It seemed to Jessie Garrison that one thing after another last summer impressed upon her to do a specific task.
During Vacation Bible School, the missions lessons she was to teach seemed geared toward mentoring. In a Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) meeting at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center, she heard session leader Angie Cooper speak about how we tend to minister only within our comfort zone.
“It was like … she was speaking directly to me,” said Garrison. “She struck a note in my heart when she said, ‘We don’t love people.’”
Really ministering, really showing love means leaving the comfort zone, said Garrison.
She told her pastor, Ronnie Venable, that she felt led to begin a program in her church, Mount Moriah Baptist near Pell City, Saint Clair Association. With his support, Garrison expressed her idea the next night at a WMU meeting.
Twenty-three girls from kindergarten through 12th grade signed up to be part of the program, which Garrison describes as a combination of mentoring and “secret sisters.” Twenty women participated either as mentors or secret sisters, who give gifts to, pray for and encourage the girls, said Garrison.
When the young girls sign up for the program, they choose whether they want a mentor or secret sister. Garrison said four chose mentors that first time and all the rest wanted secret sisters. The first session lasted from August to December 2003.
“It was such a success, we’re doing it for the whole of 2004,” said Garrison.
During that first session, Garrison mentored a 12-year-old and was a secret sister to a 14-year-old.
Garrison, a former lunchroom manager at Moody High School, visited the 12-year-old several times. Once, she took the girl, who is a diabetic, grocery shopping to see if she understood how to select foods that fit within her special diet. Garrison found that the preteen was quite knowledgeable about sugars and carbohydrates.
On another visit, the two simply sat on the girl’s front porch and played with her pets.
For the 14-year-old, Garrison purchased gifts and wrote cards of encouragement.
Then, at the December party during which the secret sisters were revealed, Garrison found that her 14-year-old pal wanted a mentor. So this year, Garrison is mentoring her, helping this new Christian through “Survival Kit for Youth.”
Developing special relationships that seek to minister to the unique needs of preteen and teen girls is an “emerging trend within our churches,” said Candace McIntosh, executive director of Alabama WMU.
She noted that the redesigned Acteens literature (for 7th- through 12th-grade girls) emphasizes what she called “intentional investment” in the lives of girls.
She said leaders are being trained to understand that they are placed in their positions intentionally to lead and strengthen girls in the Lord.
McIntosh believes the trend of intentional investment will move as well into Girls in Action (GA) for grades 1 through 6, since the fifth grade is seen as “a very pivotal age.”
Middle school, added Farrah Holmes, “is a real awkward time.”
She teaches a Sunday School class at North Glencoe Baptist Church, Etowah Association, that has grown out of her own burden for that age group.
Holmes, a senior at Jacksonville State University who works in the after-school program at Eura Brown Elementary School in Gadsden, said she volunteered in the Awana Club at her church. She saw how some of the young girls hurt or were overlooked by others.
Those years are a time when the girls really need to be reassured that “God loves them the way they are,” said Holmes. They need to know they “are fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Kelly Spence — who serves as a mentor and leads the youth at Mount Moriah Baptist Church with her husband, Michael — said students that age are easily led by and influenced by others. They are emotionally vulnerable and in search of acceptance. Wherever they find it is the direction in which they go.
Eating disorders, depression and a myriad of temptations face teen girls today, said Holmes. The teens must have a solid foundation to withstand all the pressures encountered in this stage of development.
That, Spence emphasized, is the reason churches should be so concerned with and involved in addressing the needs of this age group.
While mentoring preteen and teenage girls may be an emerging trend, its premise is quite biblical.
In Titus 2, the older women of the congregation are exhorted with the responsibility of teaching the younger ones how to be godly women and mothers.
Garrison and McIntosh spoke of having mentors in their own lives, the influence those women had and how it determined their paths.
“When I look back over my 63 years of life,” said Garrison, “I have had many mentors: Women who saw a potential in me and helped me to cultivate my talents and gifts; women who taught me to love God, to love missions and to care about other people.”
McIntosh mentioned one woman, in particular, who made an intentional investment, sharing a love for missions. That investment made a strong impact and molded McIntosh’s own future.
She recommended two resources for those interested in mentoring — the Donna Greene books “Growing Godly Women” and “Letters from Campus.”
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