Welcome: What this is all about

This is the second edition of the NCC aone:eight missions newsletter! We hope that this will accomplish three goals: 1) give opportunity to the greater community to participate in the experiences of our missions teams and the amazing work that God is doing around the world 2) be an educational resource to learn more about each of the seven  issues A1:8 is focused on this year 3) provide a space for missions events, fundraisers, prayer requests, and art to be highlighted and lifted up. Perhaps this will inspire a life lived more fearlessly.

Arts & Mission

Back from the Field: Empowered to Thrive, Jason Yost

Last month twelve NCCers cleared their schedules, packed their bags, and headed to Managua, Nicaragua for the second time in one year. During this time, they teamed with missionaries Matt and Eva Barlow to help construct a coffeehouse named, La Puerta Café, planted in the city of Managua. Their vision behind the project is to bring economic empowerment and build community among the Deaf and Hearing in Nicaragua. The work has been hard and the sweat equity has been great. The investment has the potential to one day change the economic climate and bring social equality for the people of Nicaragua. Even now, the stories are unfolding of how this project is changing lives and creating opportunities for the people involved in the process. One of those stories comes from the life of Alvaro Bendana (pictured above).

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Mission Nicaragua

(Left-Right: Chris Hughes, Adam Bulava, Katie Owens, Bill Wainscott, Sarah Wainscott, Tambour Ellen, Kari Olney, Shelly Yost, Jason Yost, Daniel Macias, Elissa Macias)

Quote

“Long-term stability must be the focus and purpose of your short-term mission. Anything less is selfish ambition.” – Jason Yost

Left: Nicaragua missions team working on coffeehouse construcion. Right: Rendering of completed La Puerta Cafe.

Witness: Conversation with Elissa Macias

Describe what the missions team did in Managua and with La Puerta Coffeehouse specifically. What’s the origin of our relationship with the Barlows and with the Managuan deaf community?

The mission team to Nicaragua’s primary purpose was to provide support and encouragement to the local church in their effort to build this coffee house. The specific tasks that we did at La Puerta were to help with setting the foundation for the second floor walls as well as assist with painting the second floor beams. We also helped with a number of smaller projects on the work site. Interestingly enough, last year we helped dig the trench for one of the main first floor walls and foundation and this year we were working on the second floor wall’s foundation.

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Introspective: What it Really Means, Jennifer Osborne

I sit looking out at the corner of 2nd and F St NE, the same intersection I’ve looked at for years. Sometimes it’s raining; sometimes the sun is bouncing gold off the office buildings and splashing onto the back walls of the shop; sometimes amorphous bundled shapes are moving across the streets as snow falls from the sky. It’s always a little different and yet the same.

This place runs through my bloodstream: the smell of beans ground to a dark pulp woven into the fabric of who I am in this eternal present. I’ve never wanted much, just LIFE–wide open, heart pounding, wonderful and extraordinary. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade looking for it only to realize through the wisdom of experience that it’s here with me. I’m in it, and it’s swirling around me, an ever present force.

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Investigation: Empowerment can Begin with a Bean, Sarah Bayot

Economic empowerment involves providing the tools and access to resources for a targeted group in order to spur financial and economic growth. These initiatives are strategized, implemented, studied and analyzed at a feverish pace in our nation’s capital since the District is a hub for many development agencies and non-profit organizations. Economic empowerment bridges the gaps created by job loss and lack of opportunities; hunger and malnutrition; natural disasters; lack of capital and resources; lack of education; disenfranchisement based on gender or race; and poverty. Business as mission is another model of bringing economic empowerment to communities. In addition to fiscal growth and advancement, A1:8 believes that economic empowerment involves physical and social transformation.

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Snapshots in the Community: Strive DC, Ashtan Moore

Through guerrilla volunteering on the Second Saturday of every month with National Community Church, volunteers are achieving high-impact results through local organizations that support the community in tangible ways. Strive DC is one of these said organizations. Founded in 1999, Strive DC’s catch-phrase is “Transforming Lives through Employment.” They help to bring the homeless off the streets by teaching them real-life skills that lead to sustainable employment and individual economic empowerment. Our volunteers serve every month at Strive DC to help these individuals execute their goals of job-readiness training, job placement, and supportive services.

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In the Pipeline: March Newsletter

HOUSING/SHELTER | DOMINICAN REPUBLIC MISSIONS March 13 – 21
Please pray for the team of NCCers going to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The team will be working with a team of local pastors on a construction project that will center around laying cinder block walls for Pastor Leonardo’s Church, one of our sister Churches. If you would like to send the team a word of encouragement or have any questions about the trip, please contact Kent Adcock at Kent.Adcock@DCHabitat.org