Our Story
The story Of Sparrow Ranch On The Island starts with a vision of the founder, Ricky Teal.
I was saved at the early age of 9 years old. I will never forget that day. It is forever etched in my heart and my mind. I’m thankful to my parents for living a life as an example of what it means to follow Christ faithfully.
Later in life, I found myself drifted far from the place where I once was anchored in Christ. However, the pilot light was still burning inside. While in this darkest place of my life, God led me to write this vision he placed inside of me. It was like a pressing weight, and relief would not come until I had written what I saw. For six solid weeks, I could do nothing but write. I knew it was some form of ministry but I had no idea what. After the sixth week, I had completed everything but the name. I was stuck!
The weight still pressing like that of an olive press. I recall wondering over and over how I would pay for such a place and the things I’d seen in the vision. Then about two weeks later as I was driving, still asking the same question, suddenly it felt like Jesus himself was in the truck with me… all I could do was weep as the Holy Spirit whispered gently to my heart saying, call it Sparrow Ranch! I will take care of it as I do the Sparrow. I knew precisely what that meant. I rushed home and wrote down the name and some graphics and laid across the top of all the specs given as like that of a cover of a book. I then felt as if a million pounds had been lifted off and I was free to resume living again.
I got excited as I thought big things were about to happen but as you know God has a very different and unique way of doing things. Several years went by and nothing! The arrows of doubt begin to fly and the whispers of “there was never a vision…it was all in your mind” begin to consume me. During all this time I was in the process of building my dream home on Lake Wylie and the vision was fading… soon I found myself living in a huge lake home that I thought was all about me. What I didn’t realize was God in his Organic ways was hard at work on the vision he had given me.
It was Almost nine years ago to the day since God had shown me the vision. I was sitting on my beach area in an old blue chair on a hot evening in the summer of 2013 when I received a message on Facebook. The message read, “I work with a large group of special need children and adults. We saw your failed cold water bucket challenge and we were wondering if you would be interested in allowing our friends to help you complete it?” I immediately felt that same feeling the day I did in the truck and begin to weep! I didn’t know what, but God was up to something. I responded to her message and I went to meet these amazing friends of hers and we scheduled a time that next week for me to come back.
When I returned that following Monday there must have been 50 beautiful people with special needs all dressed in an island theme, they all gathered around me. Some in wheelchairs, some on walkers, they took plastic sand buckets full of ice cold water and dumped it over my head as I sat in a chair.
From that day forward my life has never been the same. There is not enough time or space here to share the whole story (maybe someday soon in a book) but what I will say now is, it is the year 2019 and looking back on that day when they poured cold water over my head 9 years to the day of a divine vision, I see clearly that was the breaking of the water of the vision/ ministry like that of a woman giving birth. We know that in a normal healthy pregnancy no matter how hard you try you can’t have that child until 9 months but when the water breaks you can’t stop it!
5 years later, God has blessed this special ministry for what the world considers “the least of these”, in ways I could have never dreamed. What we have here now is only a small portion of the original vision and we need more land to grow.
Our Team
Volunteer
All workers are volunteers and give selflessly of their time at no cost.
We welcome volunteers to help as much as possible after they pass our screening process. We certainly could not do what we do without the help of others. This is also a great thing to involve your teenagers with as it cultivates a sense of purpose and giving.
Please email ricky@sparrowranch.org with any questions!
