Built on Miracles

More than four decades ago Teen Challenge of Arizona (TCAZ) Tucson campus opened in a renovated roadside motel along a historic stretch of road once known as Miracle Mile. Due to its age, the building required constant repairs, but it remained a place where men encountered Christ and found freedom from addiction and sin.

Today, lives are still being drastically transformed, but there are new miracles to celebrate.

On May 1, TCAZ dedicated a new 50,000 square-foot men’s facility that more than doubled the ministry’s residential capacity while showcasing its Christian mission literally at the center of the property.

“We wanted one thing,” recalls TCAZ Executive Director Snow Peabody. “Put the chapel front and center so everyone knows our Christian foundation.”

The completed campus includes 56 student beds and is “state of the art,” according to Gary Blackard, CEO and president of Adult & Teen Challenge. There is also additional housing for staff and transitional residents. Before the new building’s construction, the Tucson center could only house 28 residents.

“That’s our God. He doesn’t work in addition, He works in multiplication. And he doubled our capacity,” says the center’s director Klayton Kirkwood.

The ministry’s Tucson story began in the early 1980s when a local Foursquare congregation, Grace Chapel, operated a residential outreach called Esperanza for struggling youth and young adults. As the needs grew beyond the church’s capacity, John Casteel, the church’s lead pastor, called TCAZ with an unexpected offer.

“They called and said the church wanted to make the property available for $30,000,” says Peabody. After presenting the number to the board, a member came forward and offered a CD worth the exact amount.

The former Thunderbird Motel officially became TCAZ’s Tucson campus in 1984.

For years, another motel sat immediately nearby the ministry’s property known as The Tiki. The property had become synonymous with prostitution, drug trafficking, and criminal activity.

Staff prayed regularly that God would one day redeem the property.

The opportunity came in 2021 when the owner unexpectedly offered to sell. However, the $720,000 asking price seemed overwhelming.

Kirkwood, the newly appointed Tucson director, was asked to help lead the fundraising effort, which began with prayer rather than financial asks.

Prayer teams interceded regularly while men in the program gathered twice each day, asking God to accomplish His will. Still, after financial fundraising began, only a tiny fraction of the cost was raised despite weeks of effort.

Then, God provided in unexpected ways, using donors who had little to no connection to TCAZ or Kirkwood.

“I realized if it depended on me, it would fall short,” Kirkwood says. “But God could make it happen.”

Within 60 days, the entire purchase price had been provided.

The project carries special meaning for Kirkwood who, thirty years after TCAZ acquired its original property, entered the campus as a broken 26-year-old battling addiction.

The first few weeks were difficult. “I was argumentative, hard-hearted, still hurting and still broken,” he says.

But everything changed during a Tuesday chapel service in the spring of 2015.

“I hit the altar on my knees and God met me there. That’s the day my time in Teen Challenge changed, my life changed, and my eternity changed,” he says.

After completing the program in 13 months, he stayed to serve. He worked as intake coordinator, dean of men, center supervisor, and eventually became the campus director.

“God put me in a place where he was shaping my future instead of condemning my past,” he testifies.

As plans expanded beyond the property purchase and into construction of a brand-new facility, ministry leaders faced another obstacle: finding a place to relocate while buildings were torn down and new ones were built.

Again, the answer came unexpectedly.

Chief Operating Officer Jeff Richards contacted a local rescue mission hoping they might spare a small section of one of their facilities.

Instead, the organization offered an entire nearby property that they were vacating.

The furnished facility was complete with a commercial kitchen and furniture, allowing the ministry to continue serving men without interruption through the three-and-a-half year construction process.

“We didn’t have to close for a single day,” Richards says. “It was a seamless move.”

The new campus was dedicated in May 2026 as donors, embracing a larger vision, provided millions of dollars for its debt-free completion. Today, it is the largest building project in TCAZ’s history.

Among those in attendance at the ribbon cutting were U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner, Congressman Juan Ciscomani, and Arizona Ministry Network Superintendent Jeff Peterson, as well as AG leaders from across the state.

Turner said during the dedication, “We cannot achieve this vision without faith-based, Christ-centered organizations like this one that we stand in today. You are indeed serving as the hands and the feet of Jesus by ministering to the people that you do every single day, people that are made in the image of God.”

Looking across the campus and remembering the history of the property, Peabody is still in awe of what happened. “Where I sit,” he says, “you can’t make this stuff up. This was truly a miracle.”

The redemption of property, lives, and the legacy of generations to come is fitting for a ministry that originated on Miracle Mile. 

Ashley B. Grant

Ashley B. Grant has a master's degree in Human Services Marriage and Family Counseling from Liberty University and is a credentialed Christian counselor through the American Association of Christian Counselors. Grant also holds certifications in crisis pregnancy counseling and advanced life coaching. Ashley is a fourth generation Assemblies of God preacher’s kid and has one daughter and three sons.