Big Brothers Big Sisters

For a little over a year now I have been the liaison for my church and Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) for our county. Now, before beginning my role I had only associated BBBS with the inner city because most of their promos have non-white children featured and our county is predominately white...let me fill you in, when I graduated high school there were only 4 black students at my school and 3 were siblings...triplets actually. Get the picture? I quickly learned that while our county, specifically our town, is very wealthy we have a divorce rate that is higher than the national average. The people in our town tend to put on a show and pretend that everything is just fine inside their huge houses located in the gated neighborhoods but the truth is their families are struggling too...and boy do we see this being involved in youth ministry too. I know our town has issues, I just didn't know BBBS was involved in neighborhoods that aren't located in the inner city.

BBBS has this awesome program where mentors can meet with students during their lunch break on the child's school campus. This is an amazing ministry for a few reasons...one it is only 45 minutes a week so it is not a huge time commitment, two, you can talk about anything you want with the student..even Christ!...three, it makes a huge difference to the students.

Last year I met with an 8th grade girl who was labeled "at-risk" by the school counselors. She was failing most of her classes and had been caught in the bushes with boys...during school hours. She was a beautiful girl who had lots of family issues and just wanted to be loved. We had a great time when we were able to meet and she even graduated the 8th grade which she was not expected to do.

This past week I was able to meet my new little sister...she is a little ball of fire! We were no more than two minutes into talking and getting to know each other when she says "My life sucks!" At least she is open! She is also "at-risk" and is failing most of her classes and has some family problems but hopefully our time together can be great and we can get her grades up.

I tell these stories to encourage you to get involved with BBBS. It truly is an organization that is making a difference in our communities. A lot of the students who are in need of mentors are lacking one of their parents being involved in their life and have little to no friends on campus. Meeting with them at lunch could mean that once a week they know they will have someone they can sit with at lunch and they won't be alone, someone to listen to them, to encourage them and someone who can tell them they are worth something and that they are cared about.

Check them out and see how you can get involved in a child's life...