Back in 2001 when we were designing and birthing NieuCommunities, we felt that someday we would help birth other NieuCommunities-like communities in other countries, communities that would take on new shapes and be led by local leaders. In 2010 we’re making a significant step towards that day when our community in South Africa shifts their focus from the development of expats to the development of South African leaders. That’s actually a shift that has been underway for the last couple of years as we’ve been assimilating more apprentices from Africa into our community. But in 2010 we’ll be formalizing that shift as our community in Pretoria begins to reshape the apprenticeship to fit South Africans. We still anticipate a handful of young expat leaders coming to be apprenticed, but now they’ll be coming to be apprenticed as missional leaders as we apprentice South Africans. They will come to join our common mission to form South Africans to live missional lives.
In making this shift, we felt like another move would be both imminent and critical. We would need to move closer to where younger and more progressive people live in Pretoria. Somewhere downtown. Somewhere closer to the University. Somewhere where blacks and whites live side-by-side and are engaging the significant challenges that face them and their country. Somewhere beyond Pangani.
Pangani has been a wonderful home for us these past 7 years, but as we focus on South African leaders, we think it would be better utilized as an off-site training venue; a place we occasionally use for workshops, seminars, intensives, and retreats rather than as a home-away-from-home for staff and apprentices. We also think it could be a valuable source of revenue to help fund the development of young local leaders. To help make that happen we are in discussions with Enterprise International to lease Pangani from NieuCommunities and run it as a for-profit guesthouse and conference centre. Our staff—when they all get back from their furloughs in February–will begin the hunt for a new neighborhood and begin setting up home in downtown Pretoria.
Wed, Dec 23, 2009
Lead Story