Meet Antonio

September 1, 2022

story

A shy student who God is shaping through mentorship.

Antonio has been attending our City Life program for a few months with his family. Our relationship began through a collaborative community strategy with Youth Advocate Programs in Schenectady where they try to get kids connected to long term services. I was paired with Tony.

When I first met Tony, he was pretty shy and definitely wasn’t ready for the lively culture at City Life. Learning more about his backstory, it was littered with neglect and abuse from his relatives. For Tony, it took some adjusting to overcome his social anxiety, however he began to love City Life! As our relationship started to grow deeper, he began to communicate how much I really meant to him and how he really looked up to me. Not going to lie, it feels great to hear how much of an impact you’re making within the lives of children in our ministry. Sometimes as leaders it seems like all of your effort is overlooked and under-appreciated within ministry – leaving you discouraged.

Once I realized how impressionable I was to Tony, we were able to dive deep into more conversations about Jesus which spread into having discussions about reading scripture and how necessary it is to our lives. Sadly, Tony and his family have reading disabilities and illiteracies that make it rather challenging to get into the word of God, however, Tony has taken up the challenge of reading the book of Matthew while attending church with us on a consistent basis.

Please pray for us as a team as we lead this family to sovereign relationships with Jesus Christ where they seek Him out daily and that their reading disabilities will dissipate.

-Arthur Fennicks
*Names have been changed