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Local Reach
Melanie Reimer serves in Whittier, California, a beautiful city just southeast of the bustling hub of Los Angeles. The area has a Quaker heritage and is nestled among the trails and hills that lead into the Los Angeles basin. Filled with a small-town feel, Whittier’s Hispanic culture, and its value of family and religious culture resounds in the city’s culture and ethos. But often religion and church tradition miss the meaning of a true relationship with Jesus—and that’s Melanie’s personal heartbeat for this city to experience.
Scripture challenges us to love your neighbor as yourself, and even the religious leaders questioned Christ asking, “Who is our neighbor?” (Luke 10:25-37) In scripture, we see Jesus being moved by the Spirit to travel to Samaria and find a “neighbor” in the woman at the well, meet a cripple begging on the street, or even rendezvous with a church leader at night who is wrestling to understand a real relationship with God versus religion and tradition. Each one of these individuals was Jesus’s neighbor. The location was not the defining factor necessarily, but the leading of the Spirit which connected them in a divine moment of truth, grace, and love.
Melanie’s “local” is guided by wherever the Spirit leads her to see her “neighbor” whether that be a homeless man sitting at the post office, or a woman in an abusive relationship struggling to have the courage to walk out of it, or the kids and family units that live nearby. “Local” is wherever the open door of the Spirit is directing.
Melanie’s heart theme comes from Isaiah 61 as she desires to step into Jesus's footsteps and co-labor with Him to draw the “spiritually lost, those in bondage, the broken-hearted, the mourning, and those with a spirit of heaviness” closer to the heart of Christ, and the anointing of His Spirit.
Ministry Strategies
In the rhythms of ministry, there is always a seeding and a watering cycle for any real spiritual growth, and although there is a co-laboring, only God creates the growth.
Melanie’s current “seeding” strategy comes through using creative art opportunities to build authentic relationships with her neighbors. Currently, Heart Ink Arts Community is a weekly outreach opportunity that provides a free after-school Bible Story and Art Class for children from Pre-K to 6th grade during the week. Melanie uses her experience as an educator to create safe spaces for faith conversations while still having fun with kids and parents and whole families as they paint, draw, and learn together about the narrative of the Bible and how to reflect the image of their Creator, and be creative with Him in the process.
Melanie also offers First Aid Arts Workshops as a way to love on her community by helping children and adults learn how to emotionally regulate and respond to past or present trauma and triggers through a science based approach. Sometimes before we can share the truth with people, they just need to feel safe and loved, and serving them in areas of emotional needs is one way to be Jesus’ hands and feet.
