I love mentoring a child in school.
Mentors have a huge impact on students. One child asks, “Would you mentor my friend, too?” A mentee has a question: “My friend wants to know if she can come and meet with us every week.”
As you walk into a classroom, the children see you, then point you out to the child you’ve come to mentor. They all know you are there for her.
At the beginning of the year, you are told the child you will be mentoring is very quiet; she never talks. As you meet with her each week, she beings to open up and talk with you.
When you arrive, your eyes meet and a smile floods her face.
These are some of the things you may experience while being a mentor.
What do mentors do?
They talk, play games, speak words of encouragement, and make a difference in the life of a child. What a wonderful opportunity is ours to be the love of Christ to a child just by spending 30 minutes a week with them.
At the end of last year, the girl whom I mentor told me how afraid she was of being promoted to the next grade. I talked with her about how ready she was to move on. She had excelled in her current grade. This year had prepared her well for the next grade.
This year, again, she started speaking of how nervous and afraid she was to promote to the next grade. I asked her how this current school year had gone. Was it hard? “No”, she said, telling me about this year in school.
With that, I reminded her of what she had said last year and how well she had done this year, encouraging her that this school year has prepared her for what was to come next. She got silent for a moment, then a big smile came on her face as we talked about the excitement of what was coming next year! This encounter is the kind of opportunity you can have as a mentor. You get the chance to speak encouragement and life into the heart of a child.
I invite you to be a mentor.
You can make a difference in the life of a child. I believe your presence, love, and encouragement can play a part in that child moving forward into the destiny which the Lord has for her. Your prayers and love can sow and water seeds that, by God’s grace, will bear good fruit in the life of this son or daughter of God. Who knows what God will do through the life of this one child in the years to come?
