Off The Grid.
In The Middle Of Nowhere.
Self Sustaining Refuge.

The Founder of Elim, Heath Holifield, had a vision and a calling

for a shelter for years, but God waited to give him the specifics. 

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About Our Founder
January 3, 2009 Heath heard the words “human trafficking” and was so intrigued with the terms

ability to seemingly escape a concrete, tangible definition that it led him on a chase to learn more.
In 2011 Heath went on a mission trip to the L.A. Dream Center and fell in love with street ministry.

Then upon his return he told a good friend that he either had to start his own or join a street ministry.
This was moment his friend invited him to a street outreach named Special Ops, which happened

to be the first street outreach specifically aimed to reach human trafficking victims in Alabama.
This would be the beginning of a lifelong passionate love doing street ministry in Birmingham.

In 2017 God showed Heath a “crack in the system” that people needing help were slipping through.

Here is how the “crack in the system” was discovered.
Doing street outreach deep in the streets late one Friday night helping a trafficking victim who wanted help he witnessed her being told over the phone by a shelter that she had to be detoxed and sober for thirty days before she could even set foot on campus. She wasn’t even offered any help by this shelter and was coldly turned away. No advice. No prayer. No alternative services, No Nothing. Not even a No Thank You.

Her hope had been smashed. Fortunately, Heath and his friends with him were able to scramble and make things happen for her anyway, albeit it took quite a few calls and some fast coordinating and networking.

The next day as he was reflecting upon that scenario it dawned on him there was something he could do to solve that problem. That was to start a place for a person to stay at coming straight off the street. So that’s when the vision for Elim was given. The name he had already been given years before the vision.

Exodus 15:27 "Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve

springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water."

 
God told him the reason He gave him the name Elim was because Elim was a place the Israelites stayed at after crossing the Red Sea on their way out of Egypt and that the shelter would be a place for people to stay at on their way out of their own personal Egypt.

God already had the meaning in the name years before when the name was given before He showed him the crack in the system and that the crack in the system matched the meaning behind the name.
 
Elim will be a six week transition shelter that creates a smooth transition for the victim to a long term.

After years of prayer, in 2021 God gave him the vision for the Off the Grid,

In The Middle of Nowhere, Self-Sustaining Refuge, that will be known as Elim.

He saw a vision as if it were shot with a drone camera and in the vision, it was from the perspective of descending upon the property from the sky. He saw crops, fruit orchards, farm animals, a catfish pond, beehives, well water, and solar power, seventy palm trees, and a fountain. Seclusion is the key word.