Dear Bellflower

Dear Bellflower,

Before I started my internship at Kingdom Causes Bellflower, I wanted to understand the legal rights of undocumented immigrants in the community. I asked a lot of questions regarding what the organization could do to help address some of the struggles and needs of these individuals and their families. For my independent research, I contacted a professor by the name of Hiroshi Motomura who works as an immigration law professor at UCLA Law School. He suggested that I read his book Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States and so the past month has been a really eye-opening experience to the historically varying ways that immigrants are viewed in the United States. The book did not digress into the topic of undocumented immigrants, but it helped me to understand that with the hardships that legal residents have in obtaining a citizenship, it is that much harder for an illegal resident to obtain rights by naturalizing as US citizens. Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done legally to help an undocumented immigrant, but it really challenged me to continue my future studies in order to bring about an awareness of the moral and ethical situations that revolve around the everyday life of illegal residents. Overall, my time at Kingdom Causes Bellflower has been a true blessing in that I have ultimately realized that it is through the guidance of the Word and of the Holy Spirit that will enable me to be effective in all my future undertakings. Thank you for having me on board and blessing me through this experience, Bellflower!

Love,

Eun

Community Walk

During my last community walk, I was able to sit and pray for the City of Bellflower and the works that God has been doing through the neighbors, volunteers, and leaders in this community. I felt really blessed thinking about how God provided Ryan with a vision of Kingdom Causes and how much this organization has progressed since the start of it. I also felt blessed to see the staff members sharing and committing towards the vision of transforming the community of Bellflower by connecting relationships, addressing the needs of the community, and utilizing the many assets that are found within it. I thought about how many of the staff members are living within the city and actively engaging in relationships with neighbors and churches all around. It's been a huge blessing for me to see them living in the kind of love that really reflects and glorifies God. It's so amazing to see God working through the homelessness prevention efforts, Good Soil Industries, Homework Club, Art Class, Soccer Class, and all the various programs that the organization continues to pursue. I will be praying that God can continually use the hearts and talents of KCB staff and volunteers so that He can move through the city of Bellflower!

-Eun Cho

A Different Outlook

The past three weeks, Eun and I have been putting together an art class every Tuesdays and Thursdays for some of our neighborhood children. As the last art class is rolling in, I have been reflecting about the passage in Mark 9: 35. When I was in India last summer at an HIV/AIDS orphanage doing VBS and other such activities with the children, one of the lessons God opened my eyes to was that very passage. It was so hard for me to accept some of the circumstances that those children came from but God stopped me and humbled me. He was noticing that I was beginning to serve these children out of love that derived from sympathy and pity rather than love that derived from the powerful and unconditional love of God. He reminded me of this passage as it says, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." Also he brought me to this passage in Mark 9:14-15, which says, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." God was allowing me a chance to look at it in a different perspective. He showed me that I should also receive Christ like a child with desperation and in incompetence, clinging to the one who gives me the living water. Since then, I have looked at children in such a vastly different way. Instead of seeing them as dependent and having much to learn, I try to see them the way God sees them.

While reading "Compassion, Justice and the Christian Life" by Robert Lupton, he briefly goes over this same topic. However, he adds to this point an even more profound perspective. He says that many times we tend to get lost in this "servant" position and he "saw help becoming control or care become commercialized (p.66)." Lupton saw that over time people stopped seeing this servanthood as following as Christ did, but instead they started using this idea for their causes to "conquer, rule and dominate others in Christ's name (p.65)." But Lupton brings up John 15: 15, "No longer do I call you servant, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father, I have made known to you." Christ, as always, brings me back to His backward ministry. First, He shows that to be first I must be last of all. Then, He shows me that to serve, I must first be a friend. This shifted the core of even our art class. Instead of seeing this as an opportunity to give to these children an art lesson, or to serve them; I am called to simply be their friend - "free to give and receive help from each other (p.67)." These children are valuable and precious in God's eyes and I have so much to learn and receive from their incompetent, dependent, longing, and dependent spirits.

-Madison Hur

Certifications Build Resumes and Confidence

The job market is more competitive now than most of us have ever seen. I saw a job posting on craigslist the other day, here were the qualifications:

• Bi-lingual (Togalog and English)

• 8 years industry experience

• Excellent communication skills with management

• Lift 75 lbs.

• 3 industry specific certifications

Hourly pay for this job: $8.50

As California's rate of unemployment remains at levels not seen since 1940 (12%), the job market has become hyper-competitive. Employers are able to ask for extensive experience and pay entry-level wages.
But these are the times; and the times call for us to compete. The jobs are becoming more difficult to find, but there are still positions that employers need filled. If we can prove that we add value to a company, we can find work. Its time to add certifications, related volunteer experience, unpaid internships, and any other profession-building experience to our resume.

That's why Kingdom Causes Bellflower and Good Soil Industries are working with Long Beach City College to bring a forklift certification, supply-logistics and OSHA general safety certification to our office. We look forward to sharing more as details come together, but we are working hard to make sure our community is prepared to compete!

90706

As I sat in front of my laptop screen typing away the numbers "90706" over and over again, His spirit spoke gently to me a thought. "Oh how he must truly love his children in this city." An event called "Unite" was held at the Bellflower town center on Tuesday night for 5 weeks in the month of July. I was asked to gather volunteers to run the booths at the event for registration, food, and t-shirts, etc. After the 5 week event, the tall stack of registration cards told me that there was close to 500 people who had attended all throughout the weeks. As I transferred the registration information onto a database on my laptop, I noticed that I rarely found myself typing addresses that were from outside of Bellflower. I'm still not quite sure why that stood out to me, or why it even came as a shock because it was an event as a target mainly to our neighbors in Bellflower. But one thing I know is that it reminded me of a passage in the New Testament when Jesus fed the 5,000 on the mountainside...

Since interning at KCB, I have been privileged to be exposed to God's Kingdom that is powerfully moving in the city of Bellflower. And especially through Unite, I have seen God use several churches to put on an amazing night where neighbors can come hear God's words. Just as a crowd came toward Jesus on the mountainside, I believe that God has brought the hundreds of our Bellflower neighbors to call them to his feet. However, just like Philip's lack of faith as he asked Jesus, "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite," I showed the same lack of faith when I ran into some difficulty of gathering volunteers. The first week, I was worried and stressed that I was not going to have enough help. But of course at the face of my weak faith, God provided just enough volunteers at just the right time. And as the weeks went by, he brought people on board that I didn't even know were coming to help! Even with the food on the first Tuesday of the guest speaker, I was worried the whole night that we might run out of it and we wouldn't be able to feed everyone. To my complete and utter amazement, the pizza ran out as the last couple people strolled past. It couldn't have been more perfect. God called his people, fed everyone, sat them all down in time for the pastor to speak. Talk about a miracle happening right here in the center of Bellflower.

Sitting here and reflecting on the past couple of weeks, I am simply in awe of Him. I am amazed at how powerfully God is moving and how desperately He is pursuing after his people in the 90706. I feel like Philip all the more as I reflect, mistakenly thinking that I must use my own efforts, planning, and coordinating to work for God's Kingdom. How easily I forget that God already has everything in control.

-Madison Hur

A prophetic moment... will the church respond?

Kingdom Causes and Our Place Housing Solutions have been working together for the past two years to administer a $3.1 million effort called the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program.  This program has allowed us to help our neighbors who are facing homelessness due to job loss or temporary crisis by providing coaching and care (a.k.a. case management), and just-in-time rental assistance so that families won't have to go homeless.

This effort has been extremely successful.

We've already helped over 200 families all while utilizing only 1/2 of the amount of funding (twice as many as the State and HUD were expecting for the whole 3 years). Not only have we helped hundreds of families, we have been able to leverage support from local Christians who have shared their home furnishings and their time and labor to move families into more stable and affordable living situations.

I truly believe God is honored by our co-laboring to care for the hurting in our community.

That said, we are facing an incredible challenge related to this program that I believe is an opportunity for God's people to step up and to fight injustice and lay down our lives for our hurting neighbors.  Let me explain.

Since 2009, we had been receiving quarterly advances for the program from the State of California allowing us to administer $1.2 million to serve these needy families.  In July, the State surprised us by changing the contract, informing us that it would be changing the way that the program is funded, changing its regulations effectively requiring us to identify a monthly “line of credit” of at least $150,000 in order to keep the program running and assisting families.

Without this line of credit, the program will end and 200 families will end up homeless and potentially on the doorsteps of our churches.  

This is a prophetic moment, a moment for the churches of God, some of whom have "surplus" funds,  to “invest the talents” he has entrusted us with for over 10-fold kingdom return on investment, loving our neighbors, the least amongst us by preventing them from reaching homelessness.  

Pray with me that God opens the hearts of his people and that we respond with a generosity that demonstrates our faith in God.

What Can the Church Body Do?

In the last few pages of Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life by Robert D. Lupton, he talks about a "church-based community development" (131) that involves the importance of the role of the church body to get involved, take action, listen to and love the community. I started to think about how vital it is for the church body to have strong faith and connection to God because it is through our faith and trust in God's ability to move through a community that we will start seeing needs being met, broken spirits restored, and communities rejuvenated. I was reading a passage in scripture which reads:

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us"

-Ephesians 3:20

These words reflect the very idea that God works within us and because a church body is composed of individuals who have an identity in God, the church should embody such a large quantity of power and work that God can do through it. However I feel that in what I see, the church does not fully reflect the massive works that God can do but I do see the massive potential we have towards community development and rectifying social injustices.

This idea was confirmed when I visited MIKA in Costa Mesa a couple weeks ago and spoke to a woman who has submitted herself to the work that God has called her to do which happened to be the social issues that surround undocumented workers. She discussed how a couple churches in her community decided to take a stand on immigration reform (despite risking losing church members who may be against it) and how the involvement of the church as a strong moral voice was such an important move. After reflecting on these things, I see the church as a crucial moral impetus for all good changes not because the church itself has power to change situations but because of the work God can do through it.

As individuals, I challenge you to recognize that God's power works within us and within our churches! I challenge you to see that we are a powerful force for rectifying wrongs and calling for change! In addressing the needs of community development and social injustices that surround our modern world, I urge you to maintain strong faith through prayer, obedience to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and trust in the work that God could do in us (as individuals and as a church body).

-Eun Cho

Learning the Hard Way

Well, I wanted to write a blog last week about some of the things I have been learning in my internship, but I couldn’t nail down one specific topic that I could focus on. To be honest, the event from the past week that kept popping up in my mind was one that wasn’t enjoyable. I kept thinking back to a difficult meeting I had with a community partner.

As I help plan the Bellflower Counts homeless registry week, part of my job is to connect with community partners, in order to gain support and recruit volunteers. Everything seemed to be going well with this particular community partner, prior to the actual meeting. I had spoken with the office multiple times, scheduled a meeting time, and was feeling confident that the outcome of this meeting would be a successful one.The point of the meeting was to tell the community partner about how we are taking part in the 100k Homes Campaign, which is aiming to house 100,000 of the most vulnerably homeless individuals in the nation. With our Bellflower Counts project, we are coming alongside this goal, beginning by identifying and housing 12 of the most vulnerably homeless within our city of Bellflower.

Going into this meeting, I assumed that the person on the receiving end would undoubtedly agree with our mission and think that we were conducting this project in the correct way. But, what I forgot, was that each person is entirely different from the next and possesses his/her own thoughts and methods. How narrow-minded was I to assume that everyone would possess my same way of thinking and approach to this issue? I got incredibly frustrated in the meeting, because the listener was not receptive like I had expected. I was caught off guard, and tried, with all my might, to make my message as clear and explanatory as possible, but it was of little use. I left feeling upset and disappointed, and my supervisor felt similarly. However, what she said to me was, “We should practice delivering our message to each other. We can ask each other the hard questions, and learn to answer them.” Although we were upset with how this meeting went, and I was stunned that someone would not agree with my way of helping the homeless, we learned a lot in this process.

I was reminded to take into consideration other people’s point-of-views and life paths. Just because I approach social justice from a certain way, doesn’t mean that my way is the only way. This trial reminded me of the book of James in the Bible. He begins chapter 1 by saying this:

² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:2-4)

James is someone who understood the value of trials. I’m reminded by him that it is within these trials that I learn most and develop perseverance. I won’t give up on helping the homeless, just because someone disagreed with me. At the same time, I’ll aim to consider other ways of approaching my cause. I’m still learning how to live life, how to be a good follower of Christ, how to be a good social worker, and how to be a good intern here at Kingdom Causes. I’ll take all the help I can get, even if it means learning the hard way.

-Bianca

Reconciliation

As I was walking in the park the other day, I came across two homeless men. I was taking surveys to figure out some of the health needs for people in the community. One of the men was very chatty and talked to us about all sorts of things, like politics, insurance, and the Bible. I was shocked about all of his knowledge about the history of the Bible; he was obviously intelligent, and it was disheartening to see that he was homeless. While on the subject of faith, I asked the other man if he was part of a church, or would be interested in attending one in the neighborhood. He responded with, “No, I don’t like churches around here…Sunday’s too much of a social event and not really about God.” I asked more questions to see why he felt that way. He said he had been to some churches and left them because people texted during the service, got up to make calls, or (by his interpretation) just came for the punch and cookies afterward.

His explanation left me with a mixture of emotions and questions for myself. I never find myself too upset when I hear a phone go off in church. They forgot to put it on vibrate or silent; it happens. But after hearing what he said, I asked, “Should I be more upset when that happens?” and “Why is it that I’m not that upset?” Perhaps I am not because I am one those people. Perhaps God led me to this particular man so that he could bring about this realization. His statement put things into perspective. Sunday services being a social event is not the way we want to promote our church, or ourselves. It is not the type of church fellowship where those in the community can be discipled in their faith. If he feels this way, and others in the community agree with him, it is not possible for us to reconcile people to God in that environment. We are being our own worst enemy. I (and the church) need to be more aware of my actions and the image I am portraying. I think that instead of me reconciling this homeless man to God, he reconciled me.

- Kara Zondervan