Wooden signs lead the way down a winding dirt road to a 62-acre farm and retreat center in Kiln, Mississippi.

Rows of white residential quarters and at least 300 animals — horses, pigs, goats and chickens — greet visitors who arrive at the Christian-based sanctuary.

In the five years that New Orleans Pastors Melvin Jones and Mike Smith have operated the site, called Bethel Encounters, they’ve hosted private retreats each year for groups looking to exchange the hustle and bustle of city life for fellowship and nature. 

The retreats are part of the latest business ventures for New Orleans-based Bethel Community Baptist Church that help sustain its larger mission of saving lives by providing housing, jobs, addiction treatment and other services for people in need. 

The church also owns nonprofit businesses Pontilly Coffee and God is Good Car Wash on Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans.

Last year, the church expanded its Mississippi footprint to an even larger space farther down the road. Trinity Trails encompasses 462 acres of green space, trails and a pool overlooking a massive pond fit for swimming or kayaking. The site is a picturesque scene of stillness. 

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There, yearlong resident David Harris pulls up in a truck near a set of newly built horse stables. He hops out holding a mineral block that will be used to supplement the horses’ nutrition. Harris has struggled with functional alcoholism since he was 15-years-old, he said, having transferred from the church’s New Orleans treatment center after relapsing.

“They give you a firm foundation to stand on and they give you tools to survive … to go out and live a regular life,” he said.

Less than a year ago, he regained full custody of his son, a major motivator in his recovery.

Jagger Harris, 11, sits atop one of the horses as a Trinity Trails resident himself.

During the school year, the school bus picks him up in in front and drops him off at the end of the day.

“He’s not really broken yet so no one can even get close to him,” Jagger said of the horse named Shorty.

Jagger plans to do the work of breaking the horse on his own.

Smith said it’s not commonplace to allow children to stay with their parents at the center, rather it’s on a case-by case basis.

Harris said he’s been to other treatment facilities, but none were close to what he’s experienced at Bethel.

“It wasn’t quite like this. This is different. In a great way,” he said.

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The two properties are an extension of the church’s New Orleans addiction treatment center. Residents live in a separate area for months at a time while working different jobs to maintain the land.

Some are court ordered. Some are there on their own. 

Shortly after Cara Wilhite moved to the south from Kansas to be with her dad, she was let go from her job, fell into the wrong crowd and spiraled into addiction. She heard about the center and chose to get help.

“It helps a lot. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. If I need to take a little walk to the swing and have some alone time or check on the animals, it helps,” she said.

Acquiring the two Mississippi properties fell under the church’s belt by happenstance, Smith said, when a former client he counseled ran into the former owner of Bethel Encounters at a Mississippi gym. The owner recently had a stroke and intended to sell.

After the two parties became connected, Jones and Smith met with the property owner onsite.

“Now, this is where the story gets really crazy,” Smith said.

Before Jones graduated from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 2002 and began growing his ministry, he spent years battling addiction himself. In the midst of their discussion, Jones recalled the years he was homeless and how he would rent storage units for shelter at Fontainebleau Self Storage on Tulane Avenue.

When the previous owner disclosed that he too, had experienced a period of homelessness and lived in a Fontainebleau rental unit, the deal seemed meant to be.

“This is unreal,” Smith remembered. “A white guy from Mississippi and a Black guy from New Orleans and y’all connect in this area,” he said.

The church purchased the Bethel Encounters site for $900,000 and acquired the larger site years later for $1 million.

Now, they’re exploring multiple ways in which it will be used. One avenue Jones has championed is to host retreats for small groups of citified youth.

Jones said kids are different outside of their normal settings and that youth, especially in New Orleans, often have little to look forward to in the city with many rarely having chances to leave.

“Being able to interact with the animals, feed the horses; being able to go into the chicken coop and see where eggs come from … because a lot of kids just think eggs come from the supermarket and the carton and they don’t,” he said.

A few months ago, they held their first overnight retreat for New Orleans students with a group of 30 kids from Bricolage Academy. The students rode horses, went paddle boating and fed the animals. School officials held breakout sessions on various topics.

“For the kids to be able to look up into the night sky and see thousands and thousands of stars,” Jones said. “They don’t see that in the city. And we want to make that experience real for them.”