Day One Team Arrives in Mzuzu

After 30+ hours en route, we've finally arrived in Mzuzu. All eleven exhausted team members are happy and excited about our ten days together in Malawi. So far, the only snafu was that Bob Robinson's bags did not get off the plane. But this inconvenience has not dampened his spirit in the least.

We were me with open arms and hearts by our friends from Mzuzu: Gabriel Mosongole, CitiHope Country Director, and Rev. Copeland Nkatha, pastor of the UMC of Mzuzu and director of our HopeHomes program. They and their assistants seemed delighted to see us and made us all feel at home.

After the five hour drive from Lilongwe to Mzuzu (stopping to watch the golden sun set over the green hills), we enjoyed a fab dinner together at the new Indian restaurant in town before turning in. The men are staying in Mzuzu Lodge and women at the Katoto Guest House--our mission headquarters for the week (I'm in my familiar digs at the CitiHope Office guest room round the corner).

This is my fifth trip to Malawi since 2005. Its fun to sit here in the CitiHope office and see my daughter, Rachel, in many of the historic photos from that first 2005 mission trip. I look forward to bringing my whole family here during next year's annual mission trip.

Tomorrow we visit the Mzuzu Prison where over 100 men and women (and some children) need to be reminded that they are not forgotten by the world.

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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