March 2, 2009 issue
New Jersey pastor rallies teenagers to visit hospital patients
By Jewel Showalter Eastern Mennonite MissionsPage:
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CAMDEN, N.J. — Alberto Buster stepped out in an unusual act of hospitality on Christmas Eve.
Buster, a youth and associate pastor from Iglesia la Familia (The Family Church) in Pennsauken, rallied 15 teenagers to raise money, hand out gifts and visit children and their families at Cooper Children’s Regional Hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital and in the surrounding community.
“We really had a blast serving God by serving our neighbor, right here in our back yard,” Buster said.
Iglesia la Familia is part of the Koinonia Fellowship of Churches, an Eastern Mennonite Missions partner conference made up of 23 congregations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
“All of the kids in our youth group come from urban settings, and our church wants to build socially responsible Christian leaders that champion the cause of the poor and underserved so that Christ can be praised,” Buster said. “This type of learning needs to start young!”
Buster is also learning, through the STEP program, a partnership between Lancaster Mennonite Conference and Eastern Mennonite University. The program trains people in pastoral ministry who may not have had college, Bible school or seminary training.
Buster wanted to translate his studies into fruitful action.
“We want to develop young Christians who act on their faith and not only profess it,” he said.
Buster was inspired by an excerpt from a book he was assigned to read, Soul Feast by Marjorie Thompson.
Thompson writes: “Hospitality is essentially an expression of love. It is a movement to include the guest in the very best of what we ourselves have received and can therefore offer. It is the act of sharing who we are as well as what we have — love.”
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