Outreach Snapshot | DC

IN WASHINGTON DC, tourists spend their days soaking in history while lawmakers on Capitol Hill make decisions that will affect history. The city is alive with people from near places and far places, cameras poised to capture iconic landmarks. But not every person from a far place has come as a tourist. In the greater DC area, nearly 20% of the population were born outside of the US.

As you wander around Northern Virginia, just outside of Washington DC, you pass women in headscarves, Latino children waiting for the school bus, and Ethiopian men gathered over coffee. In a single church service, you can have an Afghan, a Congolese, and a Korean worshipping next to each another.

You can drink lamb broth at a Yemeni restaurant, eat Somali spaghetti (it’s a thing!), or order a pizza — all in the same block.

Amharic is written on buses, Arabic on ‘open’ signs, and city announcement signs can be found in four languages.

The nations have come to the nation’s capital, and it’s amongst this population that Borderless looks to love our neighbors and make disciples.

Our workers teach English classes, help people settle, and, in their words, drink “lots of coffee and tea” as they build relationships. They partner with churches and volunteers to do this.

Here are some snapshots of what ministry looks like in this vibrant area.

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A mosque in Falls Church, VA.

This vibrant, multi-lingual church family meet together for a meal each Sunday before their worship service. They worship and pray in about 15 different languages.

These apartments house people from many nations.

A woman is assisted in her English learning.

“Family Market” is written in Arabic, a language spoken widely in North Africa and the Middle East.

“Leyu Supermarket” is written in Amharic, the most widely-spoken language in Ethiopia.

A family sits at a park near the airport, across the Potomac river from DC, where they can watch airplanes take off and land.

A woman from Ghana has a shop in a local mall filled with beautiful fabrics and clothing.

Lamb broth and bread from a Yemeni Restaurant.

A man playing Christian music and holding a sign outside the Lincoln Memorial talks to a woman while students smile after posing for a photo.

 The cherry blossoms in DC were beginning to blossom.