Parish of Wellspring

Kids hope mentoring program

In April 2007 Holy Trinity, Hobart commenced a mentoring program known as World Vision-Kids Hope. In this highly practical missional program, the church adopts a local school and volunteers from the church spend one hour a week with one child who is struggling with their school work.

This mission has been continued by Wellspring Anglican. Both the mentors and kids have found the mentoring hour to be a highlight of their week, and some of the kids have recorded astronomical improvements in their literacy levels. As a result, we have gone from having virtually no relationship with the school, to having an excellent one where our church is held in very high regard by students, teachers and the whole school community.

As part of our efforts to engage with a changing world, Wellspring has begun exploring mission teams as a means to reconnect with our communities. Mission teams attempt to connect with people outside church circles through meeting them where they are. There have been some initial gains. Several new mission teams have started this past year. New teams include:

  • one team reaching out through and to young mums -which has resulted in some great new relationships being built through play groups,
  • one team reaching out to the live music scene in Hobart. Through the relationships of this group, one person has already come to Christ. This guy continues to follow Jesus and has become part of the Wellspring church community.
  • one team reaching out to outdoor adventure types,
  • one team reaching out to struggling school children through 'kids hope' - a mentoring program. (See the story in the column to the right.) This has been instrumental in growing an excellent relationship with the partner school, which has just now 'opened the door' to the good news of Jesus, by allowing us to present at a school assembly.

In 2007 David Rietveld visited Cambodia, on behalf of the Diocese of Tasmania, and attended a meeting of the mission co-coordinators for the Anglican Diocese of South East Asia. In 2008 a group of five parishioners from Wellspring Anglican visited Cambodia, and saw first hand many exciting ministries with whom we could explore a future relationship.

In late June we will be sending a team of about ten, who will spend some time working with an Anglican training facility, with a church planter in a village of displaced citizens, and with other missions. Over the coming year there are several other young adults who have indicated a desire to serve for three to six months in Cambodia.

Adrian Nickols is using his business administration skills to serve God overseas.

He has just left to spend four months in Bolivia and another four months in Ecuador working with a mission that seeks to alleviate poverty through micro financing, and an organisation that runs orphanages. His role will be to help the orphanages become self funding.

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