Jesus spent time building a relationship with people. This is a core value of what we do: relationships. To that end, we train the American families about the different culture and how to make a stranger a family member. The cross-cultural relationship begins before they even arrive to the US and will last a life time.

Jesus invited people to be his disciples, a more modern word apprentices, by first asking them to “come and see”. They were considered seekers. Jesus spoke to them about the Kingdom of God, answered their questions and allowed them to interact with other followers of Jesus.  It was a time where they saw his life, the fruit of his teachings and experienced his presence.

Jesus challenged the seekers to “follow me”. He wanted them to identify with him; to believe in who he was and obey all he was teaching. Jesus wanted the seekers to trust him to show them how to be like him – humble, loving, joyful, a peacemaker, just, merciful and participate as a citizen under the reign of the Creator God while in this world. The apprentice would enter into a transformation process we call spiritual formation.

Spiritual formation is not just a Christian thing. Spiritual formation is a human thing. It is what it means to become a person. Our society feeds and shapes our way of thinking and behaving through advertising, laws, social media, peer pressure, family, etc. and thus one embraces certain truths and practices that are forming them into the person they are today.

By discarding the old habits and way of thinking to put on a new habits and way of thinking like Jesus. We enter of journey that leads to life. This process happens when one cultivates a with-ness to Jesus as a baseline of one’s entire life.

A follower of Jesus not only learns to be with Jesus, becomes like Jesus, they do what Jesus did. As they are following Jesus they “fish for men”; they invite others to “come and see” and provide the opportunity for others to enter into the journey of following and being with Jesus. They mature in wisdom, for their love of God and their neighbor.

They begin to understand what it means to be ambassadors of Christ; to obey Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples…of all nations…”. Like Jesus they invite others to “come and see” and challenge them to be an apprentice following the Way of Jesus.