Lausanne World Pulse – Urban Articles – The Echo of a Saint: Signs of Hope in a Slum Community

By Christopher L. Heuertz
April 2008

It is in the Good News Club in Kroo Bay where the open wounds of Christ’s body still bleed today. It is the testimony of Noah’s life that tends to these bleeding wounds, ministering to God where the heart of God breaks today.

Reflecting on the lives of Noah and Francis there are a number of marks that make for an effective commitment to establishing hope where there is suffering.

• Building Community. Given an exceptional calling, Francis and Noah threw themselves at the mercy of community. Journeying with a team is not only practically helpful, but theologically central to relevantly expressing the love and presence of Christ among the poor. I have watched Cami’s life and ministry take shape through her service with Noah. It is also Cami’s friendship to Noah that has kept him accountable, supported, and inspired by her own commitment to community.
• Embracing Poverty. Living a lifestyle that reflects respect for friends who are poor and those who suffer pressed Francis and Noah into an embrace of poverty and a celebration of simplicity. The invitation to experience community in Kroo Bay for Cami, Faye, Stephanie, and others is a hinge to the privileged and affluent lives of those of us who come from the West to the lives of those suffering in slums. Noah has created an open door for our community to take part in the life of Kroo Bay’s community by gently challenging us to place ourselves on a process of mapping the incarnation with our own lives.
• Rebuilding the Church. Finding a spirituality that sustains is one thing, but thriving in the faith is a mark that is true of Francis and Noah, and the community that has given itself to the people of Kroo Bay. This spirituality roots itself in a contemplative posture before God, the formation of a serving community expressing itself through worship, a celebration of voluntary poverty as a means of creating freedoms for others, and a new way of being and doing church.

Of course, I don’t want to exaggerate the saintliness of Noah, but I’ve yet to find a man like him anywhere.

Except in history.

And today, in Kroo Bay, history is being made through Noah—a man courageous enough to be the answer to the prayers of a community.