About Barbara Stephens ("Mama Hug")

Founder and Director of Abundant Life Ministries


Barbara Sue Ward Stephens was born into a Christian home in 1942. At the age of 8, she was shaken by the experience of a classmate dying of polio. She came to the realization that children can die and that if she died, she would not go to heaven. One Sunday night, when her father was preaching, she responded to the Lord’s call and gave her life to Him. Just a year later, she felt the Lord was calling her into “full-time Christian service.” Since then, she has been obediently doing whatever task the Lord puts before her.

In l964, she began teaching Bible studies and Sunday school. Six years later, she started taking in foster children. As she taught them and ministered to them, she recognized that they were so broken they were unable to receive the abundant life Jesus had promised. In 1979, the Lord began to reveal His desire to heal broken hearts and release captives from captivity (based on Luke 4:18-19 NKJV). He gave her Biblical solutions to unhealed hurts, unmet needs, and ungodly beliefs that hinder relationship with the Lord and with others. This revelation became the foundation of Abundant Life Ministries.

Over the years, as she has read reports from missionaries all over the world, she has realized that God wants to heal the hearts of people of other nations. He began to give her a burden to share this teaching with others throughout the world.

Mama Hug is the author of Psalms for Recovery and Proverbs for Recovery, published by Harper and Row. She was also a major contributor to the Zondervan Recovery Bible. She has over 30 years of ministry experience in churches of all denominations.

Who is Barbara Stephens (“Mama Hug”)?

Mother: three natural children and fifty-six foster children

Grandmother: two granddaughters and one grandson

Counselor: individual, marriage, family, addictions, and pastoral care for thirty-four years

Pastor: pastoral staff for twenty years

Teacher: teaching classes and seminars around the world

Author: Psalms for Recovery, Proverbs for Recovery, and contributing author of the Zondervan Recovery Bible

and now…Abundant Life Ministries sends Mama Hug to the nations!

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