Mentoring with Fostering Hope
Jun 28, 2023
Foster Care
Fostering Hope partners with Tasmanian Baptists to help Christians provide stable families and church communities for foster children.
Grow your Faith as a Mentor
Are you looking for a way to live out your faith? Do you think about foster care and how you could be involved, but not sure how? Do you have time to mentor a child who needs a caring adult?
One 15-year-old in care in Tasmania said (from Ok, so a Nest is a Home):
“Having a supportive adult to be able to talk to [is important]. So being able to share if you’re upset, in trouble or whatever … it doesn’t really matter who they are, just as long as they have someone who is there for them.”
This is what the Fostering Hope Mentoring Program is about. Christians voluntarily meet regularly (perhaps weekly, fortnightly or monthly) with their special mentee to do an activity together and build relationship.
Here are two stories
Kylie* is a mentor to Rachel, an 11-year old girl in care, they meet once a month on a Saturday afternoon and do lots of different things together. Kylie is there for Rachel if she wants to talk about what’s going on for her or just to have fun! Kylie says:
“I just can’t thank you enough for this opportunity. It’s great for her to have the special time, it’s great for her carers to have a little break and it’s great for me to get out and do things I wouldn’t normally do!”
The second story is yours!
Compassion might look foolish to the world, but it is God’s way and the way we are called to live as well. Loving the orphan, the outcast and the widow may not be the usual way of the world, but we know it is God’s wisdom.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Isaiah 1:17 NIV)
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
But sometimes we don’t know what that looks like on a practical level. We may feel a disconnect between the faith we talk about with friends and we hear about at church, and the faith that we are living each day. We see injustice and know that God’s way is compassion, but what does that mean for us?
Living out compassion
At Fostering Hope we want to help you work out how you can show compassion to the often outcast kids in care. This might be through becoming a mentor or a respite carer. It doesn’t need to be a burden, but like we heard in the first story, it could be an incredible joy. It also means you will no longer wonder how you can live out compassion.
We are running a mentor training day in Launceston on Saturday the 29th of July.
If you are interested in becoming a mentor, or know someone else who you think would be interested, we’d love to connect and have you come along to the training.
If you have questions or want to find out more, visit our website www.fosteringhope.community or reach out to us! Ellie is in Hobart (ellie@fosteringhope.net.au) and Anthea is in Launceston (anthea@fosteringhope.net.au).
Fostering Hope is a charity whose work comes from the Bible and the teachings of Jesus to ‘visit’ and ‘care for’ orphans and widows, to put the lonely in families, to love the fatherless, to care for children, and to love the neighbours in the communities.
Our vision is to reflect Christ’s love by supporting at-risk children and those who care for them. We work to raise awareness about this need, equip communities, and support foster, kinship and informal carers. One of the ways we provide wrap-around support for carers is through our mentoring program for their kids in care. We recruit, train, screen, match and support volunteer Christian mentors (like you!)
*names changed for anonymity
Read More ReCharge!
June/July 2023
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- Missional Leadership by Bree Mills
- Ministry Profile, Scott Pilgrim Baptist Mission Australia
- Around the Churches June/July 2023 Updates from Tas Baptist churches
- Tuning in to the Heart of God by Jenna Blackwell, Mission and Leadership Coach
- Diving into Diversity Sacred Agents blog by Crossover Director, Andrew Turner
- Safe Churches Update by TB Administrator Rodney Marshall
- Discovering Deep, Resilient Faith by Melanie Saward
- June News | July News
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