The vision blossoms in Maryvale

God gives us the vision, then he takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way.

Every vision will be made real if we will have patience.

~ Oswald Chambers

Our vision for opening our fourth Promise Neighborhood in the Maryvale area has been a long time in the making. And we have seen our time in the valley since the vision was first planted in our hearts, which only makes the story of how God has worked to make this vision reality all the more remarkable.

We began laying the groundwork for opening a fourth Promise Neighborhood in 2020 - yes, during the pandemic because the Covid shutdowns emphasized just how essential the services we provide to families are. And staying operational during Covid meant reviewing policies and procedures so that we could continue ministering to our families. This led to a multi-year project: creating a replicable program model, or as Aaron calls it, "MentorKids In A Box."

Alignment was the name of the game throughout 2020-2021 and our leadership team embarked on the gargantuan journey of reviewing and refining policies, creating procedures that are consistent across all our Promise Neighborhoods, reviewing and adopting curriculum, and documenting it all so that we would be ready to launch our next Promise Neighborhood as soon as God opened that door. We thought that time would be 2022.

However, as 2022 dawned each of our Promise Neighborhoods was facing unique problems that needed to be addressed - problems like lack of space to house or grow our programs, housing market changes forcing our families to move out of our neighborhoods, and fractures within communities that impeded the collaboration we need with church and community partners to operate a successful program.

In light of these challenges, Aaron and the Board made the difficult decision to focus our energies this year on shoring up our current Promise Neighborhoods and set the vision of opening a new Promise Neighborhood on the "not yet" shelf. Even in the midst of our disappointment, we felt God's leading and His peace as we created action plans to tackle the challenges we faced in our Neighborhoods and we went to work.

Our Neighborhood Managers took each obstacle in stride and went above and beyond to address their neighborhood's unique challenges while still providing a loving environment to serve kids and their families. This was, in many ways, a year of battling in the valleys in our Promise Neighborhoods, but our people never gave up or pulled back. And while that was happening, God was working in ways we could not see.

"It's like you're down in the trenches slugging it out,

and you look up and you see that God is doing something,

and it's amazing. We serve such an awesome God."

~ Samantha Lingor, Paiute Neighborhood Manager

While we were focusing on the challenges before us, God was laying a vision on the hearts of Pastors Roy and Karla Lainez of Unidos en una Visión Church in the heart of Maryvale - a vision to reach their neighborhood for Christ by bringing in and serving the children of the neighborhood.

"We were praying and God told me clearly that

we needed to reach the kids in our community,

but I didn’t have any idea how to do it. Pastor Obed

knew Aaron and he invited him to come here

and tell us about MentorKids.

I think this is God’s purpose because he

connected us - we call this a divine connection."

~ Pastor Karla Lainez, Unidos en una Visión

From that first meeting, it was clear that we had a shared vision and purpose with the leadership of Unidos en una Visión, so we began the process of putting a pilot MentorKids Summer Enrichment Camp in Maryvale. We saw God provide funding through a grant from the First Baptist Church Foundation and an extremely successful MentorkIds Golf Challenge event. Palomino Neighborhood Manager Nora Espinoza worked closely with Pastor Karla to hire and train staff, and we got to see how well our "MentorKids in a Box" worked in a real-life setting. And the result of all of this hard work can be seen in the faces of the kids who were blessed by the Maryvale Summer Enrichment camp over the past four weeks.