In the mean time we are preparing ourselves by ministering in the Clarkston and Kirkwood communities and we feel that these are both great training grounds for us.
Clarkston gives us a cross cultural context to work in since there are refugees from 82 different people groups that are placed there by the government year round. I am working with my friend, Tom Spainhour, who works as a case worker for World Relief, by serving the many families that he is assigned to prepare to live in the US. Tom isn’t allowed to share the Gospel with his cases, so I am partneringwith him and building relationships with his many families so that I might be able to share the Gospel and serve them in their time of need. I am also the volunteer coordinator for Friends of Refugees (http://www.friendsofrefugees.com/) and this gives me the opportunity to connect others in the Atlanta area to the many opportunities to help in the community (let me know if you’re interested). This also has conected me to the network of believers that work with refugees and there are many that God has called to serve in the area. We try to be an encouragement and support to one another. I am still teaching refugees how to drive and trying to make the roads safer one driver at a time : ) Many of these refugees tell others about me and right now I’m pretty popular with the Somalis. I have many crazy stories involving Somali women and their burkas and near crashes that you need to ask me about. I think this service I am providing builds credibility to who we are and how we really want to serve the community. We are also working with our church, Cellebration Fellowship. We have become a home church that meets as a whole about once a month ever since we lost the building we used to meet at. It’s a unique mix of refugee and American families (most of the American families are involved in refugee ministry) and we have found it encouraging and supportive to our ministry and our walk with the Lord. Clarkston is a very diverse community and it’s teaching us how to relate with people from all sorts of different cultures.
We moved to Kirkwood in January and are still settling in. We love it in Kirkwood and already have plenty of interesting experiences to share. Kirkwood is a mixed income neighborhood consisting of African Americans and Caucasians (Im pretty sure I’m the only Filipino right now) from all kinds of different backgrounds. It seems harder to share Christ in this area since there are so many world views and ideas. Last week we went to a party of one of our neighbors and we discovered that we don’t have a lot in common with our secular neighbors, so we’re learning to understand them and befriend them as we model Christ to them. I want to be intentional in our relationships and really get invovled in evangelism and service to our neighborhood. I think as we build stronger relationships I will be able to share Christ with them and hopefully we will be able to meet more people in the neighborhood.
I’m also invovled in the Filipino community in Atlanta. There aren’t a lot of Filipinos in Atlanta, but over the past 10 years there have been many Filipinos that have moved to Atlanta and there are actually many organizations that gather Filipinos every month. I try to attend as many gatherings as I can, so I can keep in touch with the people I have gotten to know over the years. But everyone is scattered all over the metro Atlanta area, so it’s hard to always get together. I have even met some OFWs that have come to Atlanta to work and learning from their experiences has helped me understand what OFWs go through as they come to a new country.
So this is what we’re doing with our time as we prepare to go to the Philippines. We look forward to when we will be able to go to the Philppines, but we love Atlanta and where we are right now and we think our time in Atlanta will be beneficial for our ministry.
