Fulfillment: to bring to completion or reality; achieve or realize something desired, promised, or predicted.

That word sums up the month of April for us at Forerunner Mentoring. Fulfillment.
Fulfillment seeing the work God is orchestrating through our organization. Fulfillment hearing the story He is writing in the lives of our boys and their families. Fulfillment at the call being responded to by our mentors and fellow comrades in Lake Highlands.

Back in March, we had our 2022 Forerunner Fundraising Dinner. We saw about 400 people attend and gather around tables to share a meal together. People from all over gathered to hear stories of men stepping into the lives of boys in our community as mentors and father figures. To hear stories of boys being shown what it looks like to be a man of God. A narrative that shifted all because a man in our community chose to walk alongside a boy who needed a father figure in his life. Someone he could trust to show him the way and never leave him behind.

Out of those 400 who attended, 1 member of our community had the idea to host a suit and steak dinner where our graduating seniors who are a part of our programs would be celebrated and formally inducted into manhood. Hence, The Company of Men came to fulfillment. Through the generosity of men in our community, we were able to bless each of our five graduating seniors with a suit, shirt, belt, ties, and shoes to set them up for the next chapter of their lives. To set them up for their next chapter of living out what it looks like to be a man of God. We were able to take them out to a steak dinner where they got to share with men who have gone before them what excites them about being a man, as well as what brings them fear or concern about life after high school.

During the dinner, one of our longest-standing forerunners stood up and shared that the thing that excites him the most about becoming a man is that he knows he doesn't have to figure it out on his own. That God has support for him in the journey, and that he will get to be that support for others. In a few sentences, he summed up what we want every boy in Lake Highlands to know.

“It is not good for man to be alone.”

God reveals himself in relationships. They are not only a reflection of His care and support for us, but also the place where we find our own purpose. To live and make sacrifices for others. To leave a legacy. To change the trajectory of our family lines. We are not our own, and we have been bought with a price. “No greater love than this than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

We believe these five young men will be ones who lay down their lives for others, because they’re surrounded by men who have modeled that for them. Men who won’t let them settle for doing life alone. This is why we do what we do. This is why relationships change lives. May the potential of every young man in Lake Highlands reach its fulfillment in the name of Jesus.