wfn.org | Couple discovers the world in Buffalo

[Beth Hawn]

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To:  'Worldwide Faith News'
Date: 1999-03-03 15:21
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Conversation ID: Couple discovers the world in Buffalo 

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March 3, 1999
Mennonite Board of Missions
Beth Hawn
(219) 294-7523
<NEWS@MBM.org>

Couple discovers the world in Buffalo via Urban Leadership Quest

BUFFALO, N.Y. (MBM) - Derek and Vicky Martin dreamed of serving as
missionaries in Africa. But as the newlyweds from Ontario, Canada,   
examined
opportunities for a year of voluntary service, the only option available   
was
fewer than 100 miles from home.

Yet in Buffalo, a metropolitan area of 1.1 million people on the   
U.S.-Canadian
border, the Martins have discovered that the world has come to them.

On Sept. 9, the Martins became the first participants here in a pilot   
program
of Urban Leadership Quest, a new initiative of Mennonite Board of   
Missions to
allow individuals to test a call to urban ministry as urban congregations   

develop the gifts of future community leaders.

Serving under the auspices of Mennonite-related Westside Church of the
Living Word, the Martins for the next year are living at and managing   
Welcome
House, an effort of Journey's End Resettlement Services to provide   
temporary
single-family housing for refugees being resettled in the United States.

"Here, we are realizing there are lots of mission fields in North   
America,"
said Vicky Martin, who serves three days per week with Journey's End, a
refugee resettlement ministry with offices in the church's building - a
former TV station.  In the inner-city Upper West Side neighborhood where   
the
congregation is located, more than 30,000 Hispanics, most of them Puerto
Rican, live alongside 4,000 Mohawk, Seneca and Oneida along with recent
refugees: Kurds and Iraqis from the Middle East; Cambodians, Laotians and   

Vietnamese from Southeast Asia; and Ethiopians, Rwandans, Somalis and
Sudanese from Africa.

"Africa has come to me - along with Iraq and Bosnia," said Vicky Martin,   
who
helps refugee families negotiate the U.S. social-services labyrinth and
orient to life in a radically different culture.  Derek, meanwhile, uses   
his
training as a carpenter and certified electrician in renovating the   
Welcome
House and managing the church's building.  This spring, he will help the
congregation begin a non-profit neighborhood home-repair program that
will train people in construction skills as it improves local housing   
stock.
He also tutors and befriends neighborhood children through the
congregation's Homework Club, which provides latchkey children with help
with schoolwork, a safe place to play and an introduction to Jesus.

"People in the church are conscientious about being involved in the
community," Derek Martin said of the congregation, which has 30 members,   
an
attendance of nearly 100 people - 75 percent of whom live in the   
immediate
neighborhood.  "It has got a lot of programs for the size of the church."

Derek's and Vicky's duties appear very similar to the usual voluntary   
service
assignment.  But what makes Urban Leadership Quest different is that the
Martins spend one day per week in study and reflection on issues related   
to
ministry in the city - whether through a class at Houghton College's   
Pastoral
and Church Ministries Program or in more personalized independent study,
such as reading and discussing Ron Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of
Hunger.

That unique blend of study and service is why MBM's Evangelism and Church   

Development and Short-Term Mission departments developed Urban
Leadership Quest in consultation with urban workers, congregations
and educators.  (See related story.)

"The program is intended to provide people who are interested in urban
ministry with an opportunity to try it out, to live in the city," said   
John
Powell, MBM director for Evangelism and Church Development, who is based   
in
Buffalo.

Urban Leadership Quest offers intergenerational participants, ages 18 and   

up, an 11-month experience in which they will:
* Gain leadership skills through experiential learning.
* Work alongside proven leaders who serve as mentors.
* Live in community in an urban household.
* Develop a leadership style through directed reflection.
* Explore a long-term commitment to urban ministry or service in a   
particular
setting.

Quest seeks to meet a need ignored by existing service programs: to help   
urban
congregations recruit and develop visionary leaders for the most   
significant
challenge facing the Christians today. In the year 2000, for the first   
time
in history more than half of the world's population will live in urban   
centers
 - a percentage that is expected to grow to 80 percent in the 21st   
century.

"Urban areas are the research and development unit for the whole church,"   

according to Raymond J. Bakke, author of A Theology as Big as the City.
The first Christians recognized the importance of Christian communities   
in
the world's major population centers as evidenced by the circa 100-300   
A.D.
Letter to Diognetus: "As the soul is to the body, so are Christians to   
their city."

"Our main goal is to train and send people into urban ministry," said   
Shirley
Powell, a Westside Church of the Living Word elder and director of   
Westside
Ministries, which oversees Urban Leadership Quest in Buffalo.  "We hope
they'll stay here or go somewhere else in an urban area. ... We don't   
expect
everyone to stay."

Although not formally connected with Westside Church of the Living Word,
Journey's End is intertwined with the congregation.  It was incorporated   
in
1985 to help resettle refugees from Cambodia - an activity that was   
initiated
by Westside church and other Buffalo congregations. Perhaps because of   
that
local initiative, Journey's End was the only U.S. refugee-resettlement
organization that did not have ties to a national organization.

"It was unique in the United States - up until this past February," said
longtime Westside member Robert Roggie, director of Journey's End for the   

past four years.  Roggie and his two staff resettled about 70 people in   
1997.
In February, Journey's End became affiliated with Church World Service   
and
the Episcopal Migrant Ministry - and its caseload tripled almost   
overnight.

At about the same time, Journey's End received a two-story house from
Buffalo's Habitat for Humanity affiliate, which it used to create the   
Welcome
House. The second-floor, three-bedroom apartment serves as temporary
housing (one month) for newly arrived refugees as Journey's End seeks   
other
housing for them.  The first-floor apartment has served as the Urban
Leadership Quest unit and the home for the Martins, who keep a spare   
bedroom
as an emergency housing option for a single refugee.

Buffalo has experienced the same decline as other "rust-belt" cities in   
the
northeastern United States.  In 1960, Buffalo was the nation's   
13th-largest
city with 600,000 people living within its city limits.  Today, it is the   
40th-
largest city with 325,000 people.  Industry has moved away, people with   
the
financial means have moved to the suburbs.

"There is excitement to being in the city," said Neftali Torres, a   
longtime
MBM worker in Puerto Rico who now lives in Buffalo.  "There are all kinds   

of challenges here."

The Martins became aware of Urban Leadership Quest through Dale Bauman,
pastor of Elmira Mennonite Church.  Derek grew up in Elmira, a town of   
812
people about 15 minutes away from the Kitchener-Waterloo metropolitan   
area.
Vicky, who was raised on a farm 12 miles from a town of 2,000, spent a   
year in a
German city as a high-school exchange student and returned three years   
ago to
work there for the summer.

"In Canada, people think of Buffalo as being en route to somewhere else,"   

Vicky said.

For the Martins, however, Buffalo has become a route to future ministry
wherever they find themselves.

"My aunt and uncle had lived for 15 to 20 years in Africa, in Zambia, as
missionaries," Derek said.  "My grandparents were always very supportive
of them.  I thought I wanted to do it myself. I've always tried to help   
other
people"

"The part I enjoy the most is spending time [with refugee families],"   
said
Vicky, who began a women's Bible study among several refugees.  "When you   

start working and seeing all the needs, you want to do more. ... These   
are more
than my clients; these are my Christian brothers and sisters."

* * *

Tom Price       PHOTOS AVAILABLE