Word Made Flesh is a sort of peculiarity among missional communities. WMF is dedicated to serving Jesus among the poorest of the poor and seeks to fuse ministry and spirituality in such a way that their commitment to justice is an extension of our relationship with Christ. With communities in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, India (Chennai), India (Kolkata), Moldova, Nepal, Peru, Romania, Sierra Leone, and Thailand God has certainly been with WMF along the way.
The WMF community was established in the fall of 1991 and formed early by a few young idealists studying at Asbury College. Mentored by Dr. Samuel Kamaleson (former Vice-President At-Large for World Vision International) and blessed with access and availability to Mother Teresa, WMF sought to hold the holistic World Vision model in tension with the spirituality and devotion of the Missionaries of Charity. These models were gifts to their fresh thoughts on old problems.
For the first five years, Shane Clark (founding director), Matt Anderson, Kyle Schroeder, and Chris Heuertz tried to find their way into service among the poor through the formation of WMF. Shane (the “voice”) traveled extensively, speaking on behalf of our friends. Matt and Kyle (the “cartilage”) each helped build infrastructure and organizational capacity. Chris (the “hands and feet”) moved to India where WMF opened, as far as is known, the first pediatric AIDS care home in South Asia. Friends like Deanna Earhart-Inclan, Faye Haines and Bob Mabrey also joined and helped shape the movement’s young and emerging image through their accompaniment and sacrifice.
In 1996, Phileena and Chris Heuertz were married. Almost immediately after the wedding, they found themselves on a plane back to India. In the process of looking for apartments, they received a fax (yes, it was the glory days of communication) from Shane indicating that he wanted to go on for further studies. Devastated and confused, the Heuertz’s reluctantly returned to the US and Chris was appointed the new director of WMF.
The fall of 1996 was a hard time. The mission literally had no money; we were running negative balances in many of our support accounts. Phileena and Chris prayed about what to do. Should they try to keep the young, fledging organization alive? Would it be better to have friends in other organizations assume the care of the children in the WMF homes? They felt a strong sense that God wanted to replicate in the hearts of other young people what had happened in their own.
So they called together friends. Sitting in old, banged-up folding chairs arranged in a circle, they sought to re-establish a missional movement. Those who gathered would become the apostolic core companions of the community. Phileena and Chris hosted these conversations with some of the old school WMF members such as Seth, Brent Anderson, Jared Landreth, Brian and Rachel Langley, and Silas West.
In a circle in the little 350 square-foot international office (actually just a room), the team opened up the Scriptures and prayed. They took early drafts of the WMF Philosophy of Ministry, Vision Statement, Preamble and Lifestyle Celebrations documents and began to re-imagine them. They hoped to scratch out anything that had a strategic starting point and replace it with theological starting points in order to form an intentional spirituality that would hold WMF together, allowing the mission to authentically serve Christ among the poorest of the poor.
Guided by an early praxis of reflection that is still central to the community, the early members started reading many, many books by theologians and practitioners like Miroslav Volf, Jurgen Moltmann, Jon Sobrino, Lesslie Newbigin, Paulo Freire, Walter Brueggemann, Jean Vanier, Henri J. M. Nouwen, Ron Sider, Francis of Assisi, Jonathan Bonk, Viv Grigg, John Perkins, Jackie Pullinger, Mother Teresa, Jayakumar Christian, Phyllis Kilbourn, David Korten and others.
They imagined book discussions with the authors present, each critiquing one another’s works. Together they tried to find the redemptive intersections among the authors they were reading, even between seemingly competing influences such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, or Gandhi and Che Guevara.
After several months of praying, reading, discussing and re-imagining WMF, the members hit the “hard-reset” button, and at the beginning of 1997 launched “Word Made Flesh 2.0” (we don’t actually call it that). Shortly thereafter, David Chronic, Daphne Eck, Walter and Adriana Forcatto and Kimberly Garrison-West joined WMF by embodying the vision and spirituality in the world and among the poor.
WMF expanded beyond the little office in Wilmore, Kentucky, and moved into very poor neighborhoods in Lima, Peru; Kathmandu, Nepal; Kolkata, India; and Galati, Romania. WMF began sending interns that eventually became staff. The group was young, idealistic, hardcore, and a good bit crazy. But 20 years later, WMF continues to thrive and listen to the voice of God. The friends WMF has made continue to offer an invitation to tend the open wounds of God in our world.
The US office has also grown to see WMF Canada in its beginning stages. As with other WMF communities, WMF Canada has grown out of personal, relational connections. Mark Petersen visited the WMF Bolivia team and came home inspired to see a Canadian group develop. He and Chris Heuertz brainstormed on how this could happen, and several trips to Canada by Chris have sown seeds for the movement. Andrew Stephens-Rennie became friends with Liz Ivkovich in Kolkata during their time in India. He also shared a vision for a like-minded Canadian community to take root in the soils of his native land. Martha Arias faithfully encouraged and offered unflagging support to the fledgling board. In 2012 WMFC will move forward with Andrew as Director, looking torward what God has in store in this new endeavor.