Released from the Wheelchair
Dennis Rainey was speaking at a church in the Pacific Northwest this past weekend. As is usual, after his sermon a line of people formed to come up and meet him. Several minutes later an older man in a wheelchair rolled up to the front. His hands and body was twisted from the effects of cerebral palsy and he called Dennis to bend down so he could tell him something. As he did, Dennis heard something that caught him up short. In barely audible and intelligible words the man said, “Mr. Rainey, I want you to know that I just finished your 3 hours of eMentoring training.”
As Dennis related this story to me he choked up again as he said, “I told Barbara that night that we gave that man a ministry that he wouldn’t have had otherwise. All the lessons that he’s been taught by God over a lifetime of suffering with CP now can be shared with others.”
It was so cool for us to hear this story and think about the possibilities of what God can do through this tool that we had a part in creating. I look forward to seeing how God uses eMentoring to release the wisdom of this man from the wheelchair.
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Pushing down the eMentoring Home Stretch
The eMentoring team just recently had an off-site meeting to gear up for the push to our full “launch” in May. I put launch in quotes because we’re already doing a good bit of mentoring (almost 800 messages in February) but as yet we have not put an application online to allow people to apply as mentors. That is the last major hurdle to put in place. After that, we will simply be in a mode of adding resources and growing the # of mentors and mentees in the system.
It is so exciting to see what God is already doing through mentoring. Take a look at this mentoring request that I personally got a few weeks ago:
Hello. My name is ____. I have never done anything like this before, reaching out to strangers but from reading articles on your website, I feel inspired and want to reach out to you guys to talk about my problem.
I myself, am not a christian. I was raised semi-Buddhist. I dated a christian girl for about 2 years. She is a wonderful person. In the beginning of my relationship, she told me upfront that she does not want to date anyone outside her faith because it would be complicated and difficult. She wants to be able to share the spirituality and beliefs with her husband. I told her at that time that I would begin reading the bible.
When she agreed to date me, I stopped reading the bible. I respected her religion but i made no effort to become a faithful christian for her. During our 2 years together, I did some very terrible things. I was addicted to Porn. I lied to her. I even cheated on her, although I never actually slept with another woman. I had lust for another person and even went ahead with flirting and pursuing this other person while dating my girlfriend at the time. I was not faithful to her in every way.
Through many chances, she gave me opportunities to change and finally i broke the last straw. She left me for good because she could not take the hurt anymore. She is dating someone new now and seem to be happy. I on the other hand have realized that I really do love her. I did not show it when i was with her but without her, my entire world does not seem happy or fun at all. I fell like I have lost my soul mate.
Recently, I have turned to God. I am reading the bible and reading articles in becoming a better person. I am trying to fix things so that if I ever get that chance again with her, I would be ready. I would be the man she wants.
I am finding it is difficult to live a christian life. There are many temptations. I am trying very hard to stay aware from porn, drugs and lying. I guess I am writing to share my story with someone.
I know that she might never ever come back. I want to be a better person.
Thank you.
Can you imagine a greater evangelistic opening? And it came because someone was wandering on the Internet looking for relationship help, found FamilyLife’s web site and saw our eMentoring program. Since then, we’ve exchanged 14 emails and I’ve had the opportunity to share the gospel with him and begin exploring his life issues in more detail. Though he has not yet expressed faith, he is seriously seeking to learn and grow. And I don’t even know his name!
Pray for this new friend and for the countless other conversations like it that are already happening through FamilyLife eMentoring. Also, pray for the launch so that many more can be engaged in this vital need.
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Day 1 of Mentor Training Completed
Just finished our first of two days of mentor training. About 30 of our staff are being trained as Mentors for the initial foray into eMentoring. It was exciting to see a lot of work come together. Keep praying for this.
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Operation Implementus Acceleratus
There’s been some exciting work going on back at the lab. Â This week, the software engineers are busily working to install the newly completed version of our eMentoring Software on FamilyLife systems for the first time. By the end of this week, I expect to have our new software up and functional.
What is also very exciting is that, as we have contemplated the needs of so many marriages feeling the strain of lost jobs or economic pressures, as well as the general malaise affecting our country, we have made the decision to hit the throttle on the launch of eMentoring.
We are currently targetting early May for an initial launch using FamilyLife staff as mentors and offering the service to a limited number of constituents. This will allow us to get our feet wet with eMentoring around life issues while we test and refine the training materials that we’ve been working on.Â
We’re all very excited about what it means to be closing in on the day when we first hang out the “Open” sign on true mentoring. We learned a lot from our prayer mentoring experience over the Christmas holidays, but in that test we avoided getting into mentoring on the issues that were presented and just focused on prayer. This will be our first foray into walking alongside people and helping them process life.
So pray for the eMentoring team (Glenn, Jim, Jo, Eric, Glenda, Suzanne and Debbie). They are working really hard to get us ready to go for our early May deadline.
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Christmas Prayer Mentoring a great first run
Our first test-drive of our new eMentoring tool resulted in a lot of great ministry as well as many lessons learned. On Dec 23, we sent a “Merry Christmas” email to our entire ministry email list of about 170,000. Included in the email was an offer to pray for any prayer requests. Submitted requests were routed to members of our staff who had volunteered to pray for the requests.
Instead of simply praying for the requests, though, our staff took the time to write out their requests and email those back to the one making the request. It was powerful ministry! Nearly 500 requests were received and answered within about a 48 hour period. Many of them were touched with the prayers they received and responded to say thanks. Here was one such response:
Thank you for taking the time to pray for H____ and I. I appreciate your words and thoughtfulness. I will find a copy of the book you suggested. Through this separation, I’ve tried to be very receptive to what God wants me to learn and to make changes in me- really the only thing I can do at this point besides prayer. I wrote your prayer out on a note card yesterday and kept it with me and prayed on it throughout the day. I believe prayer has kept my husband from filing any legal action and although he isn’t completely “on board” with communication; he has made some effort for response.
I believe our union was God-ordained and that two Christian people that put God in the center should be able to find their way through their marriage.Again, thank you. I hope that my husband and I can register for a Family Life conference soon together.
We’re now going to review what we learned and determine the next steps, including launching an ongoing prayer ministry like this. Please continue to keep our eMentoring outreach in your prayers as we continue to seek to reach out to our ministry friends one-to-one.
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