Earlier this month Thinkhouse Communication Design was a sponsor of a national event in Washington DC. Pentecost 07 was a meeting of faith based organizations and leaders from accross the U.S. This event was to raise domestic poverty as a moral issue and needs to be on the national agenda for the 2008 U.S. election. I will post about our time being down there at a later date.
During the conference I met and spoke with an outstanding individual, Shane Claiborne. Shane calls himself an “ordinary radical” deeply committed to following the teachings of Jesus in very practical daily way. He does this in community (known as The Simple Way) with several other folks who share the same ideals, living amonst the urban poor in an area of inner city Philidelphia called Kennsington. Whether or not the “Jesus thing” resonates with you, you have to admire someone so deeply committed to living out their personal faith in a very public way. Having just heard Shane speak at the conference about his work in Kensington and chatting with him about his experiences, the following news item hits kinda close to home for us.
“…a 7-alarm fire consumed an abandoned warehouse in our Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia. The Simple Way Community Center at 3200 Potter Street was destroyed as well as at least eight of our neighbors’ homes. Over 100 people were evacuated from their homes, and 400 families are currently without power. Despite this tragedy, we are incredibly thankful to share that all of our community members and every one of our neighbors is safely out of harm’s way.”
The Simple Way community needs your help.
Go to thesimpleway to find out how you can help. They have established an emergency relief fund, not just for The Simple Way, but for those in the neighborhood who lost their homes. Keep going back for updates, they’ll be needing relief supplies soon as well.
If you are interested Shane will be speaking about his experience with this resent tragedy on a program called stevebrownetc.com. If you miss the live broadcast you can download the interview via the podcast.