Staff
Kent Scroggs
Executive Director
Kent@RestorationOutreachPrograms.org
303-470-1692
Kent Scroggs joined ROP as Executive Director in January 2008. Before that he served as a volunteer ministry consultant to Christian organizations for almost two years. Kent also served as the Executive Director of International Student Connection – an outreach to international students studying at Metro Denver colleges and universities – from 1999 to 2006. He has been a member of Cherry Hills Community Church since 1984 where his ministry related experience includes serving as an Elder, a member of the Small Group Advisory Board, a small group leader, a choir member, a Sunday School teacher and an inner-city tutor. Before transitioning into full-time ministry, Kent worked for almost twenty years in the oil and gas and mining industries, primarily in financial administration. He holds a BA degree in Economics and Asian Studies and an MBA degree. Kent and his wife, Lisa, married in 1980. They have three grown children.
Vicki Ekberg
Public Relations Director
Vicki@RestorationOutreachPrograms.org
303-898-0649
Daughter of a farmer turned engineer and a champion of the debate, Vicki grew up familiar with curbing chaos, fixin’ stuff and the ability to see an argument from either side. However, Vicki was a city kid born to a rural family. She became a prodigal living along East Colfax by the age of 10 and proceeded to make uninformed and simply bad choices which led to crime and abuse. Her story could have ended there, as a victim living in fear and emotional isolation, but for the grace of God.
Nothing fancy changed her prodigal perspective. She just began meeting some Christian everyday kind of people, just like you. People that prayed, chatted, invited her for a meal, or simply treated her with quiet respect. Steered back to reconciliation with her family, she and her parents worked to rebuild trust and friendship. The Holy Spirit did the rest and she discovered that she could find healing for her body, mind and soul through Christ. No longer a victim, she is a survivor.
Now Vicki lives a surrendered life for her Savior, a missionary to the very streets that had almost broken her once before. She now feels passionate about sharing God’s plans for building relationships, and for community development with church partners and champions. Vicki has served with Prodigal Gatherings as a volunteer since July 2002 and on staff at ROP since September 2006. Called of God to work with inner city teens initially, Vicki has grown into duties that include mentoring her staff, interns, and alumni teens, as well as directing small groups and volunteers in mission trips and outreaches with ROP.
She is married to a wonderful man with 5 beautiful children, and her two cats. No longer a smoker, she has yet to kick her addiction to pastries.
Molly Johnson
Business Administrator
303-773-9474
Deb Ford
Resource Ministries Director
DebFord@RestorationOutreachPrograms.org
Deb Ford, Director of ROP Resource Ministries, is married and the mother of three grown children: Melisa, Wendy, and Douglas. She obtained her B.S. from Colorado Christian University in Management of Human Resources with a minor in Psychology. While working on her Bachelors Degree, she was a trainer for the Department of Energy and authored a training manual for trainers in a professional setting. She went on to obtain her Masters Degree in Agency Counseling in 1998 from the University of Northern Colorado and has also completed much of the coursework towards a Doctorate in Family Violence.
While working on her Masters Degree, she worked in private practice and also completed a year long internship at Providence Network, leading groups and counseling women struggling with addictions and abuse. In 1999, she returned to Providence Network and served as an Interim Director at one of the Providence Discipleship Homes and, in 2000, was the founding Director of Joy House, a residential facility for women and children who were victims of domestic violence.
Deb has completed all the requirements for a Licensed Counselor in the State of Colorado, is trained in Child Play Therapy and holds credentials as a Forensic Counselor. She has over 10 years of experience working with the inner city population and came to Open Door Ministries in 2004 with a vision to reach out to the poor by providing services that were unavailable to the under-privileged population.
She and her husband have participated with several missions trips including Mexico, El Salvador and Russia. Deb also assists her husband, Doug, who is Pastor of Restoration Worship Center. When not working, Deb enjoys spending time with her family, reading and spoiling her four grandchildren: Trinity, Gryphon, Audra and Natania.
Lucy Bruser
Community Outreach Director
Coming from rather meager circumstances in early life, God began cultivating in Lucy a heart of passion for the brokenhearted, oppressed, needy and downtrodden. After graduating from high school, Lucy worked for a number of years as an office manager, until God called her to Bible college. In her 2nd year of college, God used Isaiah 61:4 to call her to inner city ministry.
While attending Bible College, she was a Big Sister to teen girls through a Christian home for at-risk youth, and was involved in evangelism and discipleship through a prison ministry. Lucy spent two summers as an intern with an inner city ministry in Cincinnati, Ohio. During her senior year of college, God called her to Inner City Impact, Chicago, Illinois. After graduation, she joined their staff as Director of High School Ministries. A number of years later she entered the corporate world, where she gained a wealth of experience in business administration, strategic planning and development, corporate cash management, human resources and development, project and event planning and more.
In 1995, Lucy felt God calling her back to full time ministry and she began to ready herself for this transition. With a particular burden for unsaved and unchurched women who were beaten up, broken and struggling through life, she joined Open Door Ministries in Denver in 2000. There, Lucy directed Chayah House, a two-year Christian discipleship home for women in transformation. God uses Lucy’s passion for evangelism, discipleship, teaching, and mentoring to guide her in leading others on a journey out of poverty, brokenness and spiritual darkness to the compassionate and healing heart of God for redemption, restoration and spiritual wholeness in Christ.
With 20+ years of inner city ministry experience, Lucy directs ROP Resource Ministries’ Evangelism Teams and Large Community Outreaches. She also developed and runs a weekly 12-step Christian addiction recovery support group, Pathway Christian Meetings.
Marla Vlieger
Director of Education
Marla@RestorationOutreachPrograms.org
Those who have been cast aside by our education system are Marla’s heartbeat. She transforms the future for those the educational system has held back by tutoring high school drop outs to successful GED completion. She has always been a teacher at heart and spent 12 years in the public school system working with middle schoolers. However, she found that many students were left out because they didn’t fit the mold. The greatest delight she took in teaching was working one on one with students and getting inside their heads to see what they were thinking and how to reach them, working to get the light bulb to go off. Marrying into a family where some didn’t delight in learning as she did helped her see things from a different perspective.
After completing her undergraduate degree in Math, she went on to get her Masters in Christian Education and then got her teaching license. She’s taught for a dozen years in public schools and has spoken at education conferences as well as participated in CSAP development. As a life long learner and educator, she joined a non-profit ministry to the poorest of the poor to reach the students that the education system ignored and pushed aside. Besides her love of cuddling infants, she most often desires to curl up with a good book. She enjoys cooking for her family and experimenting with recipes to find new favorites. You can find her on her ministry’s website or email her directly. Come on down one afternoon and see how students are celebrated.
Earline Hardy
Youth Ministries Director
Earline@RestorationOutreachPrograms.org
Married to William Hardy Jr.
Together they have 10 children; 15 grandchildren and Earline is a second mom to many.
Earline was raised in Detroit, Michigan and has lived in the Denver Metro area for nearly 30 years. She is a recent graduate of Aspen Christian College and Seminary with a BA in Urban Ministries. Her life is a testimony that God will provide, as stated in Philippians 4:19, “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” He uses His people to accomplish this goal, so ultimately we serve God by serving His people. This scripture reminds Earline of the African Proverb, “It Takes a Village to Raise a Whole Child.” She often says if it had not been for the people God placed in her life who planted and watered over the years, she would not have made it this far and they have contributed to her 15 years of serving in ministry. She looks forward to the future and what it holds for herself, Restoration Outreach Programs and the youth.
Dena Boyce
Spark (elementary) & Ignite (middle school) Ministries Director
Dena@RestorationOutreachPrograms.org
Dena was born & raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lived for 24 years. A self proclaimed country girl who just couldn’t stay away from the urban areas, Dena started volunteering with a local mission at the age of 13. From the soup kitchen to the homeless shelter, she fell in love with the inner city, but didn’t realize the extent of the calling God was placing in her life.
After graduating from high school and changing majors about 20 times in college, Dena took a “short” break to do clerical work for her father’s company. Several people had told Dena she should work in Children’s Ministry, but she didn’t want to.
She spent the next seven years being Jonah, refusing to fully commit to ministry as an occupation. She spent her free time working alongside the youth group at her church and mentoring teens. After helping the youth on a missions trip in the inner city of Arlington, she decided to stop “running.” Through the encouragement of her pastors and mentor, she started looking for an internship with an inner city ministry.
God led her to an opportunity to intern with ROP during the summer of 2009. All it took was 3 months and she was hooked. In May of 2010 she started the process to become the current Children’s Ministry Director.
She is still adjusting to living in God’s beautiful mountains and not in the south. You can typically find her wearing flip flops or barefoot, playing games, and hugging on some of the most beautiful kids around.
Lorah Finkenbine
Impact (high school) Ministries Director
Lorah@RestorationOutreachPrograms.org
Lorah was raised in a Christian home near Detroit, MI, by her parents along with her two older brothers and younger sister. She graduated from Taylor University in Upland, IN with a degree in Christian Ministries, minoring in Youth Ministry and Music. Throughout her time at Taylor, she was able to become aware of her passion to minister in an urban setting, empowering at-risk teens. Having the opportunity to minister through ROP is an answer to prayer!
Lorah is excited for the opportunity to move to Aurora to minister with the ROP family! She is very close to her family in the Midwest, and will be leaving behind her parents, brothers, sister, sister-in-law, and future niece or nephew, along with a large extended family. She is confident, though, that God is calling her to ROP for a new chapter in her life, and is looking forward to adjusting to life in Colorado.
