Each morning when I step out of the back door to my house in south-central Elkhart (Indiana), my eyes fall upon a dilapidated nineteenth-century, two-story brick dwelling known by a few longtime local residents as "The Lambert Place." It was from this house that George Lambert set forth in 1894 on a worldwide tour that would change the Mennonite church forever. I wish I could have been there to experience firsthand the excitement of those days.

What it was that inspired Lambert to embark on this trip, I'm not sure. But from the book, Around the World and Through Bible Lands-Lambert's 417-page travelogue published after the trip-we discover a man with a pioneering spirit, full of curiosity, keenly aware of world developments and deeply convinced that North American Mennonites, living in plenty, should give generously to alleviate human suffering. "It is an act of charity and Christian kindness," he wrote, "to be interested in our brethren beyond the seas; [for God] 'hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth.' "

In the late1890s, the Lambert farm lane-today, an alley that passes between several houses and borders my property-must have bustled with activity as George Lambert came and went, speaking in various church communities about famine-stricken India and helping to organize a major relief effort in response to the crisis.

This growing world consciousness among Mennonites led to an even more dramatic development when, on November 4, 1898, fifteen bishops, several ministers and a group of other concerned individuals, gathered for prayer at the Prairie Street church-just one block north of the Lambert home-and, before leaving that place, appointed three individuals to become the first overseas mission workers of the North American Mennonite Church.

As I look at "The Lambert Place" in the year 2002, I sometimes imagine George Lambert standing at the window, gazing out on a world in need. And I wonder how he would respond to the three low-income families currently occupying his old farmstead, trying to make ends meet in what has today become a multi-cultural neighborhood with eighty percent single-parent family units living below the official poverty level. "The world has changed," I hear him saying, "but God's mission of love and compassion goes on."