Directors and Associate Directors
OSCAR CRUZ, Director
Teen Challenge Brockton
Oscar Cruz serves as the Director of the Teen Challenge Brockton Men’s Campus and has been involved with Teen Challenge ministries for over 14 years. At one point, living a normal life was beyond his grasp, but through the power of Jesus Christ and the ministry of Teen Challenge, Oscar’s life was changed! Oscar was 14 years when his best friend, his dad walked out the door. He had said it many times before, only on that day, it was different. Oscar’s dad never came back. It was then that he found drugs. By age 16, Oscar was a full blow addict and by 18 years of age, he had a drug possession record and nothing more than a string of shattered dreams and relationships.
According to statistics, Oscar was not going to make it. In desperation, he cried out to God and sought help at Teen Challenge. While at Teen Challenge, he surrendered his life to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. His life could have been considered beyond hope, but since coming to Teen Challenge, his life has been changed and his family has been restored from the devastation of addiction!
Oscar graduated from Southern California Teen Challenge Ministry Institute (TCMI) and completed his ministerial licensing studies form Global University. After graduating TCMI, Oscar served in inner-city missions at the Los Angeles Dream Center. Oscar previously worked in business as a licensed California Real Estate agent. Oscar’s life is now committed to serving the Lord and dedicated to the mission of Teen Challenge in New England. He finds great joy in seeing men set free from addiction. God has blessed Oscar with his wife, Allison and children, Kylie and Carter. As Matthew 19:26 says, “With God all things are possible!”
Tori Ferrari, Director
Adolescent Girls Home
Tori Ferrari serves as the Director of the Teen Challenge New England Adolescent Girl’s Home. Having once been a rebellious high school drop-out involved in an abusive relationship herself, Tori understands the need of a young woman’s heart – to be loved unconditionally by her Lord and Savior. This was the message she heard at the Teen Challenge Springboard Home for Youth in Crisis. This was the message that forever changed both her life and eternity.
Tori has served in the Teen Challenge ministry for the past 14 years helping young women find the same hope and help that she found in 1985. Since completing the Teen Challenge Springboard program, Tori returned to high school, graduated, received her BSBA and went on to complete both her Masters in Pastoral Ministry /Christian Counseling and her Doctorate in Biblical Counseling. She is also an Ordained Minister with the Assemblies of God.
Once a young woman who had forfeited her dreams and lost all hope, God has not only restored all things to her but blessed her beyond what she could have imagined. She and her husband Davide have been married for 27 years and have two sons, Alfonso and Robert – both grown and serving the Lord. Daily, she has the opportunity to minister hope to someone else’s heart and future knowing that what God has done in her own life He will most assuredly do in the lives of the teen girls she now has opportunity to minister to.
KEITH LAFLEUR, Director
Teen Challenge Maine
Keith is from the Boston area and grew up in Wareham Massachusetts. For 14 years, Keith was addicted to alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. At his lowest point Keith was homeless and sleeping in a cemetery at night. Keith walked into the doors of Teen Challenge July 21st 2005.
Keith has been with Teen Challenge for 9 years. He has served in Maine for 2 years. Keith is attending Global University and is within three classes of completing the ordination level. Keith has passed his Assembly of God licensing test and will be working towards a psychology degree in human behavior in 2015.
Keith is fully committed to the purpose of reaching the lost and addicted for Christ in Maine.
DEB MCDONALD, Co-Director
Teen Challenge Rhode Island
Deb McDonald serves as Co-Director of the Teen Challenge Women’s Campus, and has been involved with Teen Challenge ministries since 1993. It wasn’t until forming a friendship with Jacqui Strothoff and hearing her long term vision for a woman’s home that the beauty of God’s plans for her life truly began to unfold. Together, they found the house on Elmwood Ave that would become the first Teen Challenge Providence Woman’s Home.
Since the day of the doors of the Teen Challenge Woman’s Home opened in 1994, her heart has been and continues to be for the ladies of this ministry. Throughout her 20 years of service, she have had the privilege of witnessing the miraculous power of God to transform lives in the face of addiction. It has been a tremendous honor and blessing to serve the ministry of Teen Challenge and she is constantly reminded of the Lord’s faithfulness because while using her to nurture broken woman, He ministers to her own heart as well.
Deb currently lives in North Providence with her husband Joe, her dog Gloobie, and is a mother to three adult sons, Joey, Tony and Mikey.
JONATHAN MELLO, Director
Teen Challenge Boston
Although Jonathan was exposed to Christian principles and biblical practices early in life, he drifted away from those teachings and adopted an atheistic worldview. Jonathan eventually found himself facing significant legal issues as a juvenile and as an adult that led him to seek help at Teen Challenge. He enrolled in the Brockton Campus program in July 2001 at the age of 20.
Three weeks after he entered the program, God revealed himself mightily through scripture (Lam. 2:17) to him and completely changed his outlook on life. Jonathan graduated the program in 2002, received his ministerial credentials in 2004 and currently attends Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where he is studying to earn his Masters of Divinity.
He and his wife, Tabatha, are both involved in Christian ministry and make a home with their dog, Spurgeon
TODD SHEEHAN, Director
Teen Challenge New Jersey
Todd Sheehan is the dynamic leader of Teen Challenge New Jersey. Since 2009 he has served with a passion and enthusiasm to make the ministry effective in reaching an increasing number of the addicted with the message of freedom and hope.
Todd entered Teen Challenge hopeless and desperate for a change. He describes his turning point: “Death was made very real to me, as I held my lifeless girlfriend, dead of an overdose of heroin and cocaine. That night we had been talking about changing our lives, and we decided that tomorrow was a good place to start. Tomorrow we would make a change. The tragic reality is sometimes we put things off until tomorrow and tomorrow never comes.”
Since Todd completed the recovery program in 2005, he served in various capacities at the Teen Challenge ministry in Manchester, New Hampshire before assuming leadership in New Jersey. He attended Global University and is a credentialed minister with the New Jersey District of the Assemblies of God.
Today Todd and his wife, Samantha, joyfully make their home in North Jersey with their cherished daughter, Evangeline.
Todd’s mission is to see even more lives transformed and families restored through the power of Christ in New Jersey. He believes “the best is yet to come!”
JOE RAND, Associate Director
Teen Challenge Brockton
Joe entered Teen Challenge in February of 2011 after drinking and smoking as a teenage led to an intravenous heroin addiction. On the verge of divorce, Joe knew that he needed to change. Six weeks into the program Joe made a decision to surrender and since then God has been doing an amazing work in his life. Joe’s marriage was healed and relationships with family restored. Joe has worked for Teen Challenge Brockton since his graduation in 2012. He served as Program Supervisor from 2012 – 2015. Joe feels blessed to serve at Teen Challenge because it gives him the opportunity to see the miracles God does every day. He lives in Lakeville with his wife, two girls and their dog Bacon.