Why did Father send me

to Kenya?

He Wants

Us To Know

That these Mothers Are Our Mothers,

These Fathers Are Our Fathers,

These Children Are Our Children.

Each One Has a Name,

A Soul,

A Love,

A Life.

His Will Is To

Serve and Protect Them.

His Will Is Love and Mercy,

For “God is Love.”

We must Ask Ourselves,

Do We Do God’s Will

Or Our Own?

—Richard Close,

from Pray For Kenya

Local Photographer Rebuilding Life, Helping Others With God-Given Talent

By Shannon Hicks

New Milford resident Richard Close used to be a Fairfield County executive, a consultant to companies such as IBM and Microsoft, Oracle and Sun Microsystems. In 2003, however, he lost everything due to the collapse of the dot-com era as well as personal strife, including what he calls “a crushing divorce settlement.”

“It all happened really fast,” Mr Close said. “Destruction by an unethical attorney, and a series of bad personal mistakes… but none involved alcohol or drugs,” he pointed out.

He was penniless, and homeless, and after considering his options, moved temporarily into the Bridgeport Gospel Rescue Mission.

While there, the Reverend Terry Wilcox, the executive director of Bridgeport Rescue Mission, and the Reverend Jerry Beal from Sons of Thunder Mission in Africa, made a decision that changed the course of Mr Close’s life. That year, they sent him to Africa.

“I never knew what it was, but they apparently saw in their hearts that I should be in a mission in Africa,” said Mr Close, who before that time had not written or photographed anything for public use. He has since created three books and has begun exhibiting photographs of the people he has met — those who he lived with while in Africa as well as many who have also been saved while living in a Gospel Rescue Mission like himself.

“Photography wasn’t part of the original plan,” Mr Close said. “They just wanted me to be there.

“When I was on the plane, someone handed me a camera and said, ‘I think you should use this.’ It’s all a mystery. I don’t have any idea what I’m doing. I just wake up every morning now and say ‘These are my hands, my eyes, my legs… tell me what to do with them.’”

The resulting photos — thousands of them — that Mr Close has taken over the years, as well as photos taken during his stay at Bridgeport Rescue Mission, have been turned into books, lectures, and a new life for Mr Close. A collection of his photos will be presented in October at The Blue Z Coffee House in Newtown.

“Inside Missions” will be on view at the coffee house, 127 Main Street South, October 1–31. An opening reception is planned for Saturday, October 2, from 6 to 8:30 pm.

“They key is, people see photography from Africa and either it’s tourism glam photography, which is [phony], or it’s photography designed to create guilt and generate funds,” said Mr Close, who chose to photograph the joy that can be found in missions, whether in Africa or in his home state. “The reason [the shows have been] called ‘Inside Missions’ is there are thousands of people on the ground doing amazing work for beautiful, beautiful people.

“The name is really because I give people an inside look at people,” he said. “People have seen these photos and have gone into, or gone back into, the mission field. They have done wonderful things after seeing the photos. It’s more important to me to tell the story that still, there are really good things are happening. It’s not all the bleak that’s reported on the evening news.”

Mr Close decided to point his newly acquired camera at the faces of those who still had hope, and who still stand up for honesty, a decent living, and hard work. Children in the African orphanages smile, make faces for his cameras, turn cartwheels in a small grassy area outside their home.

There are obvious signs of poverty, too. He doesn’t hide that. One of his photos from one of his Kenyan series shows a man staring right into the camera, hand raised in a fist. The man is sitting on the ground, wearing all black, with a raggedy beard and scruffy hair. His clothing is oversized, and while he doesn’t look like he owns much, he does still look proud. It is from the Slums section of Mr Close’s “Pray for Kenya” collection.

Photos taken in Bridgeport show long lines of men and women waiting for a hot lunch or dinner. Another photo shows a man at a table, a plate of food in front of him, while his hands are folded in front of him either in prayer or contemplation.

“Using photography and writings I tell the story of mercy and grace in Third World and America poor. This done with the creation of donation books and speaking,” Mr Close explains on his website, RichardClose.com.

“My life is divided between family, the poor, work, and our church,” continues Mr Close, who has remarried and is raising four children with his wife Michele. “Four years ago my life took a dramatic change in losing everything and then working with the domestic and African poor. Using photography and writings, I tell the story of mercy and grace in Third World and America poor. This is done with the creation of donation books and speaking.”

Mr Close has published The Beatitudes and the Way of the Holy Spirit (February 2008), which was a result of his first visit to Africa, where he lived and learned with those who live in the Sons of Thunder Missions; Pray For Kenya, a free download book that came as a result of Mr Close traveling with Vic Rader, executive director of Encouragement, Inc, in November 2007, to churches and orphanages along the western border of Kenya and Uganda; and Inside… the Gospel Rescue Mission, which came out earlier this year and is a 100-page “photographic journey into the hearts of the hungry, homeless and addicted,” says its author.

Bridgeport Rescue Mission feeds the hungry, shelters the homeless, and offers an addiction recovery program. In 2008, BRM provided more than 279,000 meals. By May of this year they had already provided more than 175,000.

“People who once contributed to area food banks are now finding themselves in line for food at Bridgeport Rescue Mission,” said Mr Close, whose new book “challenges one’s core views on poverty, Christianity, welfare, and our relationship with the poor.”

Inside… the Gospel Rescue Mission, he continued, “is filled with first-person accounts and the photos that reach out from the heart of one who was rescued, to those hearts seeking hope and dignity through the Bridgeport Rescue Mission. The book pulls us into a remarkable world of transformation and miracles, only to emerge in deep reflection of our own lives. One walks away from the experience with feelings of gratitude, hope, and the will to ‘do something.’ In an evening’s read, it’s like gaining another life.

“The transformation of the human spirit in a Gospel Rescue Mission, like Bridgeport Rescue Mission, is exceedingly hard work, painful, and amazing to witness,” said Mr Close. “People have no idea of the love in such a place. So I returned to photograph and write about the men and women who both live and work in the missions.”

Each collection of photos is accompanied by Mr Close’s writings, all of which was inspired by his travels, the people he met, and his reaction to their lives. All profits from sales of The Beatitudes and Inside… the Gospel Rescue Mission are given to the missions featured in each book.

Both of Mr Close’s printed books are available through Amazon.com and at Morning Star Christian Book & Music in Danbury; The Beatitudes sells for $19.95, and Inside… the Gospel Rescue Mission is $28.99.

However, Mr Close will be selling copies of Beatitudes for $15 each and Inside… the Gospel Rescue Mission for $20 during the exhibition at The Blue Z. In addition, he will have CDs that have full versions of all three of his project for $10 each at The Blue Z.

“I know things are tight for everybody, so this will make it easier for some people,” he said this week.

Pray For Kenya, photographed in Kenya’s Rift Valley, is available from InsideMission.wordpress.com.

Mr Close spent a lifetime searching for happiness. Over the past six years, he went from being at the top of the world, searching at the feet of top yogis, working for top companies, raised a family, and watched “a very self-centered world that was all about me,” he said. “Finally God found me and stopped my life dead in its track, all the way down to living homeless in a Gospel Rescue Mission.”

Today he consults to missions, is raising a second family, and worships in Brooklyn Tabernacle “with every nation in the world.” He runs webinars on “Best Practices in Healthcare in eLearning” and “Best Practices for Nurse Educators.”

Mr Close is also the CEO of a new group called The Chrysalis Campaign, which provides strategic consulting, learning services, training, and creative services and resources that support poor urban communities in this country and Africa. He donates one-third of his income to the campaign’s mission.

“This is my pay it forward ministry,” Mr Close said this week. “It isn’t important to me to sell the photos. It’s more important to tell their story.”