There’s a scene in The Lion King that stirs my heart with longing. Simba the lion cub has been on a self-imposed exile during which he reinvents himself, but a chance meeting with Nala, a friend from his past, shakes his new-found identity.

At the moment of crisis, Simba encounters Rafiki, a mysterious baboon (a mandrill, to be accurate) who spouts a load of nonsense. Simba is not in the mood for monkey-business, until a well-timed question gets his attention. Somehow Rafiki not only knows what Simba is looking for, he also knows the answers.

Rafiki is a mentor, and he appears just at the right time. He guides Simba to the wisdom he needs, not by a rapid download of information, but rather by a dynamic interaction.

If only life imitated art more closely. I’ve had periods in my life in which I’ve craved a mentor. I remember watching the early episodes of Australian Idol and envying the contestants’ interactions with panel judge, Marcia Hines.

“Darlin’,” she’d coo to the young hopefuls in her lovely semi-American/semi-Aussie accent, and my heart would ache. If only some kindhearted, mothering type would take me under her wing and mentor me. What was the catalyst for this deep-set need?

I was fortunate as a young, stay-at-home mum to have an older woman in the church take an interest me. Noraine N. tutored a ragtag group of us in the art of homemaking and in the finer points of Christian discipleship. We prized her input, even though the setting was noisy and the interruptions incessant.

While toddlers ran amok, we imbibed every drop shared with us as if it were the elixir of life. Indeed, when I survey my adult life, I often reflect that those stay-at-home years were the most challenging. Without the trappings of a career to orient and reward me, and without regular adult conversation to stimulate me, I felt adrift and pointless. Noraine’s inspiration made those child-filled years both meaningful and doable.

In subsequent decades, however, I wasn’t as fortunate in the mentor department. When Noraine left, she passed the mentorship baton to me. I stepped up and ministered to women in my church, eventually becoming ordained as a pastor. If I ever needed a mentor, it was then, in those six years of “official” ministry.

It’s not hard to imagine that that pathway was little less than a scant trail bushwhacked through a patriarchal wilderness. Ministry has been through the ages the domain of men, and for them, a well paved highway exists, brimming with fraternities and camaraderie. For us ladies, on the other hand, it’s a case of “bring your own sickle–and don’t forget the owners’ manual”, thank you very much.

I had to figure it all out myself, and I never did arrive at the point of feeling like “one of the boys.” I wasn’t invited to ministry breakfasts; no one walked me through the ins and outs of pastoral work. Perhaps saddest of all, not one woman minister ever contacted me to welcome or inquire after me.

In my desperation for a mentor, I resorted to what’s known in some church circles as the Law of Sowing and Reaping, which means when you sow (offer) a thing, a like thing will return to you. (See Galatians 6:7-9.). So, I did what anyone desperate for a mentor should do: I mentored.

A Google search at the time yielded a great find, the Australian Women’s Networking Database. It was an online database, where women could seek mentors or offer mentorships. I signed up as a mentor and waited for my mentees to line up. Months passed, and I forgot about the entry on the website.

Then, out of the blue, I got an email from a lady who’d seen my profile. Now, this person could have been from anywhere in Australasia. As this prospective mentee and I carried out the cautious process of slowly doling out information and deciding when and where to meet, we discovered, strangely enough, our kids went to the same school and only two kilometers separated our churches.

I had to laugh about that one, for I knew only too well the struggle to find a mentor–even in a church community. Why, oh why, should churches, of all communities on this planet, lack in mentoring relationships?

Mentoring is clearly modelled throughout the Bible: Jethro mentored Moses; Elijah mentored Elisha; Paul mentored Timothy. In an epistle to Titus, Paul encouraged “older women to teach the younger women” just as Noraine had done for that group of sleep-deprived, distracted women of which I was the chief.

The church, with its mandate to disciple the nations, should have this mentoring thing down pat. By now, we should have perfected a mentoring prototype, and, I dare say, if we had, people would stream to the church in droves, eager to satisfy their deep longing for a mentor.

I am not alone in my yearning for a mentor. Business people have cottoned on and are thinking the relationship through with great alacrity. The Harvard Business Review has gone so far as to offer a mathematical formula that describes the intricacies of the mentoring dynamic.

Likewise, schools and hospitals embed mentoring into their training programs. Scores of young people within the walls of churches are wandering aimlessly, precariously nearing the edge of the flock with little to keep them from bolting. A timely relationship with a caring mentor could make all the difference in keeping them within the fold.

A mentoring relationship adds relevance and value to the Christian life, just as Noraine’s did for me all those years ago. I’m out of official ministry these days, but I still desire a mentor in other arenas. As an emerging writer, I often wish I could talk through plot points, publishing pitfalls, or freelancing conundrums with a seasoned author.

I still mentor, but not just with the hopes of scoring my own guru; I mentor young women because it’s the right thing to do. And it’s desperately needed. And it’s rewarding. I get a thrill from interacting with a protégée who, with my encouragement, might dare spread her wings and soar.

Mentoring, I’ve learned, is not about having all the answers–or spouting veiled wisdom à la Rafiki. It’s about listening and sharing and growing. Of all endeavours, mentoring nears the top of my list of joys. As for me and my hopes of being mentored, I hold fast to the adage, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”.

For any prospective mentor out there who’s wondering, this student is well and truly ready.

Alison Stegert is a regular contributor to the Girl With A Satchel blog. She also blogs at www.e-quipped.com.au on issues including cyber-safety.

Featured image: sxc.hu/lusi