We are opening up two week: July 24 – August 7.
We need 150 participants, 75 each week to make both weeks happen.
Cost is $600 a person which provides everything but airfare and the day excursion.

Contact ladonna@amor.org with questions

Our South Africa partner in ministry, Rainbow FM 90.7, in Johannesburg, has posted videos of our teams at the Amor Ministries work sites. Click the picture below and go to the Rainbow FM 90.7 page with 7 short, but fun videos to watch:

In anticipation of Amor returning to South Africa to build homes in Johannesburg this coming June 2009, a live broadcast from Chico, California and Phoenix, Arizona was conducted. Dan Irving, from EV Free Chico, and Jen Pitera, from SS. Simon and Jude Cathedral in Phoenix, shared their anticipation and expectations of this upcoming trip. You will also hear from some of the youth who are joining Jen on this upcoming trip share about their experiences on past trips to Mexico with Amor and what they anticipate from their first trip ever to South Africa.

Johannesburg based Rainbow FM 90.7 Station
Manager, Humphrey Birkenstock, interviews
Dan Irving, Jen Pitera, and the Youth from
SS. Simon and Jude.

Click the Podcast logo below to go directly to this live (but recorded) broadcast:

Blessings,
Scotty

Scott Congdon is the Founder and CEO of Amor Ministries. Read his personal blog here.

Months ago, I received a phone call that reminded me of the sacredness of availability.  I soon was sitting on a bus stop bench in downtown Columbus with my friend, Jeff.  It’s been nearly ten years since I first met Jeff as a homeless man in the dead of winter living on the streets.  Over the years we’ve enjoyed our almost weekly chats, cups of coffee, and my visits to the hospital when bouts of pneumonia would overtake his one working lung, pacemaker, and cancer-survivor body.  A few years ago we helped get him into a room at the YMCA when he couldn’t bear another winter outside.  We’ve continued to stay in touch.

On this day, tears streamed down his face, weaving in and out of each straggly whisker.  He muttered “I didn’t know who else to call” as he began to share his feelings about the fact that three of his closest friends had all died in the past three weeks.  He was the chosen one to clean out their rooms at the “Y” and call their loved ones.  The questions overwhelmed him.

“Why is this happening to me?”

“Is God punishing me?”

“How come I’ve been revived in the hospital with my illnesses in the past and my friends just abruptly pass away?”

He spoke and I listened.  He lived in an environment with hundreds of people all around him, but yet had no one he could share his feelings with about the loss of his friends.  “They call me a cry baby” he said as he described the experience of trying to tell someone he thought would understand.

As he shared, I felt the sacredness of that moment.  Not because of words or doctrine, but presence.  I thought of the countless people who surround me every day, support me, and would be right there with me if anything half this traumatic were to happen to me.  My gratitude wrestled with my sadness for his deep loneliness.  His final words spoke poetically for this sacred moment between two friends, “Thank you for coming to be with me.”  What a privilege it was to be able to “be” together.

I wonder…

• Who in your life right now is in need of your “availability”?
• Who in your life doesn’t fully understand your gratitude for their spot in your life?
• How can we be more available to those along the paths of our lives?

“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody.” – Mother Teresa

Jason Barger is an 11-time Amor Mission Trip leader who has connected over 1700 people to build 120 houses in Mexico. As the former Director of Camp Akita in Ohio, he designed and implemented programs for over 1900 kids a summer centered on faith, love, service and leadership. Jason’s experience with servant-leadership led him to the creation of First Community Church’s Streets Mission Project to serve the homeless of Columbus, Ohio as well as mission trips to the Casa Hogar Sion Orphanage in Tijuana and the Village Mountain Mission project in the Dominican Republic. Jason is the author of the book Step Back from the Baggage Claim: Change the World, Start at the Airport and spends most of his time today serving, writing, speaking and consulting for organizations looking to bring about positive change. Jason, his wonderful wife, Amy, and their two sons, Will and Benton, currently live in Columbus, Ohio. To connect with Jason, please visit www.stepbackfromthebaggageclaim.com

Just as God is working in Mexico, the horizons have broadened for Amor Ministries in South Africa! After a successful pilot program in Ennerdale, Johannesburg in March 2008, God continues to build new relationships and open doors to expand the ministry worldwide.

Despite a strong infrastructure, South Africa still suffers from economic and social problems from the apartheid era. As a result, one third of the population lives on less than two dollars a day. Extreme poverty in rural areas continues to drive people to the cities in search of employment, with almost 10 million South Africans living in poverty housing. Overcrowded shacks pieced together with cardboard, corrugated iron, and scrap wood are grouped together in “townships” surrounding the modern cities. The occupants of townships are predominantly black South Africans who often live without adequate services, and it is these very conditions that Amor hopes to change.

Project South Africa will do more than just make life easier for a family in need; we will open hearts to truly see the grace and love of Jesus by providing the tangible objects of security, safety, and stability and it begins with a home. Physical and spiritual needs will be met, while Project South Africa provides the opportunity to reach the 23% who do not know Christ personally and to see love-in-action firsthand.

In June 2009, Amor Ministries South Africa is offering its first house-building Mission Trip for anyone who feels led to serve the 10 million South Africans living in poverty housing. For information about joining this exciting new chapter in Amor’s story, please contact Mission Services at 619.662.1200 extension 6.

For those unable to travel to South Africa, there are other opportunities to partner with Amor. In order to offer the same life-changing experience as we do in Mexico, Amor needs your support to make South African Mission Trips possible. Please contact Melissa Salazar, Director of Ministry Resources at 619.662.1200 extension 129 if you would like to know more about partnering with Project South Africa!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE0xHbYpsfo&feature=channel_page

If you have a church group of two or people,  Amor invites you to venture to south Africa with us this summer for only $600 per person! Contact LaDonna Barron at 619.662.1200 extension 121 for more information.