Forever Friends navigate their mentee’s early teens

In 2018, our community partner Catholic Charities asked us if we could find a mentor for a boy who lived with his family in one of their properties. The family had arrived recently from southeast Asia as refugees and this boy was trying hard to learn how to fit in as much as possible to his new culture while still honoring the deep family ties and traditions of home.

David and Michelle heard about Faithful Friends through their friends, Jeff & Tanya, who had been mentoring. Both couples were attending Door of Hope at the time and David and Michelle wanted to see how they could walk alongside a kid growing up in a way that might present a unique set of hurdles and circumstances.

The immediate challenge they began to face was communication. Not being familiar with the Karen language or culture, they had to rely on an older sister to translate and explain things.

Undeterred, they pressed on.

A year went by. Then another. They were honored to attend a sister's wedding, completely out of sorts culturally, yet completely at home in other ways as trusted friends who were being embraced into the Karen family and culture as much as their mentee's family knew how.

These days their mentee is navigating early teen years. David and Michelle, now in our "forever friends" program, are helping him learn how to properly treat the young ladies he enjoys spending time with, how to deal with friends who may be bad influences, how to do work and earn money and set up a bank account, and impressing on him the vision of doing well in school. He is beginning to recognize that there are universities out there who would be so happy to have him as a student and see him thrive.

Mentoring is a long-term game and David and Michelle have their eyes focused on even more things down the road. But if you're just getting started in your own mentoring journey, some advice they would give is just a simple word to remove any expectations and be patient with the process.