Coming Home!

by Chris Kamalski

Hello my dear friends and family…
I hope you are well this Thanksgiving week. I just finished up my Apprenticeship year with NieuCommunities South Africa this past Friday, November 20th, which is wild (even wilder being the fact that I dash off this quick note to you from London, a prayer stop involving longer-term future discernment)!  I am back in California Wednesday, November 25th to celebrate the holidays and rest a bit upon re-entry.  I am taking a week off to simply re-enter life with family in the States, but will start up reconnecting with people again on Thursday, December 3rd.  I would LOVE to connect with as many of you as possible via email, phone, or in person as soon as possible!
There is much to fill you in on, but the short story now is that I have been invited to join the NieuCommunities staff team in Pretoria, South Africa as we begin to reimagine/reenvision NieuCommunities’ role in discipling and sending South African missional leaders/communities into our world. I will likely spend the next 2 years doing this (evaluating how it is going at the end of 2010), and then evaluate a longer term ‘place’ of calling to settle down for a longer stint (likely in leading a missional/sending community of friends somewhere else in the globe).  This will all take place under the umbrella of CRM (http://crmleaders.org), which I will join officially in late December/January after an assessment and orientation process.
Thus, I will spend some of December making the rounds thanking my donor base (churches, friends, family) for this incredible year of discernment and growth here as an Apprentice, and begin to turn my focus towards full-time, long-term support raising in January and February 2010.  I don’t have an exact leave date again, but expect to head back to South Africa sometime in early March 2010.
So my questions to you are:
a. Can we spend time together soon? When?
b. Will you please update me as to how things are going in your world? I can’t wait to sit with you in person and reconnect…
c. Will you please begin to prayerfully consider remaining a part of my financial support team as I transition to long-term work with NieuCommunities South Africa?  I am not sure of my budget needs yet, but it will be something like $2,500-$3,000/month after taxes with ministry expenses…at least, this is my best understanding at this point.  Much more coming on this in early December…

My rough December schedule at this point:
*Wednesday, Nov 25th-Wednesday, Dec 2nd: Re-Entry to California(!)//Rest over Thanksgiving Holiday Week in San Jose
*Thursday, Dec 3rd-Saturday, Dec 6th: San Jose (Application to CRM, Thanking Donors, Available to meet)
*Sunday, Dec 7th-Wednesday, Dec 16th: Orange County (CRM Assessment, Thanking Donors, Reconnecting with churches and friends)
*Thursday, December 17th-Saturday, December 19th: San Jose (1 on 1’s)
*Sunday, December 20th-Saturday, December 26th: Christmas Holiday (OFF)
*Saturday, December 26th-Friday, Jan 1st: Urbana Student Missions Conference with CRM (I’m helping coach/spiritually direct prospective students interested in CRM’s work around the globe).
I’ll email out the chunks of time I will be in Orange County and San Jose in Jan/Feb later in December…Please look out for a few creative, more large-scale gatherings, that I will be hosting in Jan/Feb to both raise awareness of my work in South Africa, as well as hopefully inspire you in your own journey of becoming ‘who you already are…’ Can’t wait to reconnect in gratitude for all you have given me this year…