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Transcript of MOTH - Spring - 11
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8/7/2019 MOTH - Spring - 11
1/8
A m o r m i n i s t r i e s Q u A r t e r ly n e w s l e t
in this issue:
maagtda
Page 2
GpladCSpiritual Preparation
Page 4
o hzGood Stewardship
Page 5
Bd FBringing hom
to the Missio
Page 6
Mattersof theHeartS p r i n g 2 0 1 1 E d i t i o n
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In Ephesians 5, Christ uses his relationship with the Church as an
example o how a marriage relationship should workshowing
the importance o this relationship. The emphasis on this proves
that the marriage relationship is one that requires an extreme
amount o sacrice and love.
However, the amount o sacrice and love needed to make a
marriage last can sometimes be too much or couples. Perhaps
this is why the U.S. has one o the highest divorce rates in
the world with a rate o 3.4 divorces per 1000 people in 2010,
according to the Hungton Post.
As sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin observes in a landmark new
book called The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage
and the Family in America Today, what is signicant about
contemporary American amilies, compared with those o
other nations, is their combination o requent marriage,
requent divorce and the high number o short-term
co-habiting relationships. Taken together, these orces create
a great turbulence in American amily lie, a amily fux, a comingand going o partners on a scale seen nowhere else. There are
more partners in the personal lives o Americans than in the
lives o people o any other Western country. (Time Magazine
Article, Is There Hope or the American Marriage by Caitlin
Flanagan)
According to the July 2009 Time Magazine article there is no
other single orce causing as much measurable hardship and
human misery in this country as the collapse o marriage. It hurts
children, reduces mothers nancial security, and has landed
with particular devastation on those who can bear it least: the
nations underclass.
In areas that can be measured or long and short-term well being
such as drug abuse, criminal behavior, school perormance and
teen pregnancy, children rom one-parent households perorm
worse than children rom low-confict two-parent households in
every area.
The past three presidents understood this as demonstrated
by President Bill Clintons welare-to-work program which
encouraged marriage, President George W. Bushs work to
promote marriage, and President Barack Obamas remarks on
the need or men to stay with their children.
The requency and problems caused by broken marriages
should bring about a desire to change and ollow the presidents
prompting.
While some marriages may be broken and irreparable, there are
things that can be done to glue a marriage back together andpossibly make it even stronger.
The rst step to a healthy marriage is commitment. The vows
that are made at the altar sometimes lose their value 10 years
later when lie gets more complicated and the airytale wedding
seems like a lietime ago. Remembering that commitment and
recognizing that you will keep that pledge or the rest o your lie
will be the jumping point to xing a marriage. Understanding
that you have embarked upon a lielong vow may help one
understand the importance o working to make the marriage
Matters of the Heart Spring 2011
MarriageToday
How Amor MinistriesSupports MarriageOne o Amors primary goals is to help
keep amilies together. A frst step in
keeping amilies together is helping
promote strong marriages.
Marriages can be strengthened through
volunteering together. Amor encouragesyou to spend time volunteering with your
spouse, whether it is on an Amor Mission
Trip with your church, Amor Family Camp
or one o our individual opportunities, such
as an Amor X Project.
For more inormation on participating in
an Amor Mission Trip with your spouse
visit www.amor.org/trips.
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Dear Friends o Amor,
My amily moved a lot asI was growing up. As the
child o a naval ocer wehad to pack up all our things
and depart or a new home,oten in a new land, every
two or three years. Once, just ater we had movedto France, my mom broke
down and shared how hardthis was on her. As an 8 year old and the oldest boy
in the amily I elt responsible. But it was too hard orme to bear. I responded, Im not a dad!! What she
and I both needed was my dad to be there or her.
This reminded me o the importance o marriageand amily, especially or children. The picture on
my parents wall o their wedding day was a constantimage and memory o how much they loved and
cared or each other. It was also a reminder, in someway, that their marriage was a signicant bond; owhich I was a real and integral part.
In Mexico, one o the unique parts o a traditionalwedding ceremony is called the lasso, called a lazo
in Spanish. It is when the bride and the groom are bothwrapped in a long rope in a gure eight. It is symbol o
armation that their union and their commitment toalways be together side-by-side.
It is very similar as to why Amor continues to becommitted to building homes or the poor. It helpskeep amilies together. We are committed to working
side-by-side with the Church worldwide. We arecommitted to serve until death do us part and we
hope you join us in that commitment.
In Christ,
Scott Congdon
Founder and CEO
Would you like to hear more from the Founders?
Visit www.amor.org to receive Amors monthly
eNews from Gayla or the Simply Scott blog to
hear from Scott.
www.amor.org
Letterfrom the Foundehealthy and happywhich will eed into a happier and
healthier lie.
Showing appreciation or a spouse will help him or her not
only eel happier in the commitment, but will also help the
spouse appreciate you as well. This joint appreciation can
assist a couple to work towards keeping the commitment
o marriage. Everyone has dierent ways o expressing and
eeling appreciated or loved. Many couples use the Five
Love Languages quiz at www.5lovelanguages.com to help
determine the best way to express their love.
Learning to communicate is not only key to showing love
and appreciation, but it is also imperative to expressing
concerns, expectations, and to resolving confict within a
marriage.
Yet none o these proposed steps can happen without
spending time together. Dates together without kids or nights
in without the TV can help a couple bond, communicate and
express their love. Investing in each other on a regular basis
will help the marriage grow and last.
An activity that helps you not only spend time together,
but work as a couple or a common goal is participating
in volunteer work. Volunteering helps you recognize each
others strengths and helps you support each other through
weaknesses. It also helps put lie situations in perspective,
realizing that the problems you have may not be as big as
you realize.
Finally, what may be the most important aspects o a strong
marriage is sharing similar belies and goals. These two
things help give a marriage strong roots as well as help acouple prioritize time, money, and talents.
In a world that has become so used to accessing inormation
and entertainment with the fip o a nger, the idea o
prioritizing a lie-long commitment can seem daunting.
However, a society that shies away rom commitment is one
that never learns how to ollow through or endure rough
times or the rewards that may be waiting. This is a society
in which amilies begin to all apart and the relationships
that are meant to be the most secure become the most
unpredictable and heart-breaking, damaging both the
adults in the marriage and the amilies that surround them.
When it is realized that a marriage can have such a strongeect on a amilywhich eeds into its community, nation,
and the worldit makes sense that Jesus put such an
emphasis on this relationship. He knew that a strong
example would be needed to illustrate how much sacrice
and love should be put into it. Spouses are to each other as
Christ is to the Church. When all else ails, that relationship
is the most important relationship that humans can have on
this earth.
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4/8Matters of the Heart Spring 2011
Spiritual PreparationWhile the goal o an Amor Mission Trip is to spiritually impact
both those building and receiving homes, the preparation
needed to do that can all away when the logistical details begin
to get complicated. A good way to ensure that your group is
not only physically prepared, but also spiritually prepared or
your Amor Mission Trip is to set aside a weekend or spiritualpreparation. Bruce Jones, a group leader rom Oregon, has
been bringing groups o approximately 300 on Amor Mission
Trips since 1995. With that many participants, Bruce is an
expert logistician. To help make sure spiritual preparation
remains the priority, Bruce takes his group on a work and
spiritual enrichment retreat every year a ew months beore
their Amor Mission Trip. He says it is a very good midway
point to get people excited about the trip. For Bruces
group, the trip gets everyone trained and makes sure all those
participating are aware o what is going on. On the retrea
they work hard at building community and ocus on spiritua
disciplines such as quiet times and prayer. Bruce eels that the
preparation time is so important that all o his more than 300
participants attend it! He says that he would encourage evergroup to set aside time or something similar. So while the res
o the year may seem taken over by trip planning, that spiritua
retreat is a time to make the important spiritual preparations
a priority.
P.S. For more help with curriculum
during retreats or throughout the
year visit www.amor.org/energize.
Group LeaderCorner
Dont have a group to go on a trip with? Join X Project, a mission trip or
individuals! Dont worry about coming on your own, the X Project will pair youup with ellow participants to serve.
1-Day Trip: July 16, 20113-Day Trips: August 5-7, 2011 November 11-13, 2011
To register, visit www.amor.org/xproject.Questions? Call Mission Services at 619.662.1200 ext. 143.
X PROJECT
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Good StewardshipOn the Horizon
www.amor.org
With greater attention being paid to the accountability
practices o charities and non-prots alike, Amor Ministrieswould like to inorm you about our philosophy o good
stewardship. Did you know, or example, that Amor
Ministries is a member o the Evangelical Council or
Financial Accountability (ECFA)?
Founded in 1979 by evangelical leaders such as the
Reverend Billy Graham, the ECFA is an accreditation
agency dedicated to helping Christian ministries earn the
publics trust through adherence to seven standards that
convey God-honoring ethical practices.1 ECFA Members
must adhere to the seven aorementioned standards
along with an accompanyingannual review as well as
submit to a nancial audit
by an independent Certied
Public Accountant. When
completed, members are
approved by the ECFAs
Board o Directors, given the ocial seal o approval and are
consequently considered trustworthy and accountable.
Because Amor values the importance o transparency,
Amor Ministries has been an approved ECFA member or
the past 18 years. In act, nancial data about our Ministrysuch as Amors annual expenses and revenue can be
ound directly on the ECFA Web site at www.ecfa.org and
is updated each year.
Add to all this, Amors general philosophy and desire to
help the greatest number o amilies move towards
greater sel-reliance. As such, Amor Ministries is
continually seeking to honor each donors generosity anduse donations in the most eective way possible. Thats
why donations support the entire Amor Mission and the
mission o Amors Pastors serving on the Ministry Planning
Boards or each region and country. Although Amor does
not always use its limited resources to ully track individual
items rom donation-to-distribution-to-specic amilies,
you can be sure that the Ministry will use contributions
where they can do the most good by combining gits within
that git category to help transorm entire communities.
In unding programs like Project Hope, or example,
each Pastor receives apre-determined allotment o
the program items such as
bibles, based on the needs
o his or her community. This
model o ministry encourages
the local Pastors to remain
vigilant about the unique and varied circumstances o the
peoples within their communities. In the coming months,
Amor will be sharing more inormation on the various ways
donors can give and more specically, how contributions
to programs are allotted.For more inormation about a specic program or to make
a donation, please contact Melissa Salazar, director o
Ministry Relations at 619.662.1200 x.129.
1Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship, Evangelical Council
for Financial Accountability, www.ecfa.org.
Amor is hosting a 5K Fun Run/Walk in San Diego on September 24th to raise unds and awareness or our Ministry inMexico, South Arica, and the United States.
The day will start with a un run/walk and end with a Padres Baseball game. More details will be on our website soon, butuntil then, invite all o your riends and amily to join in on the un run/walk and baseball game on September 24, 2011!Visit www.amor.org or more inormation.
Because Amor values the
importance of transparency, Amor
Ministries has been an approved
ECFA member for the past 18 years.
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6/8
Bringing Hometo the Mission FieldAmor hopes that each participant that
comes on an Amor Mission Trip will beso impacted by their trip that they let
the mission experience permeate their
lie back home. What sometimes isnt
seen, however, is how much lie back
home eects the experience in the eld.
A structural engineer, like Mark Sarkisian
o San Anselmo, Caliornia would likely
bring a large piece o lie at home to an
Amor Mission Trip.
Mark P. Sarkisian is the Director o Seismic
and Structural Engineering or Skidmore,
Owings & Merrill LLP in San Francisco.His career has ocused on innovative
structural engineering solutions or
building projects. He has worked on
more than 75 major building projects
around the world including: the United
States Embassy in Beijing; the NBC
Tower in Chicago; The Cathedral o Christ
the Light in Oakland; Jin Mao Tower in
Shanghai (the seventh tallest building
in the world); and the Al-Hamra Tower
in Kuwait, according to www.SOM.com.
On top o all this work, Mark works with a
group o leaders to plan an Amor MissionTrip to Baja Caliornia, Mexico every
summer or more than 60 participants
rom Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church
in San Anselmo.
Mark became a member o Sleepy
Hollow Presbyterian Church in 2001, a
church that has been participating in
Amor Mission Trips since 1997. He was
intrigued by the trip because o what
he had heard o the experience and
then was pushed to participate when his
oldest daughter decided to go. Ater
a ew years, he ended up planning and
leading the trips.
Considering their knowledge o building,
many engineers may nd it dicult to
come to Mexico and build a simple
11 x 22 structure with a bunch o high
school kids, but Mark says he welcomes
the experience. He explains that the
principles o building are the same in
that no matter how simple the build
is, through discussion you can show
people how to take a drawing and createsomething tangible. You use the same
avenue o communication to move an
idea to a structure.
Mark has had to come up with some
complicated ideas to create such
incredible structures. One particularly
noteworthy idea came when he was part o
a team that had to engineer a building to
replace the St. Francis de Sales Cathedra
in Oakland which was destroyed by the
Loma Prieta Earthquake that shook the
San Francisco Bay area in 1989. Markhelped build the Cathedral o Christ the
Light, which would replace the St. Francis
de Sales Cathedral, made out o wood
and glass and near both the San Andreas
and Hayward ault lines. Mark knew tha
this would be an incredibly complicated
building due to its location in Caliornia
Using his education in engineering, Mark
was able to build a seemingly delicate
but sturdy building that would be able to
withstand an earthquake largely because
Matters of the Heart Spring 2011
Beyond the Field
Sleepy Hollow Presbyterian Church on their most recent Amor Mission Trip
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7/8www.amor.org
the building was designed to rest on seismic isolation
bearings. These stainless steel riction pendulum
bearings allow the building to move gently even in
violent earthquakes by separating the motion o the
ground rom the building.
As a structural engineer, Mark has to think about the
eects that gravity, wind and earthquakes will have
on a building. While building in Mexico, Mark may
not have to worry about glass buildings built on ault
lines, but Mark does enjoy explaining the principles
o engineering to his students while on his AmorMission Trip.
Mark eels that the Amor Mission Trip is ar more
than just building a home. A great preparation takes
place or a comprehensive experience where students
understand the value o helping those less ortunate
and interacting with some amazing amilies. He eels
that the most important part o the trip is watching the
transormation o the land and guiding the students
with the idea that they can accomplish great things in
a short time.
Mark continues to serve with Amor with the goal
to inspire both the participants building and those
receiving a home.
*For more information on Marks work on the Cathedralof Christ the Light visit http://www3.lehigh.edu/engineering/resolvevol2/philosophy_design.html.
If you have a story about how the Amor Mission Triphas transformed your life, your career, or your family,we want to hear more! Submit your stories and hearother Amor Mission Trip stories, visitwww.amor.org/
myamorstory.
Amor Family Camp is a week o camping, serving, and
growing together. Families rom all over the world meetin San Diego to travel together across the border to serve
in Mexico, while also including amily riendly activities.
Amor Family Camp oers the traditional Amor Mission
Trip experience with the unique opportunity to serve
side-by-side with your amily. You may choose or you
and your house to serve the Lord, but realistically, how
many opportunities do we have in society or in the
church to serve together as
a amily?
Bring your amily!
Amor Family Camp:June 18 25, 2011
Register online at www.
amor.org/trips.
Questions?
Call Mission Services at
619-662-1200 ext.6.
Next year, Amor is oering a new opportunity in
South AricaA Father & Son Mission Trip! This
Amor Mission Trip is going to be an impactul time
or athers and sons, as they come together to serve,
bond, learn, stretch, and love.
Father & Son Mission Trip: July 2012
Amor will also be oering a trip or women o all ages
to come together rom all over the world as Women
o Strength and return home
even stronger.
Women of Strength:
July 2012
Go to www.amor.org
or more inormation.
Amor Family Camp -Join us today!Tijuana, Mexico
Join us in South Africa!
Book Your 2011 AmorMission Trip Today
In 2011, Amor is serving in the ollowing
locations:
Tecate, Mexico ................... Spring only
Rosarito, Mexico ............... Summer only
Tijuana, Mexico .................. Year-round
Puerto Peasco, Mexico .... Year-round
San Carlos, Arizona ............ Year-round
Register online at www.amor.org/trips.
Questions? Call Mission Services at
619.662.1200 ext. 6.
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1664 Precision Park LaneSan Diego, CA 92173
619.662.1200
www.amor.org
NON-PROFIT OR
U.S. POSTAGE
PAIDOXNARD, CA
PERMIT NO. 121
We Welcome Your Feedback!I you have story suggestions or
photos to contribute, please email
our editor Erin Illingworth at
[email protected] or submit at
www.amor.org/myamorstory.
Calendar ofEvents
X Project Mission Tripstjaa, mxcA mission trip or individuals
1-Day Trips: July 16, 20113-Day Trips:
August 5-7, 2011November 11-13, 2011
Register online atwww.amor.org/trips/xproject or contact
Mission Services at 619.662.1200 ext. 6.
Save the DateLion Chase 5K Fun Run/Walksa Dg, CA
September 24, 2011
Check our website soonor more inormation.
South Africa Mission TripsDa, s Afca
July 2012
Father & Son Mission TripWomen o Strength Mission TripIndividual Mission TripGroup Mission Trip
Visit www.amor.org or call 619.662.1200ext. 121 or more inormation.
Family CampA mission trip or amilies
June 18 - 25, 2011
For more inormation visitwww.amor.org/trips/family or contact Mission Services at619.662.1200 ext. 135.