Guest Travel Blog by Paul Moore

Good Morning from the warm heart of Africa!

Yesterday was a great day. Our first visits were at the inspiring orphan care centers where we deliver food. We were treated to a few songs by their volunteers and then we served the food. They have one week's left there and at the second orphanage, they ran out a month ago. Thank God the container is on it's way! As Dr. Christensen began to speak with the children and minister to them - I took a tour of their carpentry shop and sowing area. They make coffins for children there to raise money to help cover expenses. I told her how moved I was that they made coffins for children they couldn't save to raise funds for the ones they will save. Then I decided to teach them the song “Rise and shine” and played the same game I do with our Sunday school children - it was a big hit. We also visited St. Johns hospital where we saw our medicine in storage and they expressed deep gratitude for all we have given. Again, tremendous thanks was given for the FFP food as well because without it, the ARV's they give AIDS patients would have "no effect". The head doctor told us "without good nutrition and added fat, all the ARV's in the world have no value to us" - it was profound and it verified what Dr. Joseph Yu had told us earlier in the day. Ratindine was still in use in the hospital - he told us there was no way they could have afforded it outside of CitiHope. Well, I have to jet - breakfast is calling me from out "summer hut."

Mother Shalom

South Central, Los Angeles, was the neighborhood in the city where Communities of Shalom began in 1992. I met Marx Gutierrez from El Salvador who was there attending High School at the time. He remembers what happened at the corner of Florence and Normandy Streets in South Central, LA, when Reginald Denny was pulled out of his truck and beaten while the crowd looked on and the police did nothing; and how the Rodney King beating resulted in a not-guilty verdict for the police and resulted in a major, 3-day uprising in the neighborhood, until the National Guard came in and finally imposed law and order. He can still remember the fires, the bright orange night sky, the mass looting, 45 unsolved killings, the social chaos...And how the United Methodist Churches responded by creating a zone of shalom in 7 neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Today, Marx is a community organizer, and married to Jennifer Gutierrez, Conference Shalom Coordinator in the Calif-Pacific Annual Conference, and Rev. Vilma

First Generation Lambs Club Reunion

Fifteen of us gathered Saturday night at the Lambs Club for a 35 th year reunion of those who helped start the Lamb’s Church in Times Square in the mid to late 1970’s, including: Rev. Paul S. Moore , Founder of the Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene, and his wife, Tamara Dr. Michael J. Christensen , charter member and former associate pastor, and his wife Dr. Rebecca Laird Fr. William (BJ) Webe r, former Associate Pastor and Director of the Lamb’s Residency, and his wife Sheila who lived at the Lamb’s Jim and Dustee Hullinger, who were on staff together and made the Lamb’s their home for over 25 years Effie Canepa , who was the church pianist under 3 pastors, and her husband Peter Shirley Close, who attended the Lamb’s in the late 1970’s while studying, performing and teaching music and voice Carl "Chappy" Valente , former associate pastor Rev. Bob DiQuatto , lead singer of the Church’s “Manhattan Project” and staff member of the Lamb’s, and his son Jason Rev. Gabriel

Liberation Spirituality: Henri Nouwen and Gustavo Gutierrez in Dialogue

Liberation Spirituality: Henri Nouwen and Gustavo Gutierrez in Dialogue Lecture Notes: Presented by Michael J. Christensen, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Practice of Spirituality and Ministry, Drew University; and International Director, Communities of Shalom, The United Methodist Church Introduction “There is a little man in Peru, a man without any power, who lives in a barrio with poor people and who wrote a book. In this book he simply reclaimed the basic Christian truth that God became human to bring good news to the poor, new light to the blind, and liberty to the captives. Then years later this book and movement it started is considered a danger by [the USA, or Rome], the greatest power on earth. When I look at this little man, Gustavo, and think about [the President of the US, or the Pope], I see David standing before Goliath, again with no more weapon than a little stone, a stone called A Theology of Liberation (Henri Nouwen

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