By Andy Lyde, Amor Ministries Director of Mission Education
October is Pastor Appreciation Month and we certainly appreciate the Pastors with whom we work in Mexico and South Africa (and soon in San Carlos, AZ). These men and women make up our Ministry Planning Boards in each of our Ministry locations and direct the work we do there. They choose who receives a house or who receives aid through our Project Hope programs. They are present in the communities before we ever arrive and are there long after we leave. They encourage us when we’re discouraged. They correct us when we’re arrogant. They pray for us (and you) continually. In short, they are the Church and they are the heart of Amor Ministries.
Amor began working on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona in January. We were invited there by friends and ministry partners Dale and Diana Lawrence to see the need for housing and see if we could do something about it. We learned that there is an immediate need for 1,600 houses on the reservation! To see what we learned, including our initial reactions as we drove out of town, watch this short video:
A foundational aspect of our model of Ministry is to partner with the local church in each community where we serve. This ensures that we are meeting actual needs in the community and that we are connecting people to the local church instead of taking away from what the local church is already doing in that community. It also reinforces that we are not a house building ministry; we are a ministry of relationships that serve the Church.
I was honored this past weekend to be invited by the Lawrence’s to attend the pastor appreciation dinner they held for the pastors of the San Carlos Apache Reservation. It was a beautiful time of fellowship and encouragement in which the Pastors were told how much they are appreciated. Impromptu speeches were given by the Pastors about the need to unite in serving the people of the reservation and about the need for the Apache to be leaders in serving the poor. Testimonies were shared about how God had worked in bringing people with needs together to have their needs met.
This is what we have been invited into – a community with significant material and spiritual need who is looking to lead itself by being the body of Christ. This is what we invite you into – a relationship with the local church in which we give of ourselves and accept what it has to give us.
Pray for us as we continue to build relationships that will lead to a Ministry Planning Board in San Carlos, AZ.
Let’s appreciate the Pastors in our lives who serve us and lead us to service and transformation.
Within the walls of Amor Ministries, we celebrate the diversity of our team. In the spirit of iron sharpening iron, we intentionally meet to talk about divisive issues within the Church and society as a whole. The goal is to learn from each other, walk away with a better understanding and deeper respect of our differences, and achieve a heightened sense of common ground. The topics we discuss are drawn from recent news articles. Please take a moment to tell us what you think about any or all of these topics.
The BCWI employee engagement survey gives us important information about how we are doing as an organization. It tells us how engaged we are in our work, how committed we are to our mission, and how our values shape how we work.
So what did this year’s survey results tell us? We are more committed than ever to living out Christ’s mission for us to serve the poor, not only in Mexico, but now around the world.
Those of you who get to interact with our Team Members already know we have an amazing workplace. But, then again, when we get to work with all of you, how can we not have the best Christian workplace?
I may have just reached (or passed) the extent of your Spanish language ability. And because of that you may find an excuse to not interact with the family you’re building a house for…except to ask where the bathroom is!
I was recently in Phoenix with Amor Ministries co-founder Scott Congdon, VP of Global Expansion Steve Horrex, and Director of Operations Ryan Perkio. We drove out there to meet with Arizona Reservation Ministries (ARM), see their work on the San Carlos Apache reservation, and see if we could partner with them to build houses on the reservation.
One of the exciting facets of working on the reservation is that our groups will have a cross-cultural experience without having a language barrier. As we were reminded of during our tour of the Heard museum in Phoenix, we have different cultures and ways of seeing the world despite some shared history.
Having dinner with Steve’s sister and her family (who graciously hosted us) we talked about our various travels in Spain and Latin America and discovered we had all had similar experiences in speaking the Spanish language to native speakers: Because we tried to speak the language, no matter how poorly we did it, our hosts graciously accepted our ignorance of language and culture.
Thinking ahead to how we structure the cultural interactions our trips to the San Carlos Apache reservation reminds me to remind you to interact in Mexico, despite your Spanish limitations. What great respect you can show by learning a few phrases and using a lot of hand gestures!
