Holly Dennis started working as Adult & Teen Challenge Ohio Valley’s financial coordinator four years ago after working in the banking industry for 24 years. Despite her success in banking, which included reaching the top 4% of her company while working in management, one day the company told her they no longer needed her. “A couple of days after I was gone, God just told me, He said, ‘You will work for somebody you know,’” Holly said. “Seven words: You will work for someone you know.” She hung on to that.
“I knew I might as well not even apply for a job unless I knew somebody there because that’s what God told me,” Holly said. She was out of work for seven months with God providing all along the way. Holly and her husband, Jeff, who pastor locally, were already involved in ATCOV. “One day, Pastor Bob [Pavlich] just said to me, ‘Hey, I hear you’re looking for a job,’” she said. With God’s message of working for someone she knows in mind and knowing she had the financial experience ATCOV sought, Holly believed it was the right position for her. “God just opened the doors for me to be here and I have been here ever since,” she said.
“When I can come to work and do not only what I love with finances, but I can make a difference in maybe mentoring somebody or counseling somebody or just talking and listening to them and know that I’m making a difference in something bigger than taking care of the money and paying the bills, that’s huge to me. I’m kind of like the house mom,” she said. It’s so much different from banking where no matter how much you do or give or accomplish, the company always wanted more and the rewards were very temporary.
At ATCOV Holly knows God is honoring everything she’s doing. She has a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction at the end of the work day and she knows her efforts are appreciated. “What I do here at ATCOV is valued and they know that it’s not just about a job for me,” Holly explained. “It’s all about the heart of this place for me. It’s about effecting change in a place that changes people’s lives and if I can do my piece of it, while I may not be direct client care, what I do matters because it keeps our doors open. In that essence, it keeps men and women in this program so their lives and the lives of their families can be forever changed.”
When she’s not working, Holly enjoys spending time with her 2-year-old granddaughter, Ellie. She and her husband have been in ministry their whole married life and are currently senior pastors at Liberty First Christian Assembly for the last 12 years.
