Kyle

When I was 21 years old I began my journey following Jesus. Not long after I started working in full time ministry with a nonprofit organization called UrbanPromise. I worked in an after school program in the downtown of Camden, NJ. I grew up not that far from Camden in a suburban town that told me never to go to Camden. You drive through Camden to get to Philly but you don’t stop in Camden. I fell in love with Camden, with the young people there, with the work of UrbanPromise and with our loving neighbors who always cared for us. It was with Urban and in Camden where I met my wife Doreen. She was as beautiful as she was smart. She had purple hair when we met, and her first impression of me was that I was weird. Well I still am, but I think she means it as a compliment. Doreen and I married in 2013 in Malawi where she is from and then we moved to Miami, FL to work for a different UrbanPromise site. We worked in Little Havana, running after school programs and summer camps. Our time in Miami was short but it was memorable. I felt God calling me to work in the church, so after a year we packed our bags and moved to New Jersey– where I grew up.

In New Jersey I interned with a Christian Missionary Alliance Church, started my Masters at Crown College, and was licensed through the Metropolitan District of the C&MA. While in NJ we had our first born- Shiloh. She will proudly tell you that she was born in the same town as her father. Getting licensed in the C&MA and starting my masters at Crown College launched us to Lexington, NC where I would serve as Youth Pastor from fall 2015 until summer 2019. I loved my time working in inner city ministry with youth and children but I had always sensed a calling to the church. My time at First Alliance Church in Lexington was formative and challenging. I learned what it was like to work in a church, and I learned my need to submit completely to the working of the Holy Spirit in my life. 

In 2019 God was jarred us out of where we were serving as a youth pastor in Lexington. Looking back on it, I can say that I had some Holy discontent. I knew some things for sure. God had called us to multi cultural ministry, God had called us to the work of reconciliation both vertically and horizontally, and God had called us to start something new. This led us on a journey to start Refuge Community in High Point, NC. Our vision is to plant a network of neighborhood multi cultural churches amongst the 10,000 plus refugees in High Point. We are sent to create Jesus communities, we are sent to work alongside brothers and sisters in Christ, and we are sent to learn, to serve, and to be served.