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"That child is in our Kids Hope program," said the principal.

"What?" asked the pastor, "Who in my church is working with him?"

"You are," said the principal, "and you have changed his life."

Not knowing the worst about the boy he befriended, the mentor had expected the best and got it. Jason is now a well-adjusted member of his class and an excellent student.

Kids Hope's strongest champions are principals and teachers who see how it offers a fresh start to disadvantaged children. Thirteen principals in Terre Haute, Indiana, recently asked 150 pastors to provide mentors for their schools.

Educators say the program builds faithfulness and stability among mentors and students. "My children face abandonment issues constantly," says Glenda O'Banion, a school principal in Hammond, Louisiana, "and they've been abandoned by people who said 'We care.' I'm an old lady, and I've been in education for 30 years. This is the first program I've seen carry through on all the principles they first stated they would do. I've never seen anything like this." She wants mentors for 300 of the 412 poor kids in her school. "We're not interested in good intentions," Gulker says. "We put extraordinary emphasis on the commitment the church needs to make to the child." A church participating in Kids Hope must:

• Restrict its outreach to one public elementary school in its neighborhood.
  
  
• Provide the school with at least ten mentors and recruit more mentors as the program develops. Mentors undergo an eight-step screening, including a criminal history check.
  
  
• Involve its pastor as a mentor or prayer partner.
  
  
• Hire a half-time program director onto the church staff. Kids Hope's national office trains the director, who in turn trains mentors and prayer partners. Smaller churches that cannot afford a paid position give their directors a modest stipend or honorarium.
  
  
• Respect the separation of church and state. The national organization trains mentors to understand that they may not evangelize on school grounds. The organization respects the school administrators' obligation to enforce church-state separation.
  
  

This last requirement, however, does not prevent Kids Hope church members from sharing their faith with children and their families. With parents' permission, a mentor may invite a child to events and activities at the church. A mentor who shows the love of Christ at the school is free to speak about God at church. Kids Hope directors advise school administrators that evangelism may occur in church settings.

The church designates a behind-the-scenes prayer partner for each mentor-child relationship. "While prayer is not allowed in public schools," says Gulker, "Kids Hope has 3,800 prayer partners infusing schools with prayer each week."

Churches are discovering that caring for kids opens the way for reaching their parents and siblings. Consider the spiritual impact on Colton, a six-year-old first-grader, and Susan, his mom. The boy had been abused by a disappearing dad and suffered with Attention Deficit Disorder. Calvin Christian Reformed Church in Holland, Michigan, paired Colton with Herk Bos, a retired man. The relationship affected both of their lives, but after five years, Bos died. Now in seventh grade, Colton wrote this memorial to honor him:

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August 2003, Vol. 47, No. 8