GROW Mentoring Tea

Moms - Guardians - Daughters . GROW Mentoring Tea . 

At the beginning of Jan 2016, I was part of the launch of a mentoring ministry strategy for South Africa called GROW. After much research and experience in township youth ministry, this strategy is implementing how to support discipleship in difficult community environments. We chose girls that we already had relationship with and that showed great potential in wanting to reach new goals in their life.

GROW is based on how Jesus grew while on this earth: Luke 2:52 says, "And Jesus grew in wisdom, stature [physically], and in favor with God and man." Bi-monthly, we meet with the girls and check in on 4 areas of their lives: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We set goals for where they'd like to be and they make action steps on how to get there.  

There's no grand new design or revolutionary concept; it's one older girl walking life and supporting steps of growth with a younger girl. Discipleship is God's design, we're testing how to do this in a new, challenging environment ... and God is blessing the journey.

Here are the highlights of the Sunday Afternoon Tea:

Classic South African snacks: Milk-tart, sausage rolls, hertzoggies (coconut & jam cookies),
brownie bites, sugar cookies, fruit and savory crackers! The girls LOVED these treats.

It was such a nice day, we had our tea party in the garden!

Moms and daughters were led in mentoring activities that the mentors do with the girls each session.
The moms were able to share their thoughts and future goals with their daughters!

It was so fun watching these generations bond and share!

All the mentors, moms, guardians and girls in GROW!

Earlier in the year, many of you helped fund a 'camp-retreat' for these girls. Because of school holidays and some challenges gathering the details, we delayed the event. But good news ... we set a date and we're ready to take these girls out of their environment in order to GROW even more. More details about this soon. But pray for the planning and organizing of this event!

If you're interested in finding out more about this strategy or want to partner as a prayer-warrior, email me! We hope to grow this GROW ministry in 2017 and there's room for many more to join and benefit from God's work in community relationships!