DOMESTIC POVERTY TRACK
This track explored missions in light of urban and rural North American poverty, homelessness, ethnic strife, immigration, gangs and the U.S. and Canadian corrections systems.
Overview
This track looked at issues of poverty in North America, with an eye to helping pzrticipants see and understand the poverty that exists in their own backyard, in the forgotten places of the most powerful and affluent continent on the planet. Topics included homelessness, ethnic strife, immigration, gangs, and the U.S. and Canadian corrections systems. These issues were examined through a series of seminars during the afternoons as well as through special gatherings each day to listen to testimonies, be inspired by artists, and reflect on their experience together. Our goal was to discover how God is at work in the inner city and to explore a calling to join him there.
Director: Josh Harper
Josh is the National Coordinator of Urban Projects for InterVarsity. He lives in Oakland, California and for the past five summers he has directed the Bay Area Urban Project. He is the joyful new father to Lucia, and husband to Marjie. Josh is the proud caretaker of several thousand "pet" worms that eat his garbage. He is an avid cyclist and when faced with the choice will always choose to ride the hills. Josh has a mild addiction to coffee and enjoys roasting his own beans. He loves to take up new hobbies with his most recent being the exciting world of cloth diapering. A mountain boy at heart, Josh grew up in a small rural town in the mountains of Northern California. Josh and Marjie moved to an inner city neighborhood in Oakland in 2004 to be a part of the New Hope Community.
