A year ago I quit my stressful, full-time job and was looking to become involved in ministry work.  A few weeks later, a friend of mine, Myrna Bittar, told me she was starting up  YoungLives in Huntington Beach.  I was so excited and thought, “God you are already opening up  doors for me.”  I had a heart for this ministry right away as I was adopted at birth, and was also an unwed mother at the age of 21.  At the first Meet and Greet BBQ with the girls, they were hard to read and understandably very shy. While Myrna was speaking to the girls about YoungLives, I was watching their faces and thought they didn’t seem interested at all (I have always considered myself to be pretty good at reading people’s emotions). However, moments later when Myrna announced that anyone interested in participating should fill out an interest card, much to my surprise, I saw all of the girls at my table filling out their form.  I thought to myself, “Well God, you sure showed me that I was wrong about that.”  It was a great reminder to always have faith and that our God can most certainly stir up hearts.”

A month later, I was paired up with my mentee Aylin.  She had a beautiful one month old daughter named Sophia.  At first, I didn’t know how to interact with a teenager as my daughter is 26 years old and I have never been a mentor.   After a short while, Aylin and I were spending time together and having so much fun. I thought to myself, “She actually likes hanging out with me.”  I couldn’t believe it.

Now, almost a year later I have seen the wonderful things God is doing in her life.  She is on track to graduate, has applied to get her green card so she can begin working after graduation, and is applying for college grants and loans.  She has become a leader and a role model to the other mentees by taking the initiative to coordinate rides for the girls, inviting other girls from her school to attend our monthly club meetings, and consistently participating in all of our fundraisers.  She has been attending RockHarbor Huntington Beach (RHHB) on a regular basis.  I am super excited to share that she was recently baptized in the ocean at RHHB’s beach service and I had the privilege of laying hands on her as she was submerged into God’s beautiful ocean.

Being a part of this ministry has brought me so much joy and I truly feel blessed to be a part of each of the girls’ lives.  I believe that supporting teen moms is an important way for us to help bring awareness to pregnant girls that there are support systems available and that this knowledge just may help them choose the precious gift of life for their babies.

Tamara Cianciolo
YoungLives Volunteer Mentor and Committee Member

I know that when one gets involved in ministry, that they are supposed to go in with an expectation that it’s not about “them”, but rather the community or people that they are serving; and to understand that the experience may not necessarily be “fun” or immediately rewarding.

When I got involved in YoungLives, I would have certainly said the above out loud… but to be perfectly honest, in my head, I envisioned me getting paired up with a young teen mom who was similar to me in personality. We would naturally hit it off immediately.  She would trust me upon our first meeting because the connection was just THAT strong.  We would hang out and laugh and have fun all the time!  I would walk into her life and fix all the brokenness, set her on the path to success both spiritually and academically and she would more than likely be a huge success in life and have me to thank for it!  This was going to be awesome and fun.

This is not what ended up happening for me.  I got paired up to mentor a young girl who couldn’t be more different than myself.  She is an extreme introvert and seems to lack interest in just about everything.  Each interaction with her seems to be more awkward than the last.  She doesn’t open up to me at all.  She has decided to drop out of school and is not working and doesn’t really seem to care about it.  However she has always been committed to meeting with me, and coming to the club meetings once a month.

I’ve found myself often times asking myself “what am I really doing with her?”  I wasn’t seeing immediate improvement in her life resulting from my mentoring.  This frustrated me beyond belief.  I was supposed to fix her life, and the opposite was happening.  It seemed as though things were progressively getting worse.  “God, what is the point of me being in this girl’s life?”.  Many times I wanted to give up.  I spoke with my leader Myrna, and expressed my frustration, and Myrna asked me if I would still be willing to mentor this girl even if I knew that she would end up “failing”?  This was such a great question that forced me to reexamine “why” I was doing this.  Am I doing this so that I can feel good about myself and say that I am involved in ministry and have fun, or am I doing this to show Christ’s love no matter what the situation, or circumstance, or outcome.

Well, I had my vision (mentioned above) on how “I” would reach this girl.  And God had His.

One night after our monthly club meeting, I was driving my girl home, and I asked her if she owned a Bible, and she said no.  So I told her that I would give her one.  I embarrassingly admit that a couple months of chaos in my own life went by and I never did give her the bible that I promised.  One night my girl and I were hanging out and she said “you never gave me the Bible that you promised”.  I was SHOCKED that she even remembered, let alone reminded me about it.  Keep in mind this girl does not speak unless she is spoken to, and even then, she will barely give you a word or two.

So the next time we met up, I did give her a Bible.  She asked me how to read it. (GREAT question)  I told her I have no clue.  I dog-eared the Gospels and Proverbs for her and said those might be good places to start.  I have to again embarrassingly admit that in my head, I did not think that she would read it.

Two weeks later we had our Monthly club meeting for the month of March.  The meeting was set up with an Easter Theme since Easter is right around the corner.  Set up on each table was a basket with eggs and in each egg there was some candy and a bible verse that one of the volunteers so thoughtfully put together and prayed for.  Vanessa opened her egg, and received a verse out of Proverbs.  When she opened it she said with excitement “Oh my gosh, I have been reading these!”  I was not only shocked to find out that she actually HAS been reading the Bible but I was also shocked to hear any form of excitement come out of her mouth!!  Later, each girl received a card that was written specifically for them by a group of women from Rockharbor Huntington Beach.  This group of women have never met the girls, but got their names, and prayed for them, and wrote them a very sweet message.  When Vanessa opened her card, she was so excited to see that on the very front of the card was again another verse from the Proverbs!  Later that night she sent me a text message and told me that she told her child’s father about the Proverbs.

God is clearly working in this girl’s heart despite my own doubt and outside of my own expectations.  No- I am not the glorious hero in this girls life like I originally envisioned.  No- I am not seeing mountains moved after every time that I meet with her.  Rather, in the 6 months that I have known her, and have consistently met with her (no matter how awkward it was), she has picked up the Bible and read some Proverbs and is talking about it with people in her life.  Totally worth it!!!!

Amy Thompson
YoungLives Volunteer Mentor

These last few days I have felt so in awe of the way that God uses willing hearts to make a large impact. Exactly a year ago, Tom and I had our first conversation about the possibility of starting YoungLives in Huntington Beach. For those of you that don’t know, YoungLives is Young Life’s ministry to teen moms. Looking back on the last 12 months since we had that conversation I see that there was definitely a need for this ministry in our area and cannot imagine if we had not listened to the nudge to move forward. Today, I am surrounded by incredible leaders who are mentoring young moms and are making a true impact on their daily lives. We have about 25 girls that are a part of YoungLives that come from Huntington Beach, Westminster and Fountain Valley. We strive to pair up each teen mom with a mentor that’s main goals are to love unconditionally and provide support. We get the privilege of hearing their stories, holding their babies, and cheering them on as the face many of life’s struggles. I would love for you to hear one of the young moms’ stories from her own perspective.

At our last club, Monique got a CD with professional pictures of herself and her son Robert, that were kindly donated by two professional photographers from our church. When she got home she posted one of the pictures on facebook and wrote the following as her “status.”

“The amazing feeling you have when you have someone in your life you’re willing to change for because you care so much for them, you don’t want them to get hurt. I was 12 years old when i got pregnant, 13 when i had my child [everyday i get judged, but I’ve gotten so use to it; it doesn’t even bother me anymore. Without my mother, i don’t know what i would have done. I was in 7th grade & because of the judgment, i kept from going to school and because of that i’m 1 grade behind in my grad. year. But honestly that just give me more reason to push hard, so i can give my son the life he deserves. My CHILD is my motivation and inspiration, he is also my weakness & STRENGTH. I AM A TEEN MOTHER & WE ARE YOUNG LIVES :)”

When I asked Monique if we could share a little bit about her story she said that the only thing she wanted to add was that her pregnancy was indeed a mistake but her child was not. She explained how she believes that God used her son Robert to change her life and pull her out of the lifestyle she was living. A few weeks prior to this post several of the mentors became aware that Monique was struggling with some self-worth and depression issues. We were able to shower her with love, prayer and positive affirmations. It is amazing how a year ago we didn’t know Monique or any of the other teen moms we are now in relationship with. I am so thankful that we get to enter in to these girls’ stories at the climax of their brokenness and just be with them.

Myrna Bittar

PS -thanks to Whitney Schey for photography