Cultivate Updates - Spring 2025
- Ken Kilgore
- May 6
- 4 min read
Updated: May 7
"...anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!" 2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT
We hope your Spring is going well! Record breaking pollen aside, hasn't it been wonderful to watch nature come alive? When our son, Danny, was a little boy, we were walking down the driveway to his grandparents' house in very early Spring. He drew my attention to a tree that's leaves were barely budding and said, "Look, Mom! New life!"
In many ways this paints a picture of what we do at Cultivate. We look for the life that is barely budding and work to help it grow. This Spring, we got to celebrate the baptism and new life of three young people who are very dear to us. Please pray for them as they continue to find life and liberty through a relationship with Jesus.
NEW CULTIVATE WEBSITE LAUNCHED
Speaking of new things, the Cultivate website (cultivatenext.org) has been completely overhauled with a new look and updated content to better reflect who we are and what we do now. We hope you will take some time to look around!
We get so excited when we get updates on emerging adults who have been through COMPASS, discovered their design, and are moving forward in their journey. Sometimes it just takes time. God puts the person in a holding pattern until He reveals what is next. We have been diligently praying for Ethan for the past couple of years and watched as he faithfully served the kids as a volunteer at Chapel on Monday evenings.
This year, Ethan accepted an internship position at Crossroads Church and was asked to be one of the speakers at their youth conference. We look forward to seeing all God is going to do in and through Ethan!
Recently, a young mother went through the COMPASS process. She came into our conversations seriously looking at physical therapy, but what she learned about herself served to confirm that she indeed had the aptitude for it. She began the prototyping process and asked a local physical therapist if she could shadow him. He agreed and after being in his practice for a couple of hours, he offered her a job! Now she is working in a physical therapy environment while she is simultaneously doing her college studies. Her education will now be on a whole new level!
In February, we attended the Coweta NonProfit Summit, an annual event sponsored by the Coweta Community Foundation. This year's Summit was hosted by Crossroads Church.
We learned so much about many different aspects of leading and managing a non profit organization. We are thankful for the Foundation’s commitment to helping nonprofits in our area succeed.
We were also able to make key connections with people from other organizations in our community and are working to establish partnerships with some of them.
On March 29, several Cultivate volunteers enjoyed serving Coweta foster families a meal for their annual Easter Eggstravaganza event. Many thanks to Chickfila Fairburn, who continues to partner with us in this endeavor each year.
Cultivate has been privileged to support this event since 2017, and in fact, it was a foster mother at this event that first suggested we look for ways to help youth who are aging out of foster care. Here we are three years later moving precisely in that direction!
We are so grateful to Crossroads Church Recreation for providing the Spring Swing Golf Tournament on Good Friday and inviting Cultivate to be a hole sponsor and to be partially supported by funds that were raised at the event.
This was Cultivate's first participation ever in a golf event. We enjoyed making people aware of the challenges that under-resourced and foster youth face as they become adults.
Many thanks to JBrooklynCreative.com for taking photos at the event.
INDEPENDENT LIVING PROGRAM
As we continue to research all the things that need to be done in order to have an independent living program, it is easy to get intimidated. We have such a steep learning curve - we often feel like we are climbing up the side of a cliff! We are learning dependence on the Lord in whole new ways and appreciate your prayers as we climb this mountain. You can learn more about this new program here.
We are now providing life skills training once a month during our Chapel time with foster youth on Monday evenings. In March, it was a gift to have Amy Spradlin come and teach the group about self care! Amy is a public health coach and her knowledge and expertise are exceptional. She even got us all exercising together!
We kicked off the life skills training at Chapel back in January with a session on cooking, followed by training on relationships in February. We are so thankful for the opportunity to be providing this vitally needed training and grateful for the people who are leading the sessions each month.
THANK YOU!
Cultivate is committed to provide most of its services free of charge. This means our ability to continue to do what we do is wholly dependent on God raising up supporters who believe in this ministry and generously support this work financially.
So many of you already support Cultivate through your prayers and financial support. We cherish your continued support and cannot tell you how thankful we are for your partnership. If you aren't yet a Cultivate partner, we ask that you consider joining our support team.
The easiest way to give is to use our online platform, provided by PushPay. Click here or text the word "Cultivate" to 833-245-6481 from your mobile phone. You can also contact elise@cultivatenext.org for more information.
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