Battles, Blessings, & Building A Healthy Community

Agape has been busy this year! We have had the privilege of working with a number of fantastic organizations within the community. We strongly value our community partnerships and are excited to work alongside many amazing entities. Here are just a few of the things we’ve accomplished in recent months:

• Darrell and several others have presented workshops at various churches in the area on Depression, Boundaries, Grief, Healing Broken Relationships, and Trauma & the Brain
• Carolyn, our Children’s Therapeutic Services Director, was a featured speaker at the Greater St. Louis Home Educators Expo and PS Kids Workshops
• We were asked by Autism Speaks to participate in the Walk Now St Louis Autism Awareness Event, after receiving a grant from them to grow our Social Skills & Parenting Therapy Groups for kids on the Autism Spectrum and their parents
• Kelly earned her PhD and then knocked it out of the park using her research on ambiguous loss and singleness to speak to counselors from around the nation at the AACC Conference in Nashville
• Paula & Kathy have run several successful ‘Love & Logic Parenting’ classes throughout the year, and several other counselors have run social skills groups for kids, adult groups for depression and anxiety, and our ever popular ‘Boundaries’ group for adults
• Mary & Cathy have provided instruction at Stephens Ministry events to teach and equip Stephens Ministers with the skills they need to help those in their community who are hurting
• Our counselors collaborated with church sponsored programs, such as Celebrate Recovery and Teen MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers), to teach boundaries classes, stress management classes, etc.
• We received a grant from Old Newsboys for our Agape Kids department and were featured in the Old Newsboys Special Edition St Louis Post Dispatch Newspaper
• JuJuane and Mary led the ‘Sacred Conversations’ workshop to allow attendees to explore feelings, thoughts, beliefs and behaviors in response to recent events involving racial interactions
• Several of our counselors have joined forces with the up and coming Christian radio station, The Rock St Louis, for various events throughout the community
• Kristy connected us with Joshua House Church in Hazelwood to help with fundraising and reach out to the community with counseling resources through events like The Chicken Run and The Jericho Ride
• Darrell, Kristy, and Jessica participated in the Battlegrounds Mud Run which supported The Mission Continues & Operation Food Search
• Our counseling reach extended internationally as Tai Yong moved to Taiwan to provide counseling for missionaries and their families. He also continues to provide counseling for Agape clients via online video chat technology
• Geries, Whitney, Valerie, Teresa, & Jim ran a 5k in May in support of our friends at Sparrow’s Nest Maternity Home
• Because Agape values education and the power of hands on learning, we have provided internships to counseling students from Missouri Baptist University and Lindenwood University, which in turn, allows us to offer pro bono counseling to those in our community who would not otherwise be able to afford counseling services
• Kathryn sat with one of the greats as she attended a seminar led by Dr. David Schnarch
• Our child therapists attended the Empowered to Connect Conference, hosted by Children’s Coalition, where they discussed new ways to work with children who have a traumatic history
• We as an agency have seen, on average, 1500 clients per week, and have given over one-million dollars in discounted, pro-bono, and scholarshipped counseling services in the past year!

We are also looking forward to facilitating a workshop on Worry, Anxiety & Panic at Grace Church St. Louis in January, and participating in the Working Women’s Survival Show in February, the Mehlville School District ‘Spring Into Health Wellness’ Fair, and many more things as God ordains.

[supertagline]We would like to thank those of you who have supported us in the past year. We could not do what we do without you!  May you have a blessed Christmas and New Year![/supertagline]