Hillcrest International Collective is a diaspora house/micro church planting movement to make the gospel known and disciples made in distinct languages and people groups, primarily reaching South Asian diaspora. It began as a church plant in Downtown Little Rock that started through the pressing need to make the gospel known and disciples made among the many South Asian diaspora citizens here who need community and Gods Word in their own culture and context. What started as a single church plant has become a micro church planting movement. We currently have four mircro churches.

As international students and citizens we find ourselves in a new host culture and we do often have questions about the culture, religion, norms etc. that we don’t often feel comfortable asking. For this reason, we have a ‘Discovery’ based Bible group where we hope to offer a comfortable, non-intimidating and friendly setting to ask and explore any questions they may have. We go through different and interesting stories in the Bible and explore perspectives on them through guided questions.

Along with this we often have dinners, potlucks, game nights, outdoor bonfires, prayer walking/knocking, outdoor games like badminton, volleyball etc. all with the goal of getting to know one another and build friendships and simply hangout and have fun, all keeping the gospel ready to share and allowing the Spirit to work through every interaction, action, and imparted through love.

Along with our 'DBS' where we have most of our spiritual development avenues and gospel conversations, we have seen God move in big ways through each member of our planting core team. We have eight active members as a part of this ministry who have a heart and passion to see Internationals loved, reached and engaged for the sake of the Gospel right here in central AR. Through each members home, talents and time were able to connect with International, students and adults alike through multiple off-site avenues like intentional movie nights, cultural dinners, womens tea fellowship, outdoor sports etc.

WEST LITTLE ROCK MICRO CHURCH:
This group has been consistently meeting in West Little Rock. You will often find them trying out local cafe's and brunch spots. In the recent weeks they have started to build community with students from Korea, Germany, Indonesia, Nigeria and India.

TELUGU MICRO CHURCH:
They have consistently met in Westpark Apartments, Little Rock in the home of a Telugu speaking student. Their primary diaspora is Telugu speaking citizens from India with the vision to soon develop and multiply leaders in other language groups, eg. Tamil. Currently they have 5 students meeting consistently, 2-3 are non believers.

LA MESA MICRO CHURCH, University Ave:
The Perez sibling duo have consistently met in their home close to the University campus calling their group Mesa that stands for the gathering table in Spanish. In their DBS gathering they currently have students and discoverers from India, France, Iraq and Indonesia

HILLCREST MICRO CHURCH: 
This group has consistently met in the Hillcrest region of Little Rock with their current outreach and focus on the central and west African diaspora as well as potential Caribbean diaspora. Currently they have students and discoverers from Nigeria, Honduras and Korea.

Prayer Requests:

• Continual prayer for students who are 'discoverers' to grow in their interest, knowledge and worldview in Christ, praying for the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself and bring the Word to life in their hearts, lives and through them in their families and circles as well.
• Fervent prayer for the four-micro church's - their locations - their outreach strategy - their respective diaspora reach.
• We're prayerfully preparing for incoming International students this Spring with an active partnership in the local IFO (International Friendship Outreach) parent-church ministry, to receive and host students in homes, partner with them long term and have the church actively involved in this ministry. 

Partnership Opportunities:

• If your church or your mission team is interested; we would love to personally come visit and share the vision and the work God is doing in Little Rock (and around the state) and we truly believe this is a kingdom effort that we will see accomplished as more churches join in the vision to equip, train and launch their members in their communities to reach Internationals in diaspora pockets. We can share simple tools to enter and navigate local international cultures, simple How To's and tools to have relational gospel conversations and consistent discipling relations. 
• We're in the works to launch 'Immersion Experiences' where interested mission minded teams/groups or youth groups can take a day or two long excursions to visit local diaspora communities and have a deep hands-on experience of living as if you're on a foreign mission city, right here in Arkansas. This can serve as a great tool to empower your church or youth group to see international missions locally, perhaps be a part of training, for a team about to deploy oversees on a short-term mission trip, etc. 
• Example: Say for a South Asian Hindu Focused experience, the group would start with a briefing or short training and then visit a Hindu Temple in Little Rock and interact with their staff or priests, perhaps observe their rituals, visit an Indian restaurant and a grocery store, visit - prayer walk and perhaps have tea time in an Indian apartment complex with Indian families or International students, perhaps on available days even attend a Discovery Bible Study with Internationals. 

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