Mentoring

So...I am going to be a mentor.

I had a very long interview/training session today with the volunteer coordinator of the institution for which I will be a mentor (technically I'm not supposed to tell you where that is.)

The girls who live at this place are wards of the state, and there are a lot of privacy concerns about them for several reasons. So I can't ever take pictures of the girl I am matched with, I can't give anyone enough detail about her so they'd be able to identify her in a room of people. I can't tell her name, even.

All the girls who live at this place have been subjected to some form of abuse, whether it's physical, mental, sexual, or just plain old neglect. All of them have at least some form of developmental delay (that could be cognitive, a learning disability, trouble socializing, or a combination of these.)

I was told that these girls tend to take things very literally so volunteers have to train themselves to eliminate violent language from their vocabularies (even if it's something like "knock some sense into him" or another common phrase that really doesn't intend any harm.) We also have to be careful not to say anything that could be perceived as an insult or a judgment.

Volunteers for this organization have to be extremely careful about how much personal detail they share with these girls, because sometimes the girls act out (usually to provoke a response, or because they have a self-destructive tendency with relationships) and will use that information against the volunteers. I was also told not to take anything personally.

I was told a lot of sad statistics about children who get shuffled around the foster systems for a variety of reasons and end up suffering for it. I was told some facts and statistics that make me angry, because no one deserves to grow up this way. I was told things that I think would scare a lot of people off, but I think I'm up for it.

Even though I can't tell you who exactly you're praying for, I would appreciate it if you could pray for my mentee, and for the girls that she lives with, because they have had a rough time, to put it mildly. And pray for me, that I would know the right things to say and do and that this relationship will have an impact on her life and we'd both be better people for it.