Ember May Dinner

Our May dinner guest was Pat Hatch who coordinates all refugee and immigrant refugee for Mission to North America, which is the domestic missions/church planting organization for the Presbyterian Church of America. Pat serves as the point person for refugee and immigrant outreach efforts for over 1700 churches, spread across all 50 states.

Pat has deep experience in doing things that haven't been done before. She founded the Foreign Information Referral Network [FIRN] way back in the early 1980s and ran it for 16 years. [Incidentally, our older daughter Katie interned at FIRN for a year during high school.] She also worked for the state refugee office just prior to God calling her to refugees and the the role for MTN, which had nothing like that before she came.

Here are some highlights from our conversation:

Interesting things going on in refugee ministry right now:
For the Nations, Richardson TX.
A local church in Harrisonburg VA.
Immigration Law Clinics hosted by churches. People/churches can get certified to host these clinics in their local organizations.

On Pioneering:
Came into this current role with no existing structure or model. Had to make it up as she went along. Sometimes people will tell her that they are ready but their church is not. Sadly, she hears this quite a bit and it is opportunity to pray and perhaps meet with the pastor. Obey when the Lord calls - sometimes you pioneer before your church is ready.

On Refugee Misunderstandings:
Every relevant federal government agency is involved in vetting refugees.
Question from some well meaning but misinformed church people: "You are not going to work with illegals are you?"
Pat: "I'm not going to work with anyone who has not been created in the image of God and who Jesus did not die for.

On Advice for young people:
Call me I want to talk to you one on one.

Thank you Pat for sharing your wisdom and inspiring us.

Deanna, Audrey, Hailey, Emily, Meghan, Sherrill, Kate, Sam, Pat, Mandy, K [out of frame]
[I was the only male.]

Ember March Dinner

Notes from dinner with special guests K and D.

Background:
Took Perspectives in the 1980s. Couldn't travel so started helping coordinate the class. Got involved in a bunch of mobilization stuff at home. Then could travel. Began making friends in the Middle East. Have traveled to a specific region there now 19 times over the past number of years.

Most exciting thing going on with missions these days:
Insider movements
Discipleship Making Movements
Fast growing church right now is in Iran.
Disciple people before they are believers.
Discovery Bible Studies - organic simple way to study the Scriptures.

Advice for young people:
Be FAT
Faithful - faithful in the small leads to being faithful in the big.
Available - you have the most free time right now when you are young. Availability is also related to financial availability - do not incur a lot of debt for college - this directly reduces your availability.
Teachable

Random:
Involved in Partners for Transformation - a group of pastors that have prayed for Baltimore every week for over 10 years. Two incredible nonprofits sprung out of relationships in that group.
Don't make people your projects. They know when they are. Just build bridges of love and love them as friends.
Middle Eastern culture loves to talk about religion. Take advantage of that - don't be scared of it.

Ember SSDC

The Ember Cast facilitated a serving-learning-culture experience this past weekend with some students and their leaders from our home church. Great time with a great group. Highlights included a cultural navigation exercise in downtown Silver Spring; serving with A Wider Circle, one of the best local nonprofits dedicated to alleviating poverty in our area; and attending a service at National Community Church in DC.

A few quick observations from our weekend:
+ Downtown Silver Spring has experienced a recent redevelopment effort that has transformed the area. [I worked there for about 3 years before the redevelopment.] The new library is stunning and a community hub. Our suburban kids seldom go to the library where they live, but it was packed when we checked it out.
+ Sometimes when you serve with orgs that are in the business of sorting and redistributing supplies like housewares, clothing or furniture, you sometimes only see the sorting part of that work. A Wider Circle is great because you serve on both sides - the sorting as well as clients coming in to choose what they want to take home. We were told there were 21 clients served the day we were there.
+ Mark Batterson gave a State of the Church talk this weekend and it was one of the most powerful messages I have heard of late. NCC's mantras are so innovative and out of the box and I love attending a service with students who have only seen one expression of Church for most of their lives.

This kind of thing is not too difficult to do with students and the impact of this kind of learning can be incredible. In other words, you could do this with your students too and it would probably have an enormous effect.

Special thanks to Ember guides this weekend, Em and Meghan.

Ember January Staff Dinner

We have started a new experiment this year as part of some Ember staff development: a monthly staff dinner with special guests. The goal of this is to gather our staff to hear from some of the most creative, missionally imaginative and innovative people we know.

This month's special guest was Erin Preshoot. Erin and I first met when she was the high school admin at Grace Comm and I was helping run Grace's student missions teams. In 2007, Erin joined a team I was helping lead, running a kids program in Hungary for a global missions org during their annual leadership conference. These days, Erin serves as the director of Serve The City Baltimore, as well as the US director for Serve the City. She also splits time working for Communitas, in their training division, helping get new potential cross cultural workers off and running.

Part of this monthly dinner includes inviting previous guests. Conversations that are always fascinating:
Baltimore - very neighborhood centric and sometimes that means turf battles even among social services and nonprofits
STC Baltimore - get people volunteering, help communities and help volunteers
Big serve week - 2nd or 3rd week in July
How overseas missions prepares you for serving locally
Favorite Baltimore orgs:
Second Chance
Movable Feast
The Well
Paul's Place
Baltimore Station
Baltimore Rising - great documentary about the city and current issues.
STC core convictions:
Take care of volunteers
Paint a big picture
Decompression is important
Celebrate
Cities with STC in the US - Baltimore, Newport News, Chesapeake
Erin's advice for young people interested in missions:
1 - Keep asking questions
2 - If you are sure of God's call, then go for it.
Church in the southeast that has a pitch day for potential missional partners to come and pitch to them. Also, this church deemed it important enough that all their missional partners are connected to each other that they planned and funded an international trip for all them to go on and connect.

From left to right:
Deanna
Erin Preshoot - Director of Serve the City Baltimore
Susan - The Samaritan Women
Hailey - student who just started hanging with Ember
Emily - Ember spawn
Meghan - Protoguide
Matt - Ember Board of Director
Bill - The Samaritan Women

Holiday Scheming

The holidays are when some of our tribe make the journey home so we catch up when we can. Dinner last night with Wendy, Shannon and Meghan. Wendy is working on a Masters in social work at a school in Texas and Shannon is majoring in social work with two minors in criminal justice and nonprofit management and Meghan is this year's Ember ProtoGuide.

Scheming conversation included:
The current summer 18 possibilities and associated team members and logistics
Foster care/domestic abuse safe house that Wendy is serving with
Drug rehab house that Shannon is serving with
Meghan's college potentials
How I used to tell people to keep my name out of it but no more

We are fortunate to have a front seat view to some of these people learning about the world and serving when and where they can. These visits always bring joy to the season.

ProtoGuide 17-18

One of our best core competencies is the ProtoGuide Experience, an experience designed for high school seniors where they work with The Ember Cast at a Guide level, participating in as much as they can. This year's ProtoGuide is Meghan B and, although it took a little time, she's getting into the blogging thing. Check it out [scroll down], or even better, follow it from your favorite RSS reader.

I am a firm believer that this is still a unique, niche experience for the emerging global student leader and it's our joy for Ember to offer this kind of experience.

The Well

We have started a new experiment this year as part of some Ember staff development: a monthly staff dinner with special guests. The goal of this is to gather our staff to hear from some of the most creative, missionally imaginative and innovative people we know.
This month's guest was Mandy Memmel [sorry for the bad pic Mandy] and her daughter Jolie. Mandy is the founder and executive director of The Well in Curtis Bay, which originally started as a vehicle for womens mentoring but has flourished into community development for all of Curtis Bay. We've conspired with The Well a few times and have loved it. [here and here and here]

Our conversation was fascinating and included topics such as:
Food desert - grocery stores won't come into Curtis Bay because it isn't profitable.
Social enterprise - The Well is starting to develop a series of micro businesses that will provide a locally sourced product and also employ local women from the area.
High school kids love slime - yeah I don't even know.
Workforce development - The Well has also started some workforce development, meaning they teach local women job skills and employ them.
Gentrification - Port Covington is a huge city development that will impact long term residents of Curtis Bay, possibly raising housing costs and price these residents out of their community.

Mandy is a leader you would follow.

TSW

We have started a new experiment this year as part of some Ember staff development: a monthly staff dinner with special guests. The goal of this is to gather our staff, and specifically, our ProtoGuide [who I will tell you more about soon] to hear from some of the most creative, missionally imaginative and innovative people we know.

Last week, our guests were B & S, who serve with The Samaritan Woman. TSW is a one of a kind organization dedicated to restorative work for victims of human trafficking. I've known B & S for a number of years and have always been impressed by their dedication, passion and ability to execute.

Some highlights from the dinner conversation:
TSW currently 3 residential recovery properties.
One mortgage paid off last week.
Another one paid off a few months ago by a very large, local church.

S listens to a podcast where there is a lady mentoring homeless women to make granola that breaks all sales records. She calls her and asks to be mentored.

TSW used train their clients in urban farming as a vocational skill - they have one of the only urban farms in Baltimore. But they pivoted, because most of their clients actually don't want to dig in the dirt.

Advice for a 17 year old interested in this kind of stuff:
Kingdom work isn't an exclusive marketplace either/or ministry anymore - it is more of a the ability to leverage your marketable skills.
Follow the Lord in obedience. You will reap joy in your life.

Thanks B and S and other guests for hanging with us.

Hello SeptEmber

Well, I cannot say it's been a great sabbatical... but I have appreciated the time off. But we aren't quite done yet - there are at least a few leaders the Lord has entrusted to Ember for this upcoming season.

Here is a bit of what we are working on:
+ ProtoGuide 17-18
MB started with us a few weeks ago, excited to tell you more about her soon. She started with the StrengthsFinder [Empathy, Belief, Consistency, Adaptability, Connectedness] and has started digging into Movements that Change the World. For those of you not familiar, ProtoGuides work with me for a school year at a Staff level. The ProtoGuide experience is our best effort at resourcing and engaging the best, brightest and most passionate emerging global student leaders we can find.
+ Monthly Ember staff dinner
We are hosting a monthly Ember staff dinner which will feature special guests doing some of the most creative, innovative and interesting global missions, nonprofit, charitable projects around. Invite only - mostly so our staff can get to meet these amazing people.
+ Chinese Bible Church, Fairfax
I'm speaking at a missions conference hosted by Chinese Bible Church, Fairfax in early October. We'll have some of our teams there too - would love to say hi if you are around.
+ Perspectives
Teaching Lesson 12 at 2 classes near Lancaster in late November. There will also be three classes in the DMV in the Spring so if you are thinking about taking the class, it is highly recommended.
+ And more...