Seeing God's Goodness Through Mentoring

This is an inspiring story about one of our veteran life coaches/leaders, and what God has done in the midst of some significant challenges. It was just published this week in our church newsletter.  Enjoy!

“What do I do with a rebellious kid?”

“What if there’s no connection?”

“What if they think I’m lame?”

These are the normal questions that run through most of our minds when we first dive into children’s ministry. When the children we minister to come from broken homes, we can add to these:

“How do I break through their defenses?”

“How do I deal with so many troubling influences in this child’s life when I’m only seeing him once a week?”

For one of our most experienced Life Coach mentors at Bethlehem, Howard Engnell, there was one more question:

“How do I build a relationship with a young man I can barely hear?”

Three years ago when he started meeting with a second grader named Jude, this was Howard’s assessment: “I could see he was troubled. His parents had divorced, and his dad had moved on with a new family. It was just Jude and his mom. He was angry and struggled with authority figures.” Jude’s dad had left a hole in his life.

“I would spend time with him, but we struggled to communicate. He was quiet, and talked quiet, and with my hearing impairment it was hard to hear him.” It’s what many of us would consider a hopeless situation. But Howard realized, “I just had to be his friend.” And Howard has been quite the friend.
For three years Howard has been committed to Jude. He faithfully brought Jude to Cub Scouts during their first year. Jude often wouldn’t cooperate with the leaders, and he wasn’t willing to put on his uniform for meetings. Howard never received a “thank you” from Jude during that time.

Still, by God’s grace, Howard didn’t give up. He met Jude in his world just like Christ meets us. Like a father or grandfather, he helped him learn how to hit a baseball. He taught him to ice skate backward. He took him on the free outings to sports games and performing arts that our ministry provides. And he taught Jude to say thank you. At the same time, Howard’s wife, Grace, befriended Jude’s mother, and they stayed connected.

Looking back three years later, Howard and Grace remember what it felt like to see Jude smile for the first time. It took over a year of waiting but now smiles are a regular sight. Howard brags about how Jude, now in 5th grade, survived a 19-mile bike ride to Fort Snelling with him. Grace talks with mother-like pride of how Jude graciously served them drinks and snacks at a recent visit. Their biggest joys are over the small but noticeable changes in Jude’s heart.

Jude is learning to thank the adults that serve him, from his sports coaches to his mentor. And he shows a growing sensitivity to the Gospel. His mother reports that for the first time she has heard Jude pray for his dad to encounter the saving grace of Christ.

Howard and Jude are living proof that “love covers a multitude of sins,” (1 Peter 4:8). Even though communication has been challenging at times, providing a steady love in Jude’s unsteady world has been used by God just as much as words.

In our ministry, we see over and over how hurting kids like Jude need the persistent grace of Christ in human form more than anything else. They need a mentor who believes God is sovereign in their lives even when they try to shut everyone out. They need someone who is faithful.

Besides mentoring Jude, Howard has served on our Life Coaches for Kids® leadership team for three years. He was inspired to get involved when he heard the tragic statistics: 70 percent of incarcerated youth, 63 percent of youth suicides, and 71 percent of the high school drop-outs in our nation involve father-absent children and youth.  God moved him to carry out the call of James 1:27 to minister to the “fatherless and widows” as one of our first life coaches three years ago. God has led another 17 adults to join him since then. Their stories could easily fill a book.

Today we have 30 father-absent kids waiting for faithful men and women from Bethlehem. Some of
these kids attend church here with us, and many are students at Hope Academy, where a number of Bethlehem members teach and volunteer. They have stories like Jude.

Many have never met their fathers, and some are close to having to leave a school like Hope Academy because of the anger and soul pain of their broken family lives. We know the need is huge, but would you consider joining us to represent God’s pursuing grace in one of these lives? Would you believe God for great things with us? Pray for us? All this ministry requires is faithfulness. Our God takes care of the rest.

May the “Father of the fatherless and Protector of widows” be with you!

In Christ,

Tony Beach,
Director of Bethlehem Life Coaches for Kids ®

Howard and Jude at our Fall Outing.

The Children

An excellent poem for Sanctity of Life Sunday, read by our pastor John Piper.  It's message is close to the heart of our ministry to the fatherless. 

The Children

Highlights of the Year!

We hope you had a blessed Christmas and New Year's!  We enjoyed having the chance to visit our families in Eastern Wisconsin this year to celebrate.  Last year we stayed at home trying to keep up with baby Hannah's arrival and several boxes still left to unpack from our Thanksgiving move.  Freedom to travel is very nice!

Here are some more reflections on what we are most thankful for over the past year of life and ministry:

*A healthy and strong family.  In spite of all the stressors of 2009 and maybe in part because of them, God has brought us closer to Him and each other than we ever have been.  Thanks for your faithful prayers for us!  Please keep them coming!

*Four new mentors in 2010.  We're thrilled with what this means!  Eight lives and families that God has brought together for a potential lifetime of ministry!
 
*14 life coaches going strong with their mentees.  God has given us amazing coaches!  I'm impressed with how they continue to persevere through the joys and trials of mentoring with an obvious love for their kids that flows both ways. 

*A summer job with UGMTC's Minneapolis Director.  What an opportunity to learn about what goes into reaching the inner-city poor from a wonderful leader and organization like UGMTC!

*A monthly financial support increase from 45% to about 90% of our goal.  Back in June our support level was only at 60% and it looked like I might need to leave the ministry to find other part-time work but God provided significantly in July and August through giving and contributions to our big yard sale!  Thanks to everyone who was and continues to be involved!

*Seminary life continues to be rewarding.  I'm being challenged and grown in a variety of ways, and it's great to see it overflow into our family.  Especially good, was the 36 hours of pastoral care I had the chance to be part of at Maranatha Home in Brooklyn Center this past year.  Please pray for wisdom and God's provision for internship opportunities for me in the coming year.

Now, this wouldn't be a blog without some pictures. So here's a quick photo journal of some of the year's family fun:

Newborn Hannah and her high energy siblings in January.

Hannah and Julie's Grandpa, during her first traveling experience in February.

This is how we do dishes in our house!
You can imagine what the floor looks like when we're done :)

Hannah-bear in one of our frequent trips to Como Zoo.

Gotta love the tranquility of video time.
With cousins Eva, Grace, and Stephen in Chicago in April. 

One of our trips to the airport.
Who knew this pic would turn to be out so handy for a blog?

One of the many play times with our Albanian neighbor Emi.

Hannah showing some enthusiasm.

Another Como trip.  This time with my parents.

Hannah in a cute moment.

A visit to Julie's mom in July with a tired little girl.

We stayed home this Thanksgiving and rode the Mayflower Hide-a-Bed to Plymouth Rock. 

12/14, first birthday and first cake.  She's a cleaner eater than her brothers at that age but shares their "frosting first" mentality :)

Snow fort fun with cousins.  And the boys say good-bye to their new cousin Aklilu -- who was just adopted from Ethiopia by my sister and brother-in-law.  Both he and Levi had their first experience riding bikes on Christmas week!

Hope you enjoyed this little taste of life and ministry from the past year.  

God is good!  Have a blessed New Year!

A Glimpse of "Hope"

Check out this moving short video about our ministry's school partner, Hope Academy, right here.

Right now we're excited to have a handful of Life Coaches mentoring with father-absent kids at Hope, and 25 father-absent kids from Hope still on our waiting list.  Lord willing, we'd love to see those numbers reverse in the next few years!

Kickball, "Rabid" Possums, and The Gospel

We just enjoyed our Annual Bethlehem Life Coaches for Kids outing at Ham Lake Baptist Camp!  God get's a little bit more glory this year since we had double the amount of kids and adults running around playing soccer and kickball (10 mentors/mentees total) and all of our muscles and joints held together!

Enjoying some carpet bowling before our trail hike.

The highlight of the evening was a chance to talk about the Gospel with the kids at the campfire.  I was asking the kids (all boys) how significant God was compared to a person, and they were having a fun time showing how much more important God was with hand gestures and suggesting "to the moon," "to the stars," etc.  Then we talked about how big just one sin against God was compared to one sin against a person -- the same superlatives came up.  "How angry is God over just one sin?"  The boys probably knew where this was going, but they continued to enjoy suggesting "to the sky!"  I asked them what the consequences should be, and they excitedly talked about how huge of a punishment we deserve.  It was a pretty interesting sight to witness.  I'd never seen a group so happily talk about eternal damnation!  I remember thinking there's no way I can get these kids to mellow out.  Then the possums came.

The peaceful pre-possum campfire.

We were right next to the woods and heard three animals getting closer and louder.  All the adults sitting closest to the woods were trying to figure out what was going on with all the clawing around.  We shined our lights around and found one of the possums.  He just stared back and seemed intent to continue looking for a way to get under the fence to get closer.  This was strange, and one of the hunters in our group mentioned animals will do this when they're rabid.  We must have felt confident enough in our small mammal fighting skills, because we decided to not give up camp.  We put a couple people on flashlight patrol in case the possums launched an assault.

At the time I thought, "Great, now the boys will be even more giddy thinking about getting attacked from some of the silliest looking creatures in Minnesota."  But, surprisingly, their mood was much more focused than before.  We talked about Christ as the perfect substitute sacrifice for all who believe, His role as our ultimate reconsiler, and how He is proof of God's immeasurable love for us.  Then we had a nice little Q&A afterward about what it means to trust in Christ. 

To my surprise, the possums had actually helped settle the kids down -- and they even wandered off for the rest of the night after their surprise visit.  Perhaps they were on "a mission from God." :)  Whatever the case, we're praising God for an excellent evening of bonding, discussion, injury-free games, and unique campfire experience!

Our group.  They represent one third of our Life Coaches & Kids.

A Mother's Plea

I recently received this message from one of the mothers of a child on our waiting list.  Her earnest desire for a Christ-centered mentor for her son is echoed among so many mothers we work with:

Dear Tony, my son is an active, loving, outgoing seven-year-old. He is really into sports, and is eager to learn.  He is very intelligent. He says his dream someday, is to be in the NBA. 

He may be our ministry's most faithful prayer.

My son has one sister. He is very close to his sister.  They have stuck together during hard times. Their dad was verbally and emotionally abusive. Fortunately, my son was only two so he doesn’t remember much. He was dedicated to the Lord a few years ago, and he loves Jesus. I strive everyday to show him what is best in life, but he is still missing a Christian male role model.

My son has been on the waiting list for 20 months now. We pray together every single day for God to bring the right mentor. He has been very patient. I know God has His own timing, and that is one thing My son is learning through all this.  

This young man lives in Bloomington and has the difficult distinction of being on our waiting list longer than any other.  We are doing our Fall promotion this weekend at all Bethlehem campuses.  Please join me in praying that mentors come forward for him and many of the 30 other father absent children on our list.  Please consider forwarding the blog link on to anyone you know who might be interested in mentoring, especially with the young man above.

New Match!

We’re celebrating another new match, which started just a few weeks ago in the heat of August!  Our new mentor’s name is Brandon, and he’s made a big jump this summer.  

He’s an Iowa native who sensed God’s call to move from the Twin Cities suburbs into the Phillips neighborhood and start out as a Life Coach, all within the past three months.  He now lives just blocks away from Hope Academy where his middle-school age mentee attends school.

From the Hope Academy website

Once again, it's impressive to see God bring together a mentor and a young man with so much in common!  Both Brandon and his mentee have surprisingly similar interests in sports and academic subjects.  Both also identify strongly with Christ.  Brandon recently wrote to me, "We are connecting really well... last Tuesday we played basketball together at Stewart park gym.... I'm really encouraged by how we connect already on a spiritual level."  Praise God for a good start!  Please join us in praying for God's work to deepen in Brandon and his new mentee.  His mentee has never met his own father.  

Yard Sale Results!

The dust is settling from an intense weekend of “yard sale-ing.”  God provided much more than we expected, considering we just started the planning 6 weeks ago!  Thanks for everyone’s prayers and help!   Our three day total ended up being $2350, basically doubling our goal!  This is enough to cover over 20% of my annual need for funds as the Bethlehem Life Coaches for Kids® director or over 10% of my total two year need! 

We had surprises every day of the sale. On Thursday, Day One, we experienced a near constant flow of people.  This included a pair of counterfeiters who snuck a fake $100 bill by us (a “bleached” $5 bill with a $100 printed over it). But even with the loss, $650 still came in!

Jeremiah and the yard full of goods, and this was the final day!

Day Two we canceled due to the forecast, which ended up being a gift since we were so spent from Thursday and all the prep-work on Wednesday.  Saturday, God provided some last minute set-up help and another large turn-out – strangers were even buying up a good number of our bake sale goods!  We had some added excitement on Saturday night when we left most of the sale items under tables on the lawn covered in tarps.  We noticed a group in a car checking out our place around midnight.  They took off when they saw me peek through the blinds, so I ended up calling the police to ask for more patrols.  Thankfully, God helped us to get some sleep and nothing was touched during the night!

Day Three demonstrated the ecumenical power of rummage.  We discovered the pastor/priest of the 4000+ Roman Catholic church across the street inserted an announcement to encourage everyone to visit our sale.  He’d already dropped by multiple times during the week without us knowing it.  His church helped clean out a good portion of our bake sale and did some shopping too! 

All in all, God’s promises to care for His people were on display.  We’re thankful for the approximately 25 families/individuals that donated over 1000 items -- wow!   Special thanks to our small group and all who joined in to help us by praying, pricing loads of things, lengthy set ups, baking, hauling tables, and child care!  Your support in the middle of summer busyness was huge and definitely what Paul would call “a fragrant offering to the Lord!”  Thanks so much!!!

A view from the "Sporting Goods" and "Furniture" Sections.

It reached the 90's on the final day, but people kept coming!

Enjoying Tighter Spaces

We’re actually thrilled to feel the walls start to close in on us over the last two weeks!  God is providing.  Thanks to everyone who’s donated so far, and to everyone who’s still planning on donating to the yard sale.  We have plenty of room for more donations!

Hanging out in the redecorated garage.

We also received two good pieces of news last week.  One, BUI confirmed that we can provide tax-deductible receipts – if you’ve already donated items, one should be on the way shortly.  And two, my friend Francois, an accomplished French Pastry Chef, is partnering with us. He’s preparing cheesecake and French pastries to complement our Saturday morning bake sale!  You can learn more about his business, which is helping him get through seminary at his website, La Ciel Cheesecakes and Pastries.

Keeping safe in the basement storage area.

Besides bake sale and yard sale donations, we’re busy looking to assemble a team of pricing/labeling helpers for Tuesday night (Aug 17) or join members of our small group on Wednesday night (Aug 18th) – thanks group!  We also could use help with set up and take down for the sale on Thursday through Saturday (mornings before 8a or evenings after 5p) – help as briefly or long as you like.  Let us know if you’d like to get involved!

lifecoaches.org

Yard Sale Fundraiser!

Back in March, I dived into seeking financial partnerships for my urban missionary work as Life Coaches for Kids director at Bethlehem Baptist.  Daily, God rewards this experience in unexpected ways, but it has also been challenging in unexpected ways.  We're facing a pretty sizeable budget shortfall (40% of our goal), so we're looking at some creative fund raising ideas.  The biggest idea we're pursuing is hosting a yard sale at our home on August 19 to 21.  Our goal is $1200 of sales, which would be enough to cover over 10% of our budget needs.  This would give us a good amount of financial leverage and be a big step in keeping Life Coaches going for all the father absent kids we serve at Bethlehem Baptist!

 

 The boys providing some help with assessing yard capacity.   

Here are the details:

• Contact us to drop off or arrange a pick up of any items you would like to donate. (We're in South Minneapolis, so we're pretty centrally located.)  
• We'll take anything you'd like to give:  clothing, appliances, books, music, crafts, decorations, furniture, tools, school supplies, technology items, etc.  If you can tape a suggested price on bigger ticket items, that's a help... but if you don't have time, no problem. 
• We'd be thrilled to have people donate craft projects, bake sale items (we're exploring potential for a Saturday morning bake sale), garden produce, etc. 
• Please let us know if you have any tables or clothing racks we could use for displaying things or plastic we could use for a cover up in the event of rain.   
• We're also looking for volunteers to help with labeling items prior to sale, for setup/takedown (4 in the morning and 4 in the evenings for about 1 hour), someone artistic who could help with signage, and anyone who'd like to help us with transporting items to our home.  

Just email or call us, if you'd like to get involved.  We're excited to see what God does through this summer event!  We're also going to talk to neighbors about piggy-backing on our yard sale to try to bring in more traffic --  maybe we'll end up with a little community-building activity on top of everything else!

Please Pray for Our Newest Match

One of the signs greeting us at the facility.

Just two weeks ago, I experienced a refreshing surprise. Tim is our newest mentor, and he met me at one of the juvenile correctional facilities in the Twin Cities.  We were there to see his mentee for the first time. This young man had set the record for the longest wait of any of the kids we've matched with mentors at Bethlehem. Month after month, there didn't seem to be any men applying to be Life Coaches that had similar enough interests and personality to draw out this teenager who was involved in gangs and alcohol abuse. But, by God's grace, Tim came along and looked like he could be a good fit.

The staff at the facility had difficult news for us. Tim's mentee was known more for pranks and being quiet with adults than for making progress during his first month in the program. But when he sat down with Tim and I, it was impressive. Tim asked a number of good questions to draw him out, and conversation started to flow. It was one of the most encouraging starts I've been able to witness in any match. Amazing actually considering the circumstances! I know we can give some credit to the right mix of personalities... but more than that it was a case of God showing up and drawing two people together in a way only He can through Christ.

Of course, this is still an uphill battle, but we're hopeful that the God who begins good works is faithful to complete them as well (Phil 1:6). Please join us in praying for God's redemptive hand to be strong in working in this young man's life and through his mentor.  Thanks!

Greeting

Welcome to my first attempts at joining the blogosphere! I honestly never expected to be doing this. Not that I don’t read blogs, but my philosophy on them tended towards the quip below from despair.com:

However, a friend recently persuaded me to see the all the ways a blog and Facebook page could help me communicate about what God is doing in my life and especially my ministry. With than in mind, I’m jumping in. My priorities in these posts are the following:

1. Center the attention and glory on God above all.
2. Tell stories with substance.
3. Provide meaningful opportunities for readers to support our family and ministry.
4. Open a window into what God is doing to minister in the lives of the fatherless at Bethlehem Baptist and our communities.
5. Economy of words – as you can see in the posts below, that’s only a part-time priority (:

I’m setting the goal of two posts a month, so we’ll see what happens.  You can read the posts below for the back story to this blog. I’d recommend starting from the bottom post October 12, 2008: The Shake-Up to get the chronology right, but feel free to jump around.

If you have feedback for me, please let me know because I need all the help I can get! Thanks! God bless!

June 1, 2010 – Summer Contract Signed!

After two busy weeks of networking and searching for job opportunities for my summer break from seminary, I was amazed at what God had provided. A summer ministry position with Union Gospel Mission (ugmtc.org) came out of nowhere. Summer ministry positions are typically hard to come by, especially when your seminary classes end three weeks later than all the colleges. Because of this, I was spending most of my efforts with a temp agency and networking in the insurance world. rather than talking to ministries.

By the grace of God, I just “happened” to get pointed to Union Gospel Mission (UGM) by one of the leaders at the national Life Coaches for Kids® ministry. One of the contacts he gave me “happened” to be the leader of UGM’s initiative in Minneapolis, who I attended college with 10 years ago. He just “happened” to need a temp to hire person for the expanding Minneapolis ministry. He also just “happened” to have received approval to post the position a day ago, which meant it wasn’t an official opening yet. Knowing it could take all summer to find someone that way, he prayed about it and decided to propose changing the position to a summer-only contract with a view towards hiring someone else in the Fall.

Neighborhood BBQ hosted by UGM and partner Good in the 'Hood.

Bottom line: this 20 hour per week ministry opportunity in the inner-city is now a reality. My assignment is to help put together a strategic plan proposal for UGM’s work in Minneapolis and help with the UGM downtown ministry in Inner-city Minneapolis, among other things. This is a great opportunity to serve the poor by laying the foundation for ministries that touch the physical, spiritual, and vocational needs of the community...  all while learning from a gifted leader, and helping inner-city youth! Praise God!

April 13, 2010: Another Match Made!

Our newest mentor was just matched with a father-absent 3rd grader. When he met with his mentee for the first time, he discovered his mentee loved science and engineering activities. Since our mentor studies technology in the master’s program at the U, this was right up his alley. This was another evidence of God at work, since his mentee’s mother completely forgot to mention these interests on his application.

God recently raised up a group of 4 men as mentor candidates. Two more mentors are about to be matched. God willing, this will take our total of waiting kids down to 17 and raise our total number of matches to 17 as well!