just to fill you in.

Ok, so I've mentioned GTI in the past... and now that I've talked with my pastor about the whole thing... I can fill you guys in on it too. Since it's a small town I'm going to leave out names/places... and we'll just keep calling GTI... GTI is a group, GTM is a place where GTI does what it does.... confused? Great.

Prayer Ninjas... take this info and start fighting.
For newer readers... my blog first started out because I was too lazy to write a prayer letter when I went overseas....I didn't like the way my email inbox would get cluttered with returned messages. It's going to have a smattering of updates again mixed in with whatever it is that this blog has become....
Here's the letter that went out to my church....


We often are challenged to be involved in outreach… to think of those who aren’t as fortunate, to care for the poor, the widow, the orphan…. I’ve been blessed twice to head overseas and do just that. And I’ve been feeling God’s pull to do something more. Someone posed some questions awhile back that really got me thinking “do you know any poor people? Are you friends with poor people?”

Now, I’m headed out into a modern day Corinth.
It’s in my own home town.

I’ve been a part of a group for the past year helping to put on a potluck supper once a week in an old residential motel. It’s stinky. Raccoons sometimes dine with us. Most agencies in town have turned a blind eye to the poverty that resides there... and the building codes that it violates. But God has been working up something big, and I get to be a part of it. (and so do you with your prayers!!!)

About 110 people are living at GTM right now, and GTI (the group that I am a part of) has been involved for over two years. Mostly we’ve done dinners, slowly building trust with people who have seen their trust broken over and over. We help with advocacy, we encourage, we listen, we learn, we hope, and we pray. “Can you do me a prayer?”.

And now, more recently, we’re doing church.
It’s not something we set out to do… God sort of grew it up in the cracks himself. As John Burke put it, “God is still doing what God has always done in every generation… constructing His church out of the most hopeless situation”. A lot of people who live in GTM feel like they’re in a hopeless situation. There are mental health issues, drug and alcohol abuse, pain, and whole litany of issues that just wear people down. BUT… they want “to do” church with us.

Now, it’s not church like any of us have ever seen before… you don’t often go garage sale hopping with a friend and ask if they think you have enough ashtrays for church… you don’t often find yourself singing Johnny Cash in a church… or stop to talk about how rehab is going in the middle of a service. “Church of the Blue Haze” (as we jokingly started calling it… the name has since stuck) doesn’t have an order of service, but we have the Bible, and we share Christ’s love in the best way we can.

I’ll try to keep everyone up to date as best I can with events from GTI, so we can have more people helping- people to keep accountable to. We appreciate and NEED your prayers more than anything else. This is a very emotionally draining venture, and a very lonely one too… please pray for strength and God’s guidance in all that we do as we try to serve at GTM.

I don’t consider myself “leaving” KCC, I’ll be back from time to time (gonna need to recharge with you guys!) consider me (once again) someone you’re sending out into the mission field (the plane ticket is just much cheaper this time!). KCC will always be my home church.
Thanks everyone!
Bess