Hearing First Hand

Written by Jason Schoff, Latino Outreach Director

This past week we hosted more than 25 new volunteers for our summer trimester orientation, and as always, we invited immigrants to come participate and share their story.  Janga led a song in Nepali, Narbu shared his testimony, and Julia* told her story.  Staff and volunteers alike were greatly impressed by the richness of our friends' participation and challenged by their boldness to share about their lives with strangers. 

During our Latino training time, Julia shared the difficulties she faces as a teen and described her family.  One of the things Julia shared was that she and several of her brothers and sisters were not born here but were brought here by her parents.  To share this publicly is huge because she was declaring that she is undocumented.  No one saw her this way, though.  This is the beauty of serving with Mission Adelante--opportunities to see people for who they really are, image-bearers of God.   

Some are refugees, some are undocumented, some are children, some are elderly, but all are eager to be loved, accepted, and valued.  Our volunteers come and get to experience this alongside our staff, which brings us pure joy.  Please pray for us this summer as we seek to do this well. To find out more about who undocumented immigrants are and how they affect our culture and economy, go to www.missionadelante.org/stranger.

*Julia's true name was omitted.

In other news:

• We were so excited to celebrate the graduation of one of our teens, Iris, this week from Sumner Academy.  She has been part of the Mission Adelante family for six years and it has been such a privilege to walk with her!

 Prayer needs:

• We are currently recruiting business mentors for our the Business Coaching ministry that is one of our Community Development Initiatives. Please pray with us that God will call forth individuals who are willing to share their expertise and disciple immigrant and refugee entrepreneurs.
• We are in the final stages of planning for our summer trimester. Please pray that God will draw students, cultivate cross-cultural friendships, and reveal His love through our programs this summer!
• We invited eight Latino teens to be part of our internship this summer.  Pray for an important meeting this Saturday with these teens and their parents to solidify final details.  

 Current needs 

• We need ten vinyl, felt or flannel-backed tablecloths that are at-least 52”x 90” or 60”x84” in size for small group seating at summer kids camps.  Used is OK.  If you are able to provide these, please contact Kristen Maxwell at kristenm@missionadelante.org.
• One of this year's high school graduates will be the first from our community to go on to college! As she heads to KU this fall, we would love to bless her with a new laptop or Chrome book to set her up for success.  We are looking for a person or small group to purchase the computer.  Please contact Megan McDermott (meganm@missionadelante.org) if you would like to help.  (Please no cash donations)
• We need several 4x8 foot ivory colored cloth tablecloths to be used for events at the building. If you are able to provide these, please contact Jenny Dunn at jennyd@missionadelante.org. 

 Important dates 

• Summer Bhutanese programs launch: May 28.
• Summer Latino programs lauch: May 30.

 

Raising up Leaders One Song at a Time

Written by Megan McDermott, Latino Children's Ministry Director

Have you ever met someone that after knowing them for only five minutes, reminded you of the absolute joy found in Christ?  When Janoy first came to Mission Adelante, he brought an infectious energy and a passion for Christ that has continued to inspire everyone around him.  He is a man that does everything with 100% of his heart and this became even more obvious as he began to emerge as a potential leader in our house church.

One of his greatest gifts is leading others in worshiping the Lord with his voice. When a church has a worship leader that loves to praise the Lord whole-heartedly, it allows the church body to pursue the Lord in a really intimate way. One of the greatest desires at the heart of Mission Adelante is that we are dedicated to reproducing and equipping Indigenous leaders for ministry.   Therefore, it seemed only natural to encourage and empower Janoy to step into leading the Latino worship team. 

The majority of the worship team is composed of teenagers that are hungry to learn and play music.  However, because they are still learning how to play the instruments and they struggle with self-confidence, they often experience a great deal of frustration when trying to learn a new song.  It has been so incredible to watch as Janoy, one Indigenous leader, reaches out to help raise up other Indigenous leaders!  Wouldn’t it be incredible if one day the teens themselves were mentoring the future worship leaders of our community, teaching what they learned from Janoy?

It is a blessing to walk alongside my brother, Janoy, as the Lord encourages and challenges him to lead others.  His passion for Christ is cultivating the melody of the song that the Lord desires to love His children with.

In other news:

• We have been busy planning for our summer ESL classes. Bhutanese students will learn useful English words for gardening, food packaging, and road signs. We will even have a workshop for moms and their preschoolers. It’s going to be a great summer!
• Cindy Green from Senator Jerry Moran’s office came to visit our ministry last week and learn about how we are serving and connecting with immigrants and refugees in our community.
• Director of Community Development, Kristen Allen, attended the Christian Community Health Fellowship’s annual conference in Atlanta last weekend to continue networking and developing our vision for a community-based medical clinic for immigrants and refugees.

Prayer needs:

• We are visiting 8 Latino teens this week with the hope they will move forward in applying for our summer internship.  Pray for these teens to catch a vision for how God wants’ to use them.
• Please pray for emerging partnerships in our neighborhood with refugee groups from Burma.
• Please pray for ongoing renewal and rest, deepening passion, and relational unity for our staff and missional community as we serve in a sometimes difficult urban context.

Current needs:

• A set or two of 5-7 baby board books for our “mommy & me” Bhutanese ESL workshop. Please contact Lauren at laurent@missionadelante.org if you can help purchase one or more books.
• Volunteers to join the Transportation Team for the Bhutanese Outreach. There are positions available on Tuesday evenings for the summer, as well as Tuesday - Thursday evenings in the month of June. For more information, contact Drew Hammond at drewh@missionadelante.org.

Important dates:

• Volunteer Orientation & Training: Saturday, May 18, 9:00-12:30 All volunteers should attend this training once at the beginning of serving with Mission Adelante. It's also a great way for someone to become familiar with Mission Adelante's ministry. If you or someone you know is interested in finding out more about what we do, and about our volunteer opportunities, please plan to attend/encourage him or her to attend this informative training. 
• All Volunteer Huddle & Dessert: Monday, May 20, 6:30 p.m. We encourage everyone that will be volunteering with us during our summer trimester to attend so we can prepare for a great launch. 
• Summer trimester programs launch: Week of May 27

Dignity and Freedom

Written by Drew Hammond, Bhutanese Logistics Coordinator

The Apostle Paul’s passion for the freedom of all people from sin and death that we see as we read Romans is perhaps the most powerful of all his writings. His letter to the Romans is written to both the Jew and the Gentile: people of extremely different first century cultures, but both crushed by the burden of sin. Similarly, in twenty-first century Kansas City, Kansas, we find ourselves weaving between Eastern-Nepali culture and Western-American culture, which are probably as culturally different as they could be.

Much of what Paul writes to the Romans is unpacking what it means that Jesus came to save both the Jew and the Gentile, bearing the burden of sin and redeeming them through his death and resurrection. In Romans 1:16 Paul writes, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Paul teaches us that the Gospel is for all people of all cultures.

At Mission Adelante, we long to see people of every culture living in freedom from sin and death while maintaining cultural identity and dignity. We strive to proclaim the truth of Jesus to our brothers and sisters from other cultures in ways that affirm their culture and ultimately their heart. That can be as simple as sharing meals with our immigrant friends in their homes and enjoying the food they offer us. It can also be more complex, like discipling indigenous leaders to lead house churches in their first language, and helping them incorporate elements from their native culture in ways that proclaim Jesus as Lord. Our goal is to live our lives in the freedom Jesus offers alongside our friends from other tribes, tongues, and nations, so they can join us in experiencing His grace every day.

In other news:

• Our Missional Community met Monday evening to welcome the Meek family back.  We meet each month for fellowship because we strongly believe in the importance of relationships. It was a fun time for the children and adults from our multicultural community to share a meal, play soccer, and catch up with each other.
• Last week we welcomed Kristen Allen onto our staff officially to lead our Community Development Initiatives.  This weekend she is attending the Christian Community Health Fellowship conference in Atlanta to get heavy dose of vision and encouragement as we continue doing surveys in our community and building our team for this initiative.
• The Adelante Thrift board is considering locations within our target area for our thrift store.  We are dreaming of a “business as missions” venture that will create jobs for people in our neighborhood and provide a sustainable source of income for some of our other ministries.
• We are preparing to do our first ever summer internship for Latino youth from our own neighborhood!
• Yanelis Lopez, the leader of RAICES, our partner ministry in Cuba, will be joining us for the summer to help lead our summer internship and learn along with our staff.
• A dozen English class volunteers met last weekend to discuss building authentic relationships with our Bhutanese friends and their families. We were encouraged and went home with several practical ways to engage more deeply with them.

Prayer needs:

• In order to pull off our weekly programming it takes an army of volunteers! These programs are very important because they serve as the initial jumping-off point for many of the relationships that develop in our community. Please join us in praying that the Lord would provide the volunteers needed to make this Summer’s trimester programming successful.
• Please pray for the final part of the selection process for our summer internship.  We are praying that God will bring forward the right group of Latino youth for the pilot year of our program!

Current needs:

• Sets of 5-7 toddler-friendly board books (baby animals, counting, body parts, etc) for a Mommy & Me English workshop this summer. If you are able to provide one or more books, please contact Lauren at laurent@missionadelante.org.
• The Bhutanese outreach needs women college-age or older to volunteer at the Bhutanese Teens Club on Tuesday nights this Summer from 6pm-8:30pm. Volunteers would get the opportunity to show Bhutanese Teen girls the love of Jesus as they interact with them during the Teens Club program (youth group) through games, music, telling bible stories, praying, etc. If interested please contact Hannah Hume at hannahh@missionadelante.org.
• We are looking for four Bhutanese Kids Club volunteers who would be interested in spending 10 weeks investing in small group of kids!  We need assistant leaders for the 4 year-olds, 2nd graders, 3rd graders and 4th-6th grade boys (would need to be a male volunteer).  If you are interested in serving, or would like more information contact Kristen Maxwell at Kristenm@missionadelante.org.
• The resource center is in need of boys and girls and toddler clothing  Please help us out by not leaving donations outside of the Resource Center, or inside or outside of our facility!  The weather can make a mess out of them and render the donation useless!  Please contact Molly at mollym@missionadelante.org to arrange a time to drop-off your donation.

Important dates:

• Volunteer Orientation & Training: Saturday, May 18, 9:00-12:30 All volunteers should attend this training once at the beginning of serving with Mission Adelante. It's also a great way for someone to become familiar with Mission Adelante's ministry. If you or someone you know is interested in finding out more about what we do, and about our volunteer opportunities, please plan to attend/encourage him or her to attend this informative training. 
• All Volunteer Huddle & Dessert: Monday, May 20, 6:30 p.m. We encourage everyone that will be volunteering with us during our summer trimester to attend so we can prepare for a great launch. 
• Summer trimester programs launch: Week of May 27

Introducing Kristen Allen: Director of Community Development!

by Jarrett Meek, Founder, Executive Director/Pastor

I’m pleased to introduce you to Mission Adelante’s newest staff member!  For nearly a year and a half we have been dreaming, praying and planning for the launch of our new “Community Development Initiatives”, a new ministry division that will address some of the broader needs of our community including health-care, jobs and job skills training, and small business coaching for immigrants and refugees.  Because we believe that ministry begins with a called leader, many of our prayers have been for God to provide just the right person to lead this new effort.  We’ve prayed for someone who is an experienced organizational leader, someone who has passion for and cultural competence in working with immigrants and refugees, a person who is excited about living in our neighborhood, a leader whose competence and character will inspire the health-care professionals and business people who will be our partners, someone whose love for God and neighbor are deep and proven, and a person who is able to build strong and effective partnerships within our community to accomplish community development goals in a collaborative way.  Those qualifications seem like a tall order, but we believe God has provided just the right person!

So, with great enthusiasm, I present to you Kristen Allen, our new Director of Community Development!  Kristen, her husband Josh, and their three year old daughter, Samorn, moved to our KCK neighborhood in December, and have spent the last several months getting personally involved in the Mission Adelante family and helping to lay the foundations for some of the new initiatives we hope to launch in the coming months.  Although Kristen is a recent addition to our neighborhood, her experience working with refugees in our area and her knowledge of the unique needs of our community are extensive. Having worked as the Director of Refugee and Migrant Services at Catholic Charities in KCK from January 2008 to May 2012, Kristen’s leadership in developing programs, leading staff, and her cultural competence are well-proven.  During her tenure at Catholic Charities, Mission Adelante staff had frequent interactions with Kristen and experienced her collaborative spirit first hand as we coordinated services together for our Bhutanese friends.  Kristen brings with her many significant relationships with community leaders within other refugee groups in KCK, including the Chin, Karen and Karenni groups, opening up possibilities for Mission Adelante to serve new ethnic communities in our area.  The Mission Adelante community and the larger community of KCK is very blessed to have her as a part of the team!

In other news:

• Welcome, Jude Elden Stetler!  Jude was born to David & Holly and siblings Anna and Isaac on Friday, April 26.  Everyone is doing well!
• Jarrett & Kristen Meek and family were greeted by a lively welcome party at the airport upon their arrival back to Kansas City on Monday evening.  They say they were ready to conclude their four-month sabbatical to Costa Rica and come back to Mission Adelante.  We're very happy to have them back!
• We've known Iris, now a high-school senior, for around six years while she participated in Kids Adelante, Leaders In Training, and Teens Adelante.  Megan McDermott dedicated many hours last fall and this spring walking Iris through college admission and scholarship applications.  Iris has decided to attend K.U. and aspires to become a doctor.  We're enormously proud of her!

Current needs:

• Sets of 5-7 toddler-friendly board books (baby animals, counting, body parts, etc) for a Mommy & Me English workshop this summer. If you are able to provide one or more books, please contact Lauren at laurent@missionadelante.org.

Important Dates:

• Bhutanese ESL Volunteer Snacks and Training:

   Saturday, May 4, 2:00, at Lauren Timberlake’s house. Please consider joining us for fun, prayer and some cultural training as we keep learning how to love the Bhutanese well. Please contact Jenny Dunn at jennyd@missionadelante.org for more details.
• Volunteer Orientation & Training: Saturday, May 18, 9:00-12:30 All volunteers should attend this training once at the beginning of serving with Mission Adelante.  It's also a great way for someone to become familiar with Mission Adelante's ministry.  If you or someone you know is interested in finding out more about what we do, and about our volunteer opportunities, please plan to attend/encourage him or her to attend this informative training.
• All Volunteer Huddle & Dessert: Monday, May 20, 6:30 p.m.  We encourage everyone that will be volunteering with us during our summer trimester to attend so we can prepare for a great launch.
• Summer trimester programs launch: Week of May 27