Offer Who You Are

Offer Who

You Are

BY RENÉE JAMES

Alison Witt shares a cool drink and conversation with an Open Homes friend at a summer party DANIELLE STEENWYK-ROWAAN knows what happens when older seasoned women and men in church leadership take young people under their wing. With the guidance and support of an older church leader, she started a mentoring program at her parents’ church. She was 16. “I had the idea and was supported by older people. I ran with it and even though I made mistakes church leadership supported me.”

Later, while working for a church denomination in her early 20s, Danielle questioned the reality within which she felt called to work and serve – church and ministry leadership that was heavily skewed to older white men. And yet, those very men invested in Danielle – opening doors for her and supporting her. “They trusted me with things, supported me, and this gave me the confidence to do scary things,” she remembers. Some of those men did so because they wanted to see more women in leadership – examples that resonate with Danielle to this day. “They weren’t just paying lip service to women having gifts and being called to equal service. They were invested.”

To take a young person under your wing and invest in – mentor – them requires a willingness to trust them and the process. The same is true when you are the person being mentored. You make yourself available for a life-on-life connection and the vulnerability that comes with that posture.

Danielle works with Alison Witt and a small staff team at Open Homes Hamilton, a home-based

Open Home staff including Alison (back row, second left) and Danielle (back row far right) at a summer party with members of the Open Homes community

hospitality ministry that welcomes refugee claimants in the Hamilton area. Danielle leads the team. She also values Alison as an ongoing mentor and presence in her ministry and personal life. “Alison was the first to invite me in to this ministry of home-based hospitality for refugees,” she recalls. Their connection over Alison’s research into home-based hospitality models for refugee ministry in Ontario, and Danielle’s volunteer leadership with Micah House, Hamilton, quickly deepened. “I learn a lot from Alison all the time,” Danielle shares. “The values she talks about – she lives them out very authentically and to the best of her ability.” Danielle knows this because she’s been to Alison’s home and vice versa.

“There’s a lot of trust there,” says Danielle. “We work together. We are both invested.” That degree of mutual investment meant Danielle could engage Alison and the team in the anti-racism conversations needed to deepen their welcome of new leaders into the ministry.

Connecting points that are “live” remain key to rich and fruitful mentorships. But what happens when those connecting points shift or the relationship changes? Danielle admits that growth and shifts may be inevitable as the really fruitful part of a mentoring relationship ends. “Sometimes I’ve changed because of life circumstances or shifts in my understanding of

“They weren’t just paying lip service to women having gifts and being called to equal service. They were invested.”

things. Past mentors and I have had to adjust and that’s hard,” she says. “There are times when mentorship is just for a season and that’s OK.”

To younger women wanting to be mentored and discipled, Danielle encourages you to reach out. “It means something to people, to be asked to be in a position of trust with another person. Sometimes you’ll have to be the one to open the door to those conversations. And to have an older woman listen to your questions and then respond to you…is nice.”

Danielle has had older women support her. She considers them friends. They’ve shared that they feel written off because of their white hair. This seems preposterous to Danielle: “These women have so much to offer!” To older women who want to mentor, Danielle has these words: “All you can do is offer who you are.” As she puts it: “If ‘mentor’ is too big a word, perhaps use the word ‘friend.’”

Danielle is one of the founders of Open Homes, Hamilton, a homebased hospitality ministry to refugee claimants in the Hamilton area. Check out her workshop at our May Baptist Women’s Conference at baptistwomen.com/resources/2022-conference-videos-and-resources