December Guests

I remember at our last meeting we discussed ways to make our next meeting come alive (even more alive than it was!). One suggestion was to bring in someone who lived on the street to be part of the gathering. While that may prove lively to us, my experience with many street folk around Trinity is that they have larger underlying issues, and a handout is usually just that, not a hand up.

As a result, I've searched for other ministries around Albuquerque, and I've had the privilege to meet and become involved with East Central Ministries. Check out their website at www.eastcentralministries.org. They are doing some innovative programs to build up the La Mesa through indigenous leadership including a housing co-op (sort of a cross between apartments and condominiums) for neighborhood families, a food co-op for families, neighborhood health care, and lots of kids' mentoring, tutoring, etc.. I'm also teaching piano lessons and leading worship at Escuela Luz del Mundo www.elmabq.org, a private school dedicated to high-quality education for kids from poor families at the corner of Pennsylvania and Chico NE.

While having lunch with a friend the other day, I ran into John Bulten, the leader of ECM, and
Rick Kitchen, the leader of ELM. I told them both about our emerging group, and they were very interested. So if their schedules are free, one or both of them will likely be joining us at our next meeting. They would undoubtedly provide us with some interesting conversations.

And in the meantime, if anyone in our group is interested in helping out with either organization please let me know or get in touch with John or Rick personally through the websites.