I could only discern a few stars through the smog as I padded softly across the roof. A mile away, I could hear the faint blare of car and bus horns, and imagined them weaving precariously between rickshaw drivers and donkey carts. The stench of the drainage ditch and open sewage in the street a few stories below rose in the cold night air as I glanced toward the invisible Muslim slum a few blocks from the base. I had only been in India for a few weeks, but the things I had seen and heard in that short time troubled me. Seeing greed, ignorance, corruption, poverty and misunderstood truth chaining people in an endless cycle of hopelessness grieved and confused me. “Where would I even start if I wanted to help?” 
A year later, I met a little girl (and her little girl) in a migrant camp in Southern Baja who drove the desire to help even deeper in my heart. Read her story in my entry from January 2009 entitled “Unspoken.” Since then, many more encounters and people have left me with questions. Questions about our hearts and our brokeness and how they affect the injustice we see in developing nations. Questions about the root of poverty and the right way to help. Questions about how I’m supposed to be involved.
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| Unlike many assume, the root of poverty is not a lack of resources. Poverty begins our hearts, with our worldview. "Ideas have consequences." (Darrow Miller, Discpling Nations) |
YWAM San Jose in Costa Rica started the Foundations of Community Development school (FCD) to address these questions and provide practical skills needed to work in areas of community development. With Jesus, commitment, and eyes that look deeper than the surface, change is possible. As I have prayed, I feel the FCD is the next step to discovering how these questions, ideas, and experiences combine with my gifts and abilities to produce a role in His dreams for people.
Read more about the FCD.
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Learning how to aid the transformation process of a community is part of the goal of the FCD. The first phase of the FCD costs $1800. I am still praying about going on the practical application part of the school, and the cost of that portion will depend on the location. |
I’m leaving for Costa Rica in a month, and I’m inviting you to be a part of my journey. I’m not okay with leaving things as they are. However, there is a right and a wrong way to do discipleship and development, and I want to start with a strong, clear foundation. I need people who will back me up in prayer, accountability, finances, and shared vision. Together, and only together, we can change life as it is for so much of the world.
Please let me know how you want to be involved!
The best way to contact me is via email: amy_beth87@hotmail.com or on Facebook.
Checks can be sent to:
YWAM San Diego/Baja
100 W. 35th St. Suite C
National City, CA 91950
*If you want it to actually get to me, please include a note stating that it is for Amy Esh! Thank you!
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"
(Romans 10:14-15)
