Africa - 1

I met Claude Nikondeha at a lunch hosted by my pastor Ron Lush. Claude is from Burundi and we shared similar thoughts on the gospel and the world. I wanted to explore the idea of missional living and after conversing a few times, Claude invited others to share in his work, Amahoro Africa.

The Group:
Grace Scale, Christy Jones, Breilan Rosenberg, Scott Comfort, David Charlton and myself. We will also meet up with others from Amahoro .

The Purpose:
Grace and Christy will be in Burundi serving in an orphanage. Grace is a recent high school graduate and will return to the states after the summer. Christy is an elementary school teacher who is taking a leave of absence to serve the next 9 months (no she is not concealing a pregnancy!)
Breilan is a senior in high school called to full time ministry and will be travelling with the boys as an intern. David, Scott and myself will be facilitating learning conversations with other church and marketplace leaders. We will be discussing Theology - Context - Praxis. With the theology piece we want to unlearn our reduced, western gospel and engage in a more global, robust, Biblical story of God's heart. I will be teaching CREATION, Dave will focus on INCARNATION, and Scott will center us on ReCREATION. Claude's language is a shift from a gospel of "evacuation" to a gospel of "transformation".

The Journey:
We leave June 28 for Entebbe, Uganda. Stay there for the Summer Institute, head to Kampala, Jinga (source of the Nile River), up to Gulu (Invisible Children) then back to Entebbe. We are scheduled to be home July 10th.

Obviously we are out of our element and are ready to humble ourselves, be flexible and come back changed with new friends in Africa.

You can read more about Claude and Amahoro in Brian McLaren's book Everything Must Change or visit his website http://www.amahoro-africa.org/