Greetings friends! At the CCDA conference in Chicago this month, we met briefly with John Perkins to present our vision. After only a few moments of explanation, he raised his fists in triumph and said, “This is divine! We need to have another meeting!” So this week we had a video conference that was met with equal enthusiasm--and then another phone call Wednesday night. Dr. Perkins believes that we can work together to inspire people to mobilize the formerly incarcerated to engage the nations who have come to our cities.
We also went to Houston to meet with half a dozen leaders to get our vision started. Houston has the most people groups of any city in the US, and we have colleagues there doing sophisticated prison re-entry work. By the end of the meeting, there was concrete commitments to deploy theologically-trained former prisoners to reach Muslim immigrant--along with a large church interested in providing more TUMI training for prisoners. It was a dream come true. Now, from this planning meeting, we are coordinating the process to have more people join us, breaking down silos and working together to reach their city. From there, we hope the Houston model can be replicated in other cities in the US.
In Michigan, we made two presentations about our Onesimus Workshop that Cathy and I authored, one in Muskegon and a second one in Detroit. Each was well received, and we believe it can result in more churches helping former prisoners make the transition from prison to effective ministry on the outside.
If all that is not enough to be thankful for, we received approval from the IRS, recognizing Completion Global as a non-profit organization. The Lord is opening doors. We are on our way!
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