November 2008

November 2008

Dear friends and family:

Recently, we hosted a visit from four young people that are considering long-term missionary service with InnerCHANGE and our team.

Bryan Carey, is from Virginia. Last year he interrupted his university studies to spend a year in the jungle of Peru. His experience was confirming in one way: he knows now that he is gifted and called to work cross-culturally in places of poverty. What he also discovered is that he wants to pursue that calling in the city, not the jungle.

Beth Carter is a Spanish teacher from Michigan. After teaching for six years, she came to point of knowing that career-wise she needed to either go deeper in her profession as a teacher or jump tracks to something completely new. Her long-term interest in Latin America and short-term trips to the region fed a desire to move herself there.

Jennifer Pare is from Texas, and a recent graduate from Wheaton College’s Master of Arts program in Inter-cultural studies. She spent four months in Brazil last year with a ministry called Word Made Flesh, where God gave her a heart for children in poverty.

Dave McMurray is from Kentucky and a recent graduate of the University of Kentucky. Like some of the others, Dave “found” InnerCHANGE through a recently published book entitled: “The New Friars” by Scott Bessennecker (InterVarsity Press), which highlights several ministries like ours that work in urban slums. Because this is Dave’s first cross-cultural experience he stayed a bit longer than the others.

As you may recall, recruiting has not been without difficulty over the past few years. In spite of the violence and visa constraints, we have found people ready and willing to take on the challenge. Adrienne, KT and Cameron are a testimony to this! Thank God for them!

By the first of November we should know how many of the new candidates will be joining our team, making the move by February or March, 2009. We appreciate your prayers as our team grows and potentially even expands into new barrios. God continues to use us in simple, yet profound ways…with neighborhood children coming to a tutoring program two afternoons each week, and in prayer ministry for the sick and demonized. Doors are opening to minister alongside the local Catholic priest and some of their home groups on our hillside, too. This has been very encouraging. I’m also working hard on my next book! (This one will be in English, too!)

Peace to all!

John and Birgit Shorack