“Sharing lives, sharing conversations”, is a summary of the emphasis of Mark D Rentz, Teacher and Administrator at Albany College in New York. “Many universities have 100 different nations on campus.” Mark says, “My wife and I invited them over for spaghetti dinner. Few internationals students enter an American home. When they did, they asked, ‘What is your story?’ while sharing food.” Mark tells about an Asian scholar who came to the USA for only four weeks. Mark says, “They wanted to be in an American family.” Mark asked the question, “What if we created weekend home stays and opened that up to the community? Some work in law firms, and others attend church.” Mark says of one family who provided a weekend stay for an international student, “They became lifelong friends, and visited them” in their country. The host asked, “Would you like a Bible in your own language?” Mark also shares how the people of the church prayed for him as a rebellious youth, “I believe through the prayers of other people, we see the nation changed.”
Podcast
A church that is not impacting a neighborhood will become irrelevant
Bob Moffitt interviews Pastor Wale Adefarasin from Nigeria, who shares many stories about how his church, in a relatively affluent neighborhood, chose to go into another neighborhood with 5 teams to meet the needs of the people, so that they could experience the love of Jesus. In one example, a local high school had just 2 toilets for 2,000 people and 10 staff, and the church built a block of toilets and replaced roofs. As they started meeting medical needs,
