Pearl House was supposed to help six or seven girls. Thirteen years later, it includes housing, schools, counseling, career programs, and hundreds of young people whose futures look very different because someone decided to start. Brandon Andres Green, host of Good Neighbor Podcast Tulsa, sits down with Courtney Bullard, co-founder and chief visionary officer of Pearl House, to talk about how a small mission in rural Ghana grew far beyond what anyone originally imagined. Courtney and her husband Steve helped start Pearl House in 2013 after he returned from a mission trip and told her about teenage girls who had very little support or hope for their futures. Courtney remembers thinking: “I feel like I’m supposed to do something.” At first, the vision was modest. They thought they might create a safe home for six or seven girls, give them stability, education, and opportunity, and hopefully change the trajectory of those few lives. That isn’t what happened. Today, Pearl House has almost 80 girls in its care, a school serving more than 400 boys and girls, a newly opened boarding high school for girls, a counseling center, and two career centers helping young women, many of them single mothers, develop skills that can support themselves and their families. Pearl House also employs more than 80 Ghanaians. Courtney says one of the biggest surprises has been watching the mission become something the local community increasingly sees as its own. After more than a decade of work, Pearl House has built relationships with Ghanaian social welfare agencies, local ministries, community leaders, and government officials. Courtney says social welfare officials now sometimes come directly to Pearl House when they have a girl who needs a safe place to go. And the mission isn’t simply about providing shelter. The goal is helping girls understand their value, worth, and potential. That idea is built into the name. Courtney explains that just like a pearl can remain hidden until it is brought to the surface, young women may have enormous value that the world around them has never recognized. Sometimes, she says, it simply takes someone helping bring that value to the surface. We also talk about something Courtney believes Americans can misunderstand when they travel to places like Ghana. She admits that when Pearl House started, her mindset was largely: “We’re going to go help these girls.” But over time, she realized how much the girls and the Ghanaian community changed her too. Courtney describes people who may have far fewer material possessions than many Americans but still carry an extraordinary amount of joy. Their happiness, she says, isn’t necessarily tied to possessions or circumstances. That perspective changed the way she sees her own life. Courtney had already spent more than a decade working with teenage girls before Pearl House existed, leading retreats and conferences focused on helping young women understand their value and purpose. And she says something she learned through that work still holds true whether the girl lives in Oklahoma or Ghana: Teenage girls want to be seen, loved, heard, and reminded that their life matters. Pearl House continues to rely heavily on individual donors, churches, foundations, grants, sponsorships, volunteers, and people simply willing to share the story. There are also opportunities to sponsor girls, travel with teams, volunteer at fundraisers, join prayer efforts, and attend Pearl House events in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Courtney’s message for someone wondering how they could possibly help a mission this large is pretty simple: Start by learning the story. You never know what connection, resource, skill, or opportunity you may be able to bring. Learn more about Courtney Bullard and Pearl House: https://pearlhouse.org/ Good Neighbor Podcast Tulsa: https://gnptulsa.com/
