New Year; New Chapter

[Kyuboem Lee]

Dear friend,

Greetings from the Germantown neighborhood in Philly! We are thankful to be in the new year--full of promises of new manifestations of God's faithfulness--and thankful for you who have been sticking with us through the years in prayer and support. Here is the G.Hope crowd during our annual Christmas Carol in the neighborhood:

There is some personal news to share with you from the Lee family. As some of you know, Christe and I had been in a friendly race to see who would get employed full-time first; the other would become the primary caretaker of our two boys, Amoz and Theo. God has answered our prayers, and Christe is the official winner. Yesterday, she started her new job at Esperanza Health Center as the Manager of Healthy Cafe and Fitness Program. 

We are deeply appreciative of Esperanza Health Center for their continuing mission to provide quality healthcare to the under-insured and under-served in Philly. We were also appreciative  when I was employed with them temporarily (for 3 weeks in November and December) when Esperanza needed some help with getting the new site in Hunting Park opened up. (I was privileged to work as the official photographer of the Grand Opening, which was a wonderful celebration of what the Lord is doing in Philly, that featured special guests John Perkins, Ron Sider, Manny Ortiz, Ruth Naomi Floyd and Mayor Michael Nutter. If you are interested, you can find the photos here.) And now we are doubly appreciative that Christe has found a good match for her gifts at Esperanza (she was recently certified as a Personal Trainer by the National College of Sports Medicine, and she was employed for 4 years at Philabundance Community Kitchen as an Employment Retention Specialist). 

As for me, I will continue to serve as Pastor of Germantown Hope Community Church, father to our two boys, and adjunct faculty at Esperanza College of Eastern University and at Biblical Seminary. From the beginning of this year, I started teaching 3 classes in Bible and theology at Esperanza College (no relation to Esperanza Health Center, though maybe the Lord is telling us something... esperanza is Spanish for hope), an Associate's degree college serving an urban and Hispanic student body. We are now finding that our plates are much fuller than they were before! We would very much appreciate your prayers for our transition into the new chapter of our life. 

G.Hope is also looking forward to a new chapter of the Lord's activity. We are praying especially that he would make us a praying church and a witnessing church. We have much more to grow in these regards! Over the last three or so months, we've had two all-day church prayer days, and they were times of the Lord doing something new with us. Please pray that we as a church will find new refreshing and new depths of faith as we deepen our walk with the Lord, and that the edifying we find in prayer will flow out into a joyful witness to the kingdom. 

One last note: I wrote a couple of blog posts for Biblical Seminary Faculty Blog--I contribute about one post a month. If you are interested (they may shed some additional light to the mission of G.Hope), here are the links: 

• Is Talk of "Incarnational Ministry" Legitimate?
  
• The Strengths of the Bi-Vocational Pastorate
  

Thank you for your continuing friendship. Until next time.

Shalom,

Kyuboem Lee