Walking Together in Faith

“It is such a rich thing to have the privilege of investing in a brother or sister in Christ and to watch God shape them and use them for His glory. It's probably the thing I love most in my job. It is a real gift from God.”

Suellen Milham lives in the Central West of New South Wales, where she is on staff at Orange Evangelical Church. As part of her role, where her focus areas are Women and Grow, Suellen has the joy of mentoring women undertaking an apprenticeship. Her current apprentice, Tabatha, is training part-time with VBC.

It has been a long journey to becoming a mentor for Suellen. She didn’t grow up in a Christian home, but her parents weren’t anti-Christian, either. They gave Suellen permission to attend a youth group camp when she was in Year 8 of high school, and that weekend changed everything for her.

Suellen recalls, “I heard a man preach quite graphically about what Jesus had suffered for me on the cross. And I walked out of there and I said to him, ‘I want to follow Jesus.’”

Once back at home, nothing changed until a couple of years later when Suellen’s mother told her she needed to be confirmed, so she took Suellen to their local Anglican church. The minister said Suellen would need to start attending church, youth group and confirmation classes. That was when she began to grasp what it would look like to live her life as a follower of Christ.

“There are things from those confirmation classes that I still draw on, so it was pretty formative,” Suellen shares.

After graduating from high school Suellen trained as a secondary science teacher, and she worked in that field full-time for a few years before she and her husband started having kids—of which there ended up being five. Suellen worked casually on and off during that time, but eventually a different opportunity came up: a role coordinating a mentoring program across five high schools. 

As it turned out, as He often does, God used that experience as a way of preparing Suellen for something else He had in store. In Suellen’s case, it was church ministry.

“The thought of working for church or doing ministry training really hadn't entered my head,” Suellen admits. “It was a big learning curve for me to actually work with a trainee, but in saying that, having coordinated a mentoring program, I think a lot of that translated into discipleship.”

So in 2010, Suellen joined the staff team at Orange Evangelical Church. She has been mentoring her current apprentice, Tabatha, for almost two years now, but the seeds for that were sown many years ago. It was 10 years prior that Suellen began meeting up with Tabatha to read the Bible. Fast forward to today, and Tabatha is just months away from finishing up a formal apprenticeship with the church.

“I meet with Tabatha every Wednesday morning and we read the Bible together, and a Christian book, and of course we pray together and do a bit of a review of what's going on in ministry for her,” Suellen explains. “Sometimes we'll look at a training paper. We're always thinking about character growth—things that we've been able to pray about and work on and see her grow in her trust in God to manage those things.”

As it turns out, Tabatha has enjoyed her training through VBC so much that she’s decided to continue with it next year, even after her church apprenticeship has finished, so that she can complete a diploma. Suellen enjoys the role she plays as a mentor, too.

“Each time I've had a trainee, it’s been God's provision for me too, because it refreshes my ministry as I mentor another person,” Suellen says. “You really go back to the basic reasons why you're doing what you're doing. It is a rich and rewarding opportunity.”