The year is in full swing! We hope you are well during these confusing warm/cold days!
Here at Cultivate, we have hit the ground running with our new year as we meet regularly with high school students and young adults.
CULTIVATE AT “REFLECT” - This past month, we were grateful for the opportunity to speak to a Christian club (Reflect) at East Coweta High School. Bonnie led worship and we encouraged the students to lean into who God created them to be. Two of them came the following week to Roots (a weekly Bible Study in our home).
PREMARITAL COUNSELING BOOM - The news is out - we do premarital counseling. The news must be out because we have eight couples right now who have asked us to take them through the SYMBIS Assessment (Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts). We became certified facilitators a couple of years ago due to the fact that the age we are committed to help is also the age at which people usually get married. Over the last couple of years, we have met with seven couples. We have so enjoyed our time with them - getting to share what an incredible gift that marriage is, getting to share our own victories and heartaches in marriage, getting to listen and explore together how to make marriage work.
We are finding the next generation really wants to have success in marriage… so many come from broken homes. They are excited and willing to meet with us for four weeks at two hours a meeting (minimum). We discuss (among other things) how personalities, homes of reference, emotional scars, and spirituality affect the marriage. We talk. They talk. We pray. It is such a gift to be able to help prepare them for life together.
JANUARY WAS HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS MONTH - Are you aware of how prevalent human trafficking is around the world as well as in the United States?
Atlanta, Georgia is actually one of the top areas in the world for trafficking. 3600 minors are trafficked in Atlanta each year.
Sex traffickers converge on cities where large sporting events take place.
Combine Atlanta + the NFL Super Bowl together and what do you get? Lots and lots of exploited people.
Bonnie spearheaded a showing of the movie, “Not Today”, on Tuesday, January 29th. Our friends, Cortney and Faith are both passionate about helping the survivors of trafficking. After the movie, they discussed trafficking on a deeper level.
We are pleased to report that 169 human trafficking arrests were made during the week of the Super Bowl, including some in our own county.
Please pray for us as we discern what God is leading us to do about the issue behind human trafficking. We are becoming more and more aware of the pervasive problem of pornography in the next generation (as well as older generations) that feeds the demand for trafficking. We are exploring resources to help us have communication about this issue.
Thank you for your partnership with us. Thank you for your prayers!