was so great they outgrew classrooms three times. “Our church didn’t realize how hungry our own congregation was for marriage and relationship education,” Renee said.

Now they see how God wove everything — disaster relief, relationships and marriage ministry together.

“God knew we needed to make connections to get this Marriage Initiative going,” Shane said. “I believe this was His way of answering prayers and opening those doors that we didn't have the reputation to open. This disaster didn't just affect individuals. Each affected person is connected in some way to a family, and each family is connected to a marriage. Every marriage can use some encouragement and enrichment along the way.

“He allowed us to minister to folks outside of the church building, to make lasting connections outside of the coffee shop and to bring a little hope right to the doorsteps of those affected, which is exactly what Jesus did. Our horizon has changed because our pool of connections is much broader than before. We have a new story of how we were able to give some hope to those in need during one of the most difficult times in their lives, and through that, we now have lasting connections and a hope for the future of this ministry.” 

When asked what they would say to others who feel stuck or discouraged, Shane answered, “Step out of the boat to see how God will use you and equip you for His purposes. Scuttle that boat if need be.”

The Bowmans mentioned how ministering to other’s marriages keeps their marriage strong. “It often seems like we are coaching ourselves as we mentor others,” Renee said. They also are intentional about taking time to refuel, keeping a regular date night and practicing what they preach.

They ask the CMI community for prayer for open eyes and open hearts, that pastors would recognize the need for dedicated marriage programs. They also pray God will continue to open the doors of communication and trust within churches nationwide. Their hope is for communities to be strengthened, and God to be glorified in it all.