2011 in the Barrios

We are a goal oriented bunch of people here at One Mission in Rocky Point. We set goals for everything. Last month one of our goals was to set 15 goals for the next six months!

I won't share all the boring details with you but here are three of the goals we're really excited about:

1) CHE vision seminar complete with 20-30 participants.

2) Volunteer hours required for a house to increase to 200 from 45.

3) Implement metrics (home visits, leaders being trained, hours served, etc...)

Over the next few posts we'll be unpacking these goals a little bit. Stay tuned: next post is all about CHE! What is CHE? What is a vision seminar? Who will be there?

On a separate note, thank you for reading this blog. We couldn't do anything at all without people like you supporting us and encouraging us along the way. THANK YOU!

The Crisis of Christmas

One of our partner churches (Christ's Church of Fountain Hills) is doing a series this holiday season called, "The Crisis of Christmas." This series included three videos explaining the difference between Christmas in Fountain Hills, Arizona and the barrios of Puerto Peñasco, Sonora. Embedded below are the videos (if you can't see the videos, click for week 1, week 2, and week 3).

Relief vs Development

Expanding on this post a little bit we wanted to mention the difference between relief and development. There really is no easy way to define the difference.

This chart is a good start to help explain the differences. Also Jeff Carr puts it well in this article:

If we are going to move from charity to community development in our ministries, we must move from being servants to being friends. We must become immersed in the lives of people and in the life of our community, to the point where we no longer see a distinction between our well-being and theirs. All of our well-being is tied together through our bond of friendship and faith.

There is no more us and them. Its only us. Paul seems to think the same way.

CHE training - Day One

Our whole team is going through CHE training this week in Phoenix. Today was day one.

Biggest takeaway - relief, betterment, and development are all necessary, however, doing one where another is needed more is detrimental to a community.