Uganda Mission Begins

Travel Day One. Washington/Dulles International to Dubai Airport. Rebecca and I leave today to join and lead a team of ten "shalomers" (five Ugandans, four Americans, and one Malawian) on a 21-day mission in Uganda to raise hope and deepen community development projects in Jinja, Mbale and Hoima areas.

Every year since 2005 I’ve organized and led a service trip and mission to Malawi or Uganda, either for CitiHope International or WorldHope Corps. This year’s international Mission is focused on Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) as taught by Communities of Shalom, based at Drew University, as well as on several WorldHope Corps sponsored projects.

Our team will conduct the seventh and final session of ShalomTraining for 300 organized coffee farmers ready to step up from subsistence to sustainable livelihoods, and lead and participate in two support and empowerment conferences: one for youth at-risk for HIV/AIDS; and the other for women desiring greater economic independence and education. We’ll also implement a water purification and community health project in a community lacking clean, safe, potable, drinking water.

I’ll try to post a picture or two each day and provide an update on FB. I also invite your continued prayers and support for our mission at hand. Here’s the link to my Worldhope Corps travel blog:

Feel free to pass it along to those who may be interested in our ongoing work in Uganda.

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

WorldHope Corps

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