By Octavia Lehman
Dr. Christy Hill calls it passing the baton.
“Mentoring is a good thing-as Christians we are called to be in community,” says the professor of spiritual formation at Grace College , Winona Lake, Ind. Because of a mentor, she decided to pursue a Ph.D. in educational studies and become a professor.
In Titus 2:3-4, Paul implored Titus to teach the older women, that they “likewise [are] to be reverent,” that they may encourage the younger women to love their husbands.”
Miriam Pacheco, a member of the Winona Lake (Ind.) Grace Brethren Church , has been helping other women for more than 30 years.
“Mentoring is a buzz word; terms come and go,” Pacheco says. She agrees with what a friend once said, “We’ve been doing this all along; we’ve just never labeled it.”
Feeling led to disciple girls, Pacheco asked the Lord to show her what it would look like. A few days later, a girl in her church asked to be mentored. Since then, Miriam has been actively involved with mentoring young women.
Pacheco observes that during her childhood, mentoring seemed second-nature. “It was natural to follow the lead of the older women.” However, she feels the structure changed during the tumultuous 60s. “People didn’t trust anyone over 30 anymore,” she says.
From 1989 until 1993, Pacheco coordinated the women’s ministries at Grace College. She recalls Emily* a shy, freshman who would come to Pacheco’s office.
“She’d just stand at my doorway,” she remembers. The next year, however, Emily finally walked inside the door, and by her junior year, the two were talking regularly.
Pacheco learned that Emily had been sexually abused by a relative and had accepted the accompanying painful lies. She was also confused about her future, as her father had already made her plans for her.
“Base your decision on what the Lord wants you to do,” Pacheco recalls telling her. As their conversations continued, Pacheco watched Emily begin to make decisions on her own, and she even switched her major to something she felt called to do.
Today, Emily is married and has a daughter. When the same relative who sexually abused her threatened to do the same to her child, Emily stood up to her family, who wanted to keep the travesty hidden.
“It has been amazing to see her mature into a bold woman,” says Pacheco.
Jolene Slazas, a member of the Grace Brethren Church in Orange, Calif., never felt a call to work with girls.
“Never in a million years!” she admits. “They scared me.” However, God had a plan bigger than Slazas could have known.
Five years ago, when Slazas volunteered her Wednesday nights to help with the youth group at the Orange church, she was asked if she’d be interested in mentoring high school girls. It was something she’d never considered, but after seeking counsel from her husband and close friends she agreed. “The Lord put it on my heart, and I boldly went for it,” she says.
She leads a weekly Bible study with a group of five to six teenage girls. This year, the group studied the book of Romans, and in the past they have held events such as a tie-dye party, movie nights, and visiting a hospital to read bedtime stories to children.
“My life is pretty much an open book with them, and they appreciate that,” admits Slazas.
She believes that mentoring means being there for them, even when Bible study time is over.
“Once a girl called to ask how to work the washer and dryer because her mom wasn’t home,” recalls Slazas. She considers the small gestures and acts of hospitality important to the process.
Most of the girls that Slazas mentors have been raised in Christian homes, but she calls herself “the thirdvoice.”
“It’s good for them to see another woman besides their mother, because they don’t always listen to their moms, and some of the girls come from families who aren’t necessarily Christian. I am a different perspective,” Slazas remarks.
Slazas was raised in a Christian home and remembers being at church whenever the doors were open. “I had a positive youth group experience; people poured into my life,” she says. “When someone pours into you, you give back and return to others.”
Chery Boehm, a church planter for Vision/Ohio and wife of a former pastor is a mentor/coach for pastors wives and church planters’ wives.
“Too often the wife is given responsibilities without preparation,” says Boehm, whose goal is to equip women for the ministry.
“Church planting wives are in a unique role, and many people don’t understand the stresses they have,” she says. “Men in ministry have many commonalities, but when it comes to women there isn’t always commonness among them. Some women are gifted in hospitality and some in children’s ministry.” Her heartbeat is to help them find the specific role in which they are gifted. “I want to be a partner and advocate for these women.”
Grace Brethren pastor’s wife Teressa Pierce wants to see women applying biblical principles to their daily lives.
“A woman can be transformed through mentoring,” she says. She recalls Jenna,* a young woman she mentored more than ten years ago. Abandoned by her mother, Jenna was in and out of foster homes. As a young married adult and a new believer, she and her husband began to attend the church pastored by Teressa’s husband, Dan.
“Her life has changed because women have mentored her,” says Teressa. Jenna and her husband became instrumental in the young church, and today she leads the women’s ministries. She is also a strong advocate for adoption.
“Her life is one that Hollywood movies are made about,” says Pierce, but she doesn’t take any sort of credit for Jenna’s transformation.
“God has radically given her a new identity of life in Christ, and that has been a result of many godly women pouring into her life,” says Pierce.
Mentoring focuses on building relationships, and equipping young women, older women, pastors’ wives, and church planters’ wives, to live biblically in an unbiblical world.
“The true heart of a mentor is one who says I want to love like Jesus loves,” says Pierce.
“Sometimes we think of Sunday school as a way for younger women and older women to work together, but Sunday school doesn’t force itself to be relational. Learning about the Bible is content transmission. Mentoring focuses on the relationship and developing that person,” concludes Hill.
Editor’s Note: Octavia Lehman was an editorial intern with the Brethren Missionary Herald in the Spring 2010. She is a junior at Grace College where she is majoring in English and journalism.