Healing Begins with Showing Up
For CTS alumna Denise Deen, MAMFT ’26, healing isn’t only about rebuilding after disaster—it’s about helping people know they have not been forgotten.
The roof still needed repairs.
Months after Hurricane Melissa devastated parts of Jamaica, students at a private school in St. Elizabeth were learning beneath reminders of the storm. When Denise Deen, MAMFT ’26, and her husband, Abdul, arrived with school supplies, food, hygiene products, and other essential items, they expected to help meet practical needs.
What they didn’t expect was a conversation that would stay with Denise long after she returned home.
“The administrator shared that they felt forgotten,” Denise recalled. “Just knowing someone cared enough to come meant so much.”
It was a powerful reminder that recovery isn’t measured only by repaired buildings or restored utilities. Sometimes, healing begins with the simple act of being present.
For Denise, a recent graduate of Christian Theological Seminary’s School of Counseling, that understanding has become central to both her profession and her calling.
Rooted in Home, Growing Through Service
The Jamaica trip, which took place in June 2026, was part of the ongoing work of Miya’s Foundation, the nonprofit Denise and Abdul founded in 2015.
Named after their youngest daughter, the organization grew from a simple desire to continue serving after returning from a mission trip to Sierra Leone. They began collecting gently used clothing, shoes, school supplies, and household items in their garage. Before long, the donations overflowed into rented storage units, and what started as a grassroots effort became a registered nonprofit with an international reach.
Although Denise and Abdul have built their life together in the United States, their work remains deeply personal. Denise was born in Jamaica, while Abdul was born in Sierra Leone, and both continue to have family in their countries of origin. Each trip is an opportunity not only to reconnect with loved ones, but also to serve communities that helped shape their lives.
Today, Miya’s Foundation supports humanitarian efforts in Jamaica, Sierra Leone, and Indianapolis. In addition to international relief work, the organization participates in HVAF of Indiana’s annual Stand Down event by providing hygiene care bags for veterans experiencing homelessness. Donations are sorted, packed, and prepared by hand before being transported (if marked for international shipment) and personally distributed through trusted relationships within each community.
A Second Chance
Denise’s own journey to CTS was not a straight path.
Years earlier, an experience had left her uncertain whether CTS was the right place for her to receive family counseling. When she later felt called to pursue a degree in marriage and family therapy, encouragement from a CTS grad at work led her to take another look.
That decision changed everything.
“The program helped me work through things I didn’t realize I was still carrying,” Denise reflected. Through her coursework, faculty relationships, and personal reflection, she found herself doing more than preparing for a career—she was experiencing her own healing.
The experience deepened her belief that effective counselors don’t simply master clinical techniques; they must also be willing to examine their own stories with honesty and compassion.
Today, Denise works with Family & Community Partners, where two of the organization’s three leading partners are CTS alumni: Rev. Nick Orange (MDiv/MAPF ’10) and Rev. Dwight Holland (MAPF ’06). Working alongside fellow graduates is a daily reminder of the ways CTS alumni continue to support individuals, families, and communities together.
Healing Beyond the Therapy Room
The June trip to Jamaica came just one month after Denise graduated with her Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy. Even as she celebrated commencement, she was completing her capstone project, integrating cognitive behavioral therapy with a family case study through the lens of womanist theology.
She didn’t expect to begin applying those lessons so quickly.
As Denise and Abdul traveled throughout communities recovering from Hurricane Melissa, people naturally began sharing their stories—the fear they experienced during the storm, the uncertainty of rebuilding, and the emotional toll of moving forward.
“My clinical skills really helped me hold space for people,” Denise said. “Sometimes they just needed someone to listen.”
Those conversations reinforced something Denise had been learning throughout her counseling education: healing is about caring for the whole person.
Meeting practical needs matters. So does creating space for grief, honoring people’s experiences, affirming their dignity, and reminding them they are not alone.
During one visit to the school in St. Elizabeth, Denise and Abdul were able to provide school supplies purchased with support from CTS. Yet some of the most meaningful moments came not through the gifts they delivered, but through the relationships they built with teachers, administrators, and families who simply wanted someone to hear their stories.
As Denise reflected on the trip, she recognized a connection between her own experience as a student and the work she now does through Miya’s Foundation. Before she could create space for others to heal, she first experienced what it meant to continue her own journey of healing.
A Calling That Continues
Long before earning her graduate degree, Denise dedicated her career to serving others. She spent more than eight years as a family case manager with the Indiana Department of Child Services before joining Family & Community Partners, where she continues supporting children and families while pursuing professional licensure. Looking ahead, she hopes to expand her work with older adults while continuing to grow Miya’s Foundation’s outreach both locally and internationally.
For Denise, these roles are inseparable.
Whether supporting children and families in Indiana, donating care packages for veterans experiencing homelessness, or walking alongside communities rebuilding after disaster, she approaches each opportunity with the same conviction: every person deserves to be seen, heard, and treated with dignity.
Her experience at CTS strengthened that conviction while equipping her with practical tools to live it out. The School of Counseling affirmed that healing is rarely limited to one dimension of a person’s life. It involves meeting immediate needs while also offering compassion, presence, and hope.
The supplies Denise and Abdul delivered to Jamaica will eventually be used. Students will fill notebooks, families will share meals, and damaged buildings will continue to be repaired.
But the lesson Denise carried home reaches beyond any single shipment of donations.
Healing often begins long before everything is fixed.
It begins when someone chooses to show up, listen with compassion, and remind another person that they have not been forgotten.
That is the kind of care Denise now carries wherever she serves—from counseling sessions in Indiana to communities across the ocean. It’s a calling shaped by faith, strengthened through education, and lived out one relationship at a time.
