Let me introduce myself. My name is Nathan Penner. I grew up in Shafter, a small farm town in the southern San Joaquin Valley of California. My parents are both Christian, as are their parents. I was raised in the Shafter Mennonite Brethren Church until I moved to Fresno to attend Fresno Pacific University.

After graduating with a degree in Business Administration in 2002, I joined the Mennonite Central Committee and moved to Botswana in Southern Africa. There I lived with an Anglican priest, a Nazarene pastor’s son, and worked with the Naledi Baptist Church; I had a very ecumenical experience. Those three years in Botswana (2002-2005), naturally, had a huge impact on my life and it was there that God made clear to me that serving him was not just a three year commitment.

Upon returning to the States I applied to the School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in the hopes of figuring out more about what it was that I was doing those three years, and how I might work more effectively in the future. It was also my hope that during this time of studying I would be able to have some sort of contribution, that I would not only be writing papers for a grade but that there would be some meaning to what I was doing beyond myself.
So it was that I found myself moving from Gaborone, Botswana, to a few months on the farm in Shafter, to Pasadena, CA (which for me had previously only had any significance because of the Rose Bowl). I began working on a MA in Intercultural Studies with a concentration on Children at Risk in January of 2006. I moved into the Allelous Intentional Community and have had a pretty exceptional couple of years. God has given me some pretty amazing opportunities here, including a couple of trips to Cambodia. This blog will be about some of those experiences and those which are still to come.

Thanks for reading and I will talk to you again soon!