The past few years has brought a sense of “newness” to our vision of Christianity. We have stumbled through and collided with images of a God and a love from a God that is vibrant, courageous, and good. We have prayed that these realizations would challenge us, teach us humility, give us opportunities to show grace, and above all else – to love. We have found an incredible opportunity to do just that – to love, in a radical Jesus way – those who are in need. Our passion for Africa became realized this past year after much dreaming, planning, and praying together. 

Our church, Watershed, and the non-profit that we have helped form, Equitas, has engaged Malawi through several youth focused projects starting at the beginning of 2008. Through these initiatives and partner organizations, we have become aware of opportunities to further invest in Malawi. Our plan is to take a year, beginning in July 2009, to move Blantyre, Malawi to concentrate our energy on the youth of the region. We will be partnering with an existing group of missionaries and humanitarians from SIM (and other organizations) to focus on these youth specific initiatives in Blantyre, a city roughly the size of Charlotte.  These initiatives will take the form of sports education, skills development, relationship building and spiritual mentorship.  We will be helping SIM launch these new initiatives in Blantyre - so we will be pioneers in this work. 

Our primary goal will be to help SIM and the other organizations establish a vision and plan for how the youth of Blantyre, and ultimately Malawi, can be reached with the love of God.  This will be groundbreaking work and we are excited about being used by God to help take the lead on these initiatives.  We will also be spending some of our time to use our skills to support the existing organizations with media, communications, and other administrative tasks.  This will give them some much needed support in communicating the great work they are already doing in Malawi today.

We are so grateful for the incredible support from our friends and family, which allow us to embark on this journey.  Without them, this journey would not be be possible.