The 2025 (Term 1) Residents have made it through their first week at East Mountain! It was an orientation week in many ways, but we hit the ground running with Theology, mentorship and other topics and have really enjoyed getting to know the staff and each other.
On Sunday we welcomed each resident as they bid farewell to families and supporters to move into their new quarters. Several resident alumni joined us for the Welcome Braai and we did some get-to-know you activities, ate delicious food, and prayed over each resident.
After kicking off our daily Bible reading Monday morning with a great discussion about Genesis 1-2, residents had an Introduction to East Mountain orientation session. (This year, in absence of house parents, each staff family has a designated day of the week to help facilitate Bible reading time and spend some time at the Residency cottage and the staff living on the property are more involved in checking in on Residents regularly).
During the Introduction to East Mountain, residents learned:
● How East Mountain was founded out of a desire to join God in meeting the African churches' need for more well-equipped leaders.
● How our diverse community is held together by a commitment to our common mission, vision, values and rule of life.
● How God has used East Mountain to transform the lives of leaders such as Lorenzo, Siya and Denver.
● That they also will leave behind a legacy, and that the choices they make will determine what that legacy will look like.
The session went very well. The residents engaged with the material and seemed to be challenged by it. At one point Mark asked them how they had experienced EM so far. Most of them said they really felt welcomed and cared about. Most places they go, people might be friendly and say hello, but they don’t usually take time to ask questions and get to know them.
On Monday afternoon, residents had orientation around more residency-specific information. They enjoyed having a group brainstorm to come up with their desired house culture and benefited from going over the schedule, code of conduct, evaluations and other and admin items, as well as writing goals and letters to their future selves. They finished the day with dinner at the McIntosh house to get to know them.
On Tuesday morning, residents had their first Spiritual Formation class. They started getting to know one another through an exercise called “Level of Comfort,” which residents really enjoyed as they saw a visual representation of how comfortable everyone was with different scenarios. They then learned about the foundations for spiritual formation such as:
● Being created in the image of God
● Being marred by the fall and by sin
● God’s plan for restoration and transformation
● Spiritual friendship
The residents engaged and responded well and even seemed surprised when it was time to wrap up the session.
Tuesday afternoon, Michael led residents in an Introduction to Theology/ Bible overview workshop. They looked at the overall themes and story of scripture - from Genesis to Revelation- focusing on how God worked through covenants to redeem mankind back to him and God being glorified in the process. They also took some time to study the authority of scripture, and how the bible came to be. This workshop answered a lot of common resident questions and opened up the scripture as a whole to residents in a way many of them had never considered. It also prepared them to jump into their first “Hope Theology class” the next day. East Mountain has been blessed by the partnership with this theological training group for young Christian leaders for 10+ years. Hope trains in theological foundations as well as building practical skills of leading bible studies and bible talks.
Tuesday night before theology class residents had dinner with Duttweilers and did an activity building a pile of “ebenezer” stones and sharing a story of God’s faithfulness in each of their lives.
At Theology class on Wednesday Residents discussed "What is the Gospel" and the goal of bible studies. After theology they had dinner with Hofmeyrs and got to know them.
On Thursday morning, Caleb led a budget workshop with residents. This is obviously one of the more practical, less heart-focused and theoretical workshops we offer, but residents are still able to engage with what the Bible says about money management as well as exploring ideas of saving, giving and budgeting by need categories. We hope these skills will help them as they shop and cook for themselves for the next three months, but also in managing finances at future jobs and ministries for years to come.
A big part of any residency program has been the mentor-mentee relationship, but in order to get the most out of that time together, mentors and mentees attended the spiritual mentoring workshop on Thursday afternoon together. They enjoyed a lot of discussion over the following topics:
● What is spiritual mentoring and what does it involve?
● What are the Biblical assumptions that support mentoring?
● What are important values for mentors?
● The importance of being safe, being present - particularly with 3-way listening, and being open.
● Timeline issues - what needs to happen in the relationship in the beginning, middle, and end.
On Thursday night they had dinner with and got to know Cortimilias. Friday marked the end of our “orientation” period for Residents, although they will continue to experience many more “firsts”’in the weeks to come.
On Friday morning the Residency team met with each resident individually to check in on how they have been handling the change of pace and dynamics. They received very positive feedback from each resident. We wrapped up these sessions in the afternoon with residents signing a commitment form to indicate they are committed to seeing the residency through now that that have been here a week and have gotten a feel for it. We commissioned them and prayed over them to bless the rest of their term. That night residents had dinner with Harrises and, of course, enjoyed some games.
Unfortunately one of our residents sprained her ankle stepping off a stair step, so please join us in praying she can make a full and quick recovery. This also means we are rethinking or postponing a few of the trips we had planned that involve a lot of walking. On Saturday we took them to a nearby market for a fun relaxing team building time after a busy week and residents played games together at the cottage that afternoon. It was a very full week and they are diving head-first into another one, but everyone has been learning and getting along well and enjoying the time with eagerness and patience. We have a great group this term and are already seeing so much potential and so much we can learn from them as well. Each of them has a strong desire to grow spiritually and get equipped in order to make an impact in their communities and future ministries. Please continue to keep these fantastic five in your prayers for 14 more amazing weeks!
