WHAT WE'RE DOING

Our entire team has been here in K-town now for a few weeks. It hasn’t been easy finding initial home stays for everyone. Only two of us have found home stays that are ideal. The rest of us have been staying with various friends and friends of friends.

Essentially, our priority at the moment is to find an area of the city where we hope to live and work and put down roots. We won’t all live in one slum, but we hope to be in the same general area so as to support one another and not be too far from our team center which will act as an office, resource center, refuge and place of meeting. There is no perfect order to finding a general area, a team center, and a slum and house. Each location depends on the other details.

The past few weeks have been very interesting. Never before have I walked through so many slums or connected with so many urban poor workers in such a condensed amount of time. In order to move forward with our housing, this is necessary. We research, look at maps, contact people, visit various organizations, see what they do, check out their work, and do some other exploring of our own on foot.

“What advice do you have for us as we move to your city and work with the poor?” we ask these workers. “Where do you suggest we put down roots? What areas could use an incarnational Christian presence? What should we know as we begin here? Share your wisdom and experience with us.”

Most individuals and groups have been in K-town much longer than us and many have valuable insight and wisdom for us not only regarding location, but also attitude, approach and networking with like-minded people. I’m quite impressed by the hospitality and openness many people have had, along with their depth of knowledge and experience. One thing I look forward to is supporting and being supported by other groups, joining together in work that is bigger than any of our organizations.

We are seeking to make a good decision of what direction to move in. In all of this, however, we are seeking God’s leading, wherever that may be. Through prayer, action and reflection we are trying to make a good decision in the coming weeks. Please pray with us as we discern where the Spirit is leading us to put down roots.