Ignite 2013: A Workshop on Developing Businesses for Kingdom Impact- July 20@8:30am

Adelante Missions Institute Presents...

REGISTER HERE FOR THE IGNITE 2013 WORKSHOP!

Join us for a workshop on how fostering entrepreneurship can transform lives and communities in under-resourced areas.  Rudy Carrasco of Partners Worldwide will lead us on the exploration of a philosophy for job creation that includes business as mission, collaboration, business training, business mentorship, and advocacy.  Learn working models for ending poverty through job creation in the United States and the potential for community transformation right here in Kansas City, Kansas.  This event coincides with formation of a team for our new “Adelante Business Coaching” ministry.

The event will be held at Mission Adelante, Inc.

22 South 18th Street

Kansas City, KS 66012

Please contact Kristen Allen for more information:
kristena@missionadelante.org

Our Very Own Farmer's Market

by Jenny Dunn, Bhutanese ESL Coordinator

Kul, Garett, Bhuban and Tom are ready for the market.

Many of our Bhutanese friends were farmers in Bhutan, but they often have difficulty expressing their knowledge in English.  So for the past three weeks, we have been teaching words and concepts that will help them express their love of produce and better communicate at the farmer’s market or at grocery stores. 

Such a timely topic has given us the opportunity to make deeper connections in the community. We had the privilege to partner with the New Roots for Refugees program at Catholic Charities, which helps refugees put down new roots by helping them start their own small farm businesses growing and selling vegetables.

Tara asks, "How much is the ginger?"

The Pitch wrote a great article this month featuring the story of our student and friend, Maku Gurung, who has been a part of the New Roots program for three years.

The Bhutanese community has two other farmers also participating in the program. In fact, all three farmers shared their expertise with our English classes last week. They answered questions for the class, and they even judged a contest to see which student had the best garden design.

To finish the unit, we set up a farmer’s market. Our students and volunteers brought vegetables, priced them, and then practiced selling and buying the produce.  It was a lot of fun!

To support New Roots for Refugees farmers check out one of  these 12 markets around Kansas City.

Other News

IGNITE 2013: a workshop on developing businesses for kingdom impact. July 20th at 8:20 a.m.  

Mission Adelante is praying that individual transformation would explode into community transformation. So we ask, "How can business make a Kingdom impact in community revitalization?" You are invited to join us for a workshop on how fostering entrepreneurship can transform lives and communities in under-resourced areas. Rudy Carrasco of Partners Worldwide will lead us to explore a job creation philosophy that includes business as misison, collaboration, business training, business mentorship, and advocacy. Learn about working models for ending poverty through job creation in the United States and the potential for community transformation right here in Kansas City, Kansas. This event coincides with formation of a team of our new "Adelante Business Coaching" ministry.

Check out the link below for more information and to register for the event!

IGNITE 2013: A Workshop on Developing Businesses for Kingdom Impact- July 20, 8:30-11:00 a.m

Prayer Needs

• Praise God with us for three great weeks of kids camp and for the investment that our partner churches have made in our neighborhood kids! Pray that the seeds planted in kid’s hearts will grow.

Current Needs

• The Kids Adelante ministry needs an ipod with a long battery life.. We would use it multiple times each week and would be so grateful to receive one.  Please contact Megan meganm@missionadelante.org if you are interested.  
• We need a volunteer to trim three limbs from a tree that is impeding progress on construction on the blue house next door to our main building.  Once completed, the new building will provide additional meeting and office space for Mission Adelante.  Please contact Sarah at sarahw@missionadelante.org if you are able to help.
• Have a small group looking for a project that will make a big impact? We want to send each child in the ministry back to school with a stocked backpack in the fall.  Please contact meganm@missionadelante.org if you would like more info!

• Looking for an intentional way to impact the future leaders of our community? Our LIT(Leaders in Training, after-school tutoring program)  is currently seeking mentors for the fall..  Please contact Megan at meganm@missionadelante.org if you would like more info.  

Important Dates

• Observation nights: July 16, 18, 23, & 25.  Have you wondered what all goes on around here on a typical evening of programming?  Here's your opportunity to come and see for yourself!  Come to 22 S. 18th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102 at 6:30.
  
  
  
  

"Adelante Business Coaching" Prepares to Launch

by Kristen Allen, Director of Community Development

Exciting things continue to unfold in Mission Adelante’s Community Development Initiatives as our new "Adelante Business Coaching" ramps up for launch. Twenty years ago many were convinced that our community was dying, and studies predicted that by the year 2000 our neighborhood would be a ghost town.  Driving around Mission Adelante, it is evident that this prediction was false: the community is being revitalized by immigrant families and small businesses. According to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners, Latino owned businesses brought in $1.3 billion in receipts in the state of Kansas. Mission Adelante is excited to add fuel to this fire as we ask God to use business to transform individual lives as well as our entire community.

Bhutanese refugees opened a grocery in KCK.

One of the core values for Adelante Business Coaching is the belief that work is a redemptive activity that God designed for man to enjoy from the beginning of creation. Work promotes dignity, contributes to the broader needs of our community, and improves an individual’s or a family’s financial situation. Our immigrant and refugee friends come with a diverse array of business ideas, skills, experiences, and a strong desire to succeed. Unfortunately, there are many obstacles for newcomers who want to open businesses, and instead, they are often stuck working unskilled, entry-level, low-paying positions that are far away and don’t provide a sense of dignity or purpose.

What if we prayed with our immigrant and refugee neighbors, helped break down cultural barriers, and instead of looking at their lack of US business experience, we equipped them to become business owners making an impact in the community and for the Kingdom? We believe we would start to see individual and community transformation.

We are excited for where we feel God is leading us. As we launch Adelante Business Coaching, we want to partner with others who feel God’s calling to use their business or their business expertise as an avenue for ministry. Next month we are bringing Rudy Carrasco from Partners Worldwide to lead a workshop to help us and our partners further explore business as mission.

Save the date for Saturday, July 20th  from 8:30 a.m. -11:00 a.m. so you can join us for a workshop on how fostering entrepreneurship can transform lives and communities in under-resourced areas.  Rudy Carrasco will lead us on the exploration of a philosophy for job creation that includes business as mission, collaboration, business training, business mentorship, and advocacy.  He will share working models for ending poverty through job creation in the United States and the potential for community transformation right here in Kansas City, Kansas.  

REGISTER HERE FOR THE IGNITE WORKSHOP!

"Ignite 2013" will be held at Mission Adelante, Inc.

22 South 18th Street

Kansas City, KS 66012

Please contact Kristen Allen for more information:
kristena@missionadelante.org

Other News

• Our Mommy & Me English class has been a success so far! There are six refugee mothers and their tots singing, clapping, reading, and playing games together--all while practicing English skills. We have one more class next week.
• We had the privilege to hear from some of the New Roots for Refugees farmers on Tuesday during our study of vegetables and the farmer’s market in the Bhutanese ESL classes.  It was a great listening exercise for our students and both students and conversation partners learned a lot!
• The Kansas City Bhutanese Ekata Sports Team is traveling to Texas for a nationwide Bhutanese Soccer tournament this weekend.
• Frank, a leader with Raices in Cuba, was given a visa to come visit Mission Adelante for two weeks in July.  He will learn more about business coaching strategies and will also share his own experiences with our staff.

Prayer Requests

• Please pray for the formation of the Adelante Business Coaching leadership team. We meet next week for the first time and are excited where God is leading us.  
• Pray for immigration reform that upholds our values of human dignity, family unity and respect for the rule of law and for our senators who will vote on this issue.

Current Needs

• The resource center is in need of kitchen items, dishes, and summer kids clothes. If you are able to help, please give Molly Merrick a call to set up a drop of time at mollym@missionadelante.org.

Important Dates

Observation nights: July 16, 18, 23, & 25.  Have you wondered what all goes on around here on a typical evening of programming?  Here's your opportunity to come and see for yourself!  Come to 22 S. 18th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102 at 6:30 p.m.

Immigrants want to learn English!

by Hannah Hume, Bhutanese Teens Coordinator

“If they are going to live in America, they should at least learn English.”

Many of us have probably heard this statement spoken at some point or another. In fact, I can think of one at least one time that very statement left my own lips in high school. Now, several years later, I’m embarrassed to admit this because it reveals how quickly I can speak on topics of which I am quite naive. In this case, it was the topic of immigration.

Back in high school, I had never actually known an immigrant, nor had I investigated what God’s word had to say about how His people should treat foreigners. I was merely reacting out of frustration and parroting a blanket statement. However, my perspective has shifted a lot since then. So, what changed it? Talking to people and reading the Bible.     

Two days ago, I sat at my kitchen table with some Bhutanese teenagers, and I asked them what the four biggest problems facing Bhutanese teens were. The first one on their list was English. They told me that English hindered them in school, stopped them from getting summer jobs, and often strained the relationships between them and their parents. Their inability to speak and read English well was of great concern to them.

In fact, the majority of immigrants and refugees I have met want to learn English and to become an insider within American society. I have sat down with refugee students from Bhutan and Somalia and listened to their frustration as they struggle over homework. I have listened to a Latina co-worker’s anger at being called a foreigner by a customer because she mispronounced a word. But learning English is difficult. The types of jobs that are often available to those with limited English don’t usually have schedules that allow them to easily attend language classes. Sometimes the student-teacher ratio in classes can make it difficult to learn quickly, and people who don’t speak or read English have a difficult time accessing a drivers license or navigating public transportation to class.

When I uttered those words years ago, “Why don’t they just learn English,” I had no idea of the obstacles people coming to America from other countries face because I had never actually talked with an immigrant. I didn’t know that the answer to my statement was, “They are trying”. I also didn’t feel any obligation to welcome or encourage newcomers because I had never read verses like Leviticus 19:34 “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”   

At Mission Adelante, loving foreigners is something we believe is both important and biblically mandated. If you have never investigated what the Bible says about foreigners, we invite you to join us in a 40 day verse challenge--one that most of our staff has taken themselves. Or, if you can’t think of one immigrant whom you could call a friend, we challenge you to expand your social circles. It could be as simple as learning the name of the immigrant who cleans the office where you work, inviting your child's immigrant classmate over for a playdate, or getting to know your immigrant neighbor up the street. My world has changed for the better through the influence of my own Bhutanese friends, and I would love for you to experience that, too.

 In other news

• We have had a great first week of kids camp with our friends from Christ Church Anglican! Kids from both the Latino and Bhutanese outreaches participate. Pray for us as we head into the next two weeks of kids camp with our friends from Shoal Creek and Emmanuel Baptist. 

Prayer requests

• Debate began this week on a Senate bill to reform immigration. Its passage would open many opportunities for most of our immigrant neighbors.  Please pray for a common sense, moral debate to guide this policy discussion, and remember to pray for our senators by name.  

Current Needs

• DVDs appropriate for K-3rd graders to watch while waiting for bus transportation home from Kids Club on Tuesday nights.  For more information, or if you can help contact Kristen Maxwell at kristenm@missionadante.org 

• 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.

Making Disciples "On the Run" With Our Summer Interns

by Jarrett Meek, Founder, Executive Pastor/Director

One of my favorite things about the summer internship at Mission Adelante is our exercise time in the

mornings.  Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays we all meet up at the Wyandotte High School track at 7:45 a.m. for 15 minutes of stretching and 30 minutes of running (or walking for those who prefer it).  Since making disciples is as much about transmitting life as it is about transmitting information, I have found that it's critical to find ways to include those I'm investing in in my everyday activities.  Jesus didn't call his disciples to come to his classes, he called them to follow him as he lived life on mission with His Father.  This following included participation in extraordinary spiritual events , but it also included the most mundane daily routines like eating and fishing together.

So far our four summer interns are enjoying our exercise time together.  Not only are we reaping the benefits of exercise, but were also modeling self-discipline and a healthy lifestyle; and we're spending relational time together which becomes the context for spiritual lessons.  Surprisingly, our exercise time has become contagious!  In the first week we've been joined by other staff members, kids, and adults from our community.  Is this the beginning of Adelante Running Club?!

Discipleship is a life-on-life endeavor.   As we walk with our interns this summer, this life-on-life discipleship is exactly what we have in mind as we include them in every aspect of our lives.  This kind of investing is simple, but it's not easy.  It requires letting others into our personal lives, our personal time, and our personal space in ways that we're not accustomed to in our private and independent culture.  Please pray for our interns and staff as we are stretched this summer to do life in community and grow together in Christ.

Responding to Student Needs

Bhutanese men talk together at the ESL Launch Party last Tuesday night.

There is always a break between each trimester at Mission Adelante.  During this break, staff and lead volunteers ask ourselves questions like: “Is what we are doing meeting the needs of the community?” and “How can we meet those needs better?”

This spring, the Bhutanese ESL Lead Team felt that it was time to give our students a little more of the “social” experience that many of our students long for –especially the women. We have done this in the past by changing our registration night from a formal process to being a time to hang out, talk, eat, and listen to some great music with a little business on the side. But we felt we should take it a step further this trimester, not exactly knowing what it will bring.  Instead of doing our usual four levels of English classes, we are doing only two classes: one men's class and one women’s class.  We want our students to learn English but also to build community and strong relationships with each other.  The dynamics of the classes are completely different-- lots of joking and talking during the entire women’s class and lots of nonsense and then getting down to business in the men’s class.

We hope to see Bhutanese and American relationships grow stronger, and we want the Bhutanese community to become even more unified this summer.  Please pray this with us as we experiment with this new program format. We want to be constantly listening to our community and meeting their needs.

In other news

• Our Leaders in Training programs celebrated a successful year by heading out on a camping trip (Latino LIT) and to Great Wolf Lodge (Bhutanese LIT). It was a blessing to reward the kids for all of their hard work this year.
• The level 1 Latino English class began with the largest turnout ever! We also have a vision to start a new house church through this group of people.
• The Bhutanese community of Kansas City celebrated a cultural festival last weekend that included music, poetry, awards and food.

Prayer needs

• Please pray Kansas Senator Moran and Congressman Yoder.  We have shared real-life stories of undocumented immigrants with them and asked them to vote for immigration reform that keeps families together. 

Current Needs

• 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.

• We still need a few more board books for our Mommy & Me ESL and early literacy class in June. Please contact laurent@missionadelante.org for book titles.

 

Hasta and Bibi play the piano together while they wait to register for English class.

A Deaf International volunteer comes each week to work with our deaf ESL students.

Summer Interns from our Neighborhood!!

Our Summer Internship opening retreat began in Lawrence

by Jarrett Meek, Founder, Executive Pastor

Jesus, having seen the crowds of people in the towns around Jerusalem had compassion on them.  "The are like sheep without a shepherd," he said.  Where are the shepherds?  Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send out workers into his harvest field."  And then Jesus sends his twelve disciples out to preach the good news.  The disciples became the harvest workers.  This was Jesus' plan!

When I look throughout our urban Kansas City neighborhood I see deep and desperate needs all around, but I also see great potential.  I see sheep without a shepherd, but at the same time I see young leaders emerging.  Our prayer at Mission Adelante has been that God would raise up workers for His harvest from within our neighborhood.  And its happening!  

This weekend we launched our first ever summer internship for emerging leaders from our own neighborhood; Helen Venegas, Edgar Soriano, Iris Venegas, and Odalis Delgado.  These are amazing young people who have been involved in Mission Adelante now for many years, most of them having started with us as kids when Kids Adelante still met in our basement.  Over the years the Lord has worked in their lives in powerful ways and has begun something that we are confident He will continue on until the day of Christ Jesus.  These neighborhood all-stars are learning to follow Jesus, they're making an impact, blazing new trails, loving their peers, and becoming leaders in our ministry.

This summer they will become key-carrying members of our staff, walking closely with mentors, doing ministry together, receiving training workshops and being challenged to seek the Lord in their own personal lives in new and deeper ways.  They are ready to be sent out, just like the disciples were sent out; not yet fully trained, but bravely depending on Jesus for every step in their own growth, knowing that He will use them in ways they never imagined and that the experience will shape their own lives.

The opening retreat for the internship began in Lawrence with a tour of KU's campus, where Iris will be attending in the Fall.  And then we moved to The Barn Bed and Breakfast Inn were we dove into games and activities that deepened our relationships and set a course for pursuing Christ together through the summer.  As I look forward to the next 8 weeks I am expectant and excited about what the Lord will do in their lives and through them.  And I continue to "pray that the Lord would raise us workers for His harvest" from within our neighborhood.  Please pray with us this summer!


In other news

• This trimester we have a new volunteer position available at Bhutanese Teens Club. Ten teenagers will serve as captains this trimester. These captains will have leadership roles and help teach or organize games. We are excited to see these students develop their leadership ability as they learn to follow Yeshu (Jesus) this summer! 
• Four Latino teens confirmed their participation as summer interns this past week.  They will be challenged in new ways over the next two months, but they are ready and eager.
• Yanelis, the Raices director in Cuba, arrived on Saturday and will help lead our summer interns in discipleship seminars.  We are excited to have her here this summer.
• A Memorial Day get-together at the Meeks’ home turned into a beautiful multicultural party.  A spontaneous dance party erupted on the patio--and on the picnic table! There was football, volleyball, and croquet in the yard, s'mores in the fire pit, and all kinds of meat on the open grill.  It was a slice of heaven!

Prayer needs

• Please pray for our senators and representatives looking to reform immigration laws.  Pray for them to be wise, courageous, and God-honoring in their decision making.
• Please pray for English students and conversation partners to enjoy each other and develop authentic relationships as they spend time together this summer. 

Current Needs

• 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.

• We still need a few more board books for our Mommy & Me ESL and early literacy class in June. Please contact laurent@missionadelante.org for book titles.

 Important Dates

• Latino Summer Program Launch: Tonight