CU Mentoring Program Proves Edifying For Mentors and Mentees
By Terrance Moore and Paul Akere
Every spring, Christian Union offers every CUU graduate the opportunity to be paired with a mentor for a year-long mentorship program. The following is a Q and A with mentor Terrance Moore and mentee Paul Akere.
Terrance Moore, Harvard ’14, was a member of Harvard College Faith and Action, now called CU Gloria, and now works for Adobe on the Diversity Equity and Inclusion Team. Paul Akere, Columbia ’22, participated in CU Lumine and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in education at UVA.
Why did you sign up for the mentoring program with Christian Union?
Paul Akere
Paul: I signed up for the mentoring program because I loved the direction of Christian Union when I was in my undergraduate years and wanted to stay connected in any way possible.
Terrance: I signed up because I know how important it is to have folks who can walk with you in the faith as you try to do everyday life—I saw an opportunity for me to be that for someone else.
What have you found beneficial about the mentoring relationship?
Paul: I found it very beneficial to have someone look at Scripture with me in a manner similar to the meetings that I participated in while in Christian Union.
Terrance: From my end as a mentor, it’s affirming to be able to share the insight and experiences and reflections that I have gathered as a believer. I think it also combats a little bit of imposter syndrome where we can often think, what do I have to contribute? But we all have ways the Lord has worked in our lives that we can speak from. It’s been affirming to have something to contribute to another believer's life. And for Paul, I think it has been great to see how the faith has materialized in an older grad's life and be able to glean from that. 
Terrance Moore
How did having a mentor help you transition into post-grad life?
Paul: Having a mentor connected to this organization gave me consistent familiarity with the life that I got so used to in college. I am so grateful for it. As I move further away from college and the many people and memories I made while there I constantly reflect on the lessons I learned. Having a mentor from Christian Union has helped me navigate the many issues that were awaiting me in post-grad life with a grounded perspective.
Terrance: I never had a formal mentor post-grad. The Lord was really good to me in providing a spiritual community at Harvard, so even the folks who had mentor-type roles to me ended up becoming friends and siblings in the faith who I walk through life with. One of my closest friends was a founding member of HCFA (CU Gloria). We are really great friends, we’re both married and have kids now, so we walk through those things together and pray together. In the ways in which I didn’t have formal mentors, which would have been helpful, the Lord has been gracious in providing community broadly—peers in the faith with whom I can grow and pray and seek God with.
What has been your biggest takeaway from this year?
Paul: My biggest takeaway from this year is the hope that a foundation in Christ can bring. Through dark times it is important to rely on the principles that have been learned in the light.
Terrance: As a mentor, the gospel can be this beautiful combination of simple and complicated at the same time. The truth can be simple, but the ways in which you integrate it into your life is not that easy or straightforward—it’s complicated. Having folks you can talk through it all with, maybe not even to get answers, but seeing the ways in which the Lord has shown up in their lives has profound effects. It reinforces the importance of why it's so crucial to have community to walk in the faith with.
How has your faith changed or grown since graduation?
Paul: My faith has grown. Through tragedy, I have found a new purpose and commitment to the word of the Lord. While I have not fully realized my purpose, I do feel God's guiding hand in my life.
Terrance: My faith has grown as I’ve been able to expand even further the implications of the gospel into a real-world context. Encountering real-life examples apart from what you intellectually understand the meaning of Romans, for example, to be—what does that mean and how do you see that shape up in real life? It’s grown as I’ve been given a playing field to see faith demonstrated in real life.
Post-grad faith in some ways continues to be a challenge. There is no other place where I have the solidified rhythms of college. Classes, extracurriculars, social life—I think finding rhythms as an adult is much harder and more complicated, and they shift a lot. It can feel like Rubik’s cube. The gospel is your foundation and that truth is secure, but as you leave college, that Rubik's cube turns and you get another side that changes up on you. In all of it, though, it’s a challenge and a blessing to see the truth persist across different contexts of life.
Would you recommend the mentoring program to an upcoming grad?
Paul: I would highly recommend the mentoring program. Any opportunity to engage in the community of the Lord is beneficial. Specifically, with Christian Union where there are so many people who have had a similar journey during their undergraduate career, it can be very reassuring to connect with a mentor when exploring a new time in life.
Terrance: I would recommend it. I think everyone has things they can contribute from how they have experienced God post-grad and those things are gifts that others younger in the faith can benefit from.
