Listening to the Neighborhood

Bread for the World members Ivan Westergaard and Daniel Erdman are on the advisory committee for Camino de Vida, a church in Southwest Albuquerque that will place an emphasis on ministry to  new immigrants.  But the church's mission goes beyond ministry immigrants. "Our ministry embraces people from all ethnic backgrounds, age, gender, cultural traditions, nationality and socio-economic level," said its mission statement.

Camino de Vida, which will start offering services in March, is supported by the Presbytery of Santa Fe, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Rocky Mountain Synod, and the United Church of Christ Southwest Region.  Rev. Elizabeth Purdum of St. Paul Lutheran Church and  Rev. Trey Hammond of La Mesa Presbyterian Church, two congregations that have strongly supported Bread for the World's Offering of Letters year after year, are also on the advisory committee.

The congregation will be led by Presbyterian Rev. Guillermo Yela, a native of Guatemala.  Rev. Yela and Ricardo Moreno, Bread for the World's organizer for Latino Relations, met at a the Latino Presbyterian Conference in San Antonio, Texas, in 2010.  Could there be a future relationship with Bread?

For now, the church is focusing its hunger ministry, in partnership with Roadrunner Food Bank, on feeding the Vista del Sol neighborhood in the West Gate community.

What do you hear when you walk in your neighborhood?

Let us walk with Rev. Guillermo Yela as we watch this video. I invite you to learn what Rev. Yela hears God is asking him to do in the neighborhood where he is starting a new Church.