9 Reasons For Relocating To Live In An Urban Poor Community

Why live amongst the poor?  Why not do mission in a more comfortable and less costly way?  Hans Van-DL, shares nine biblical reasons why he has chosen to relocate to an Indonesian slum.

1.  Obedience: We want to follow Jesus’ example, accepting His call to learn how to live life the way He did, sharing ourselves with people in need the way He showed us and asked us to imitate.

 

2.  Worship: We long to further express our worship and love for God (Jesus) in response to His love, grace and care for us. We desire to show our gratitude for the fact that He became one of us to teach us how to live. By doing so we want to confirm that the set of values that governed His life is superior to all others.

3.  Quest: We long to rediscover aspects of authentic discipleship and uncover them by taking away the dust that has covered our faith for so many ages. We believe that when we want to take Him seriously and are looking for ways to put into practice what Jesus exemplified our search will help us get deeper insights into what He meant.

4.  Learning process: We personally hope to further grow in discipleship, knowing that key aspects of authentic discipleship can only be learned in a setting of suffering, brokenness and vulnerability.

5.  Solidarity: We choose an approach of identification with the lifestyle of the people we want to serve. We don’t want to stay at a safe distance, but want to bridge the gap in lifestyle as a basis for developing relationships that allow us to take others along in the process of learning how to follow Jesus.

6.  Love: We want to give our neighbours in poverty the experience of us being with them in their suffering. Deliberately choosing to live under the same conditions as they do is a real and tangible expression of our love for them.

7.  Message: We seek to embody the message we would like to share. We long to not only have a message but be one as well. The sacrifices we make give this message greater authority.

8.  Example: We hope to be able to show others, who long to further grow in following Jesus, a tangible way of responding to the call Jesus has put before us. Our obedience may show others that authentic discipleship is actually something that, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, can be learned.

9.  Alternative: We see the simplicity of this type of life as a better alternative to the self-seeking, materialistic way of life that so much characterizes our Western culture and that threatens to harm and even destroy God’s splendid creation.