The Only White Kids….Again.
Recently the Lord has called Danny to pastor the (very!) small portion of English speakers at a Korean church here in Orlando. The goal is to reach out to the large Latino and African American population just a 1/2 mile from the church, and build a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Body as a ministry of the Korean Church. In Newark, everyone else was Latino and African American, now everyone is Asian. Its a good thing our kids are always up for adventures (and that they don’t mind being the only white kids).
Below is an excerpt from an email I wrote, resigning from doing Children’s Church at, what had become, our church home. It sheds some light on our decision making…
“In the past two weeks he has gotten three different job offers at different churches, which would entail us having to leave Covenant and switch churches. Despite the offers, we were really hoping to raise support for these seminary years, so that we can stay at Covenant….
Then tragedy hit. A kid from Newark that we had invested alot in, was murdered last weekend. If you want to read the story, I blogged about his life. One of the churches that has asked us to come on board is a Korean church in a not-so-great neighborhood that has started an English speaking congregation to try to reach the multi-ethinic neighborhood. There are only about 10 people in the church, but the Koreans feel really called to back this “church plant”. This is the only position we are seriously considering now (the other two church were “bells and whistles” churches-the ones that have all the programs and could easily find someone else to fill their positions). Daniel’s death, has really shaken us up to the urgency to be reaching “the least of these”, and we don’t know if we can just put it off for another two years until we go back to Newark.
The Lord continues to push us to the marginalized. Our hearts are for hurting, small, struggling flocks. We have seen the Lord “meet our needs” (relationally, financially, emotionally, spiritually) in amazing ways in the past, even if we don’t go to a church that “meets our needs” in the traditional sense, i.e. awesome kids programs, (or even childcare for that matter!), tons of families, or people who are similar to us, etc.) He’s called us to serve and seems to always lead us to places where the need is great and the laborers are few. All we can do is trust and obey. Please understand our grief in leaving, but also our anticipation as we “show up” and see what the Lord (the MIGHTY ONE) can do with weak people’s availability.
For the King and His Kingdom,
Kimberly”
