What does the word “missionary” mean to you? Maybe you have romantic images from the early 20th Century of a husband and wife abandoning western comforts to move to the jungles of South America, China, or the interiors of Africa—perhaps on a steam ship. Right here in Philadelphia, the heritage of great missionary movements is etched in the sides of old buildings. It’s a city that deployed thousands to the ends of the earth to bring the Gospel to those who’ve never heard this good news.
But today, America is very much its own mission field—with growing needs in the very cities that once sent missionaries around the world. Today, you’ll meet a man who moved his family to Pennsylvania’s Capitol City—Harrisburg—to a neighborhood that’s become identified with poverty, blight and last year a rising number of homicides. Tannon Herman and his wife, Cristina, moved to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in the summer 2013 to a neighborhood called Allison Hill—one of the city’s 22 neighborhoods—and the one most often associated with tragic headlines about shootings, drugs, and violence. But if you walk through Allison Hill today there are signs of life—literally—signs and murals that say “Love the Hill”—a message at the center of the Herman’s community renewal project.