As we celebrate our freedom as Americans this Memorial Day that was purchased with the lives of many heroes who gladly gave their lives that you and I would truly live, I ask you to consider what you are doing with the freedom that has been passed on to you. Men and women have fought and died to preserve our rights, and because of that, we have a responsibility to excercise those rights as privileges. I am grateful today as I think of the honor of those who died securing for me the opportunity to live as a free man.
I am also grateful today as I consider that the honor in those men was birthed in the character of God, who did not spare His own Son so that we could enjoy eternal freedom. And like our duty as citizens to both reflect and exercise these privileges, we also have a duty as citizens of the Kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That duty is to live out the freedom that He purchased for us with His own blood and to extend those privileges around the world, much like our nation is doing right now.
One of the greatest privileges that we have as freed-men in Christ is that of being able to "boldly approach the throne of grace". Throughout history the courts of kings have been visited by invitation only and if a person attempted to enter their presence without that invitation, they were subject to the penalty of death. We have an open invitation, not into an earthly hall, but into the Presence of the Lord and King of the Universe. And with that invitation our Great God and King has implored us to "Ask and you shall receive . . . seek and you will find".
As your brother and common freed-man, I ask you now to exercise that privilege by approaching the throne of God on behalf of the 42 North Americans that I will be leading on mission to Panama from June 2 (Wed.) until June 10. We are traveling as His ambassadors and if we are to succeed in extending His Kingdom into the hearts of more men and women, boys and girls, it is going to take His Power and Authority. So I am attaching this prayer calendar in hopes that you will take us before the Throne daily and learn the great privilege of Freedom that we have in Christ!
Monday
"Arequippa Training" (Peru - May 2004)
I have just returned from another incredible trip to Peru. This time I was working together with a new staff trainee, Todd Szalkowski. Todd had been on two other GMF trips prior to coming along with me last October to Tacna, Peru. Todd was a successful partner with the Ernst & Young Accounting Firm and had 19 years experience there. However, God grabbed a hold of Todd’s heart and in January of this year, he announced his intention to resign and join the staff of GoLeaders.net/GMF. Last month Todd went with me to Panama for his first staff training trip where I taught most of the conference. This weekend we were in Arequipa together and he did most of the teaching – and he did a great job I might add! My limited teaching role in this conference allowed me the liberty to spend a lot of time with our Peruvian National Director, Juvenal Bejar working on vision and strategy issues.
We had about 40 pastors and lay leaders attending our conference being trained in how to mobilize and equip their members for evangelism and discipleship that results in new churches being planted throughout the city. One part of our training that I have been working on challenges Latin Americans to send missionaries out to the 10/40 Window, which contains the least reached peoples of the world. At the close of the conference I was giving away copies of the Jesus Film that one of my good friends had donated. I had one copy that was a DVD and contained the film in 8 different languages from around the world. I was drawing names from a box and said, “I believe whoever receives this copy is being called by God to take the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth. This gift comes as a great responsibility and the “missionary” that wins it is . . .” When I called out the name of a young man there was a gasp throughout the crowd. The young man buried his face in his hands with tears flowing. As he made his way to the front someone told me that several weeks back this same young man had felt God calling him to be a missionary, but he had been waiting for confirmation! God used this to confirm that he was to move forward in preparing to be sent out to the ends of the earth. After this the crowd of attendees broke into a spontaneous worship celebration. We had been teaching for 10 hours at that point. Most would be fatigued and ready to go home, but not these people. They were just getting started and it was wonderful to join in with them in worshipping our Great God and King.
On Sunday afternoon we were back in the capital city of Lima and were traveling in a taxi on our way to lunch. The taxi driver was listening in so I decided to ask him if he knew this “Jesus” we were talking about. He replied that he did not know Jesus in a personal way, and so I began to share the gospel with him. After several questions, Hector told me that we were about 3 minutes from our destination and he did not want to run out of time so he asked me to please quickly share with him how Jesus had changed my life. So in about 2 minutes I shared my testimony and then asked Hector if he would like to experience God’s forgiveness and follow Jesus. As we approached our stop, Hector was praying to receive Christ and when we hopped out onto the busy street, Hector was glowing with joy at his newfound faith.
God revealed His goodness to me in so many ways on this trip and I want to thank you for being a part. When you faithfully pray and give, you are investing in the lives of others you may never meet this side of heaven. God is using YOU to see leaders equipped, missionaries called out, and lives changed through the power of the gospel! Thank you for your faithfulness . . . it means the world to me AND to many others you may never know.
We had about 40 pastors and lay leaders attending our conference being trained in how to mobilize and equip their members for evangelism and discipleship that results in new churches being planted throughout the city. One part of our training that I have been working on challenges Latin Americans to send missionaries out to the 10/40 Window, which contains the least reached peoples of the world. At the close of the conference I was giving away copies of the Jesus Film that one of my good friends had donated. I had one copy that was a DVD and contained the film in 8 different languages from around the world. I was drawing names from a box and said, “I believe whoever receives this copy is being called by God to take the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth. This gift comes as a great responsibility and the “missionary” that wins it is . . .” When I called out the name of a young man there was a gasp throughout the crowd. The young man buried his face in his hands with tears flowing. As he made his way to the front someone told me that several weeks back this same young man had felt God calling him to be a missionary, but he had been waiting for confirmation! God used this to confirm that he was to move forward in preparing to be sent out to the ends of the earth. After this the crowd of attendees broke into a spontaneous worship celebration. We had been teaching for 10 hours at that point. Most would be fatigued and ready to go home, but not these people. They were just getting started and it was wonderful to join in with them in worshipping our Great God and King.
On Sunday afternoon we were back in the capital city of Lima and were traveling in a taxi on our way to lunch. The taxi driver was listening in so I decided to ask him if he knew this “Jesus” we were talking about. He replied that he did not know Jesus in a personal way, and so I began to share the gospel with him. After several questions, Hector told me that we were about 3 minutes from our destination and he did not want to run out of time so he asked me to please quickly share with him how Jesus had changed my life. So in about 2 minutes I shared my testimony and then asked Hector if he would like to experience God’s forgiveness and follow Jesus. As we approached our stop, Hector was praying to receive Christ and when we hopped out onto the busy street, Hector was glowing with joy at his newfound faith.
God revealed His goodness to me in so many ways on this trip and I want to thank you for being a part. When you faithfully pray and give, you are investing in the lives of others you may never meet this side of heaven. God is using YOU to see leaders equipped, missionaries called out, and lives changed through the power of the gospel! Thank you for your faithfulness . . . it means the world to me AND to many others you may never know.
"Reunited in Panama" (Panama - April 2004)
Thank you for taking the time to pray for me as I traveled to Panama to conduct a Church Planting Leadership Development Conference. It was an incredible trip and the Lord blessed in many ways.
I left home at 5 a.m. and arrived in Panama City, Panama at 3:30 where we quickly boarded a public bus and traveled to the city of David, arriving at our hotel at 10:30 p.m. As you can imagine, I was exhausted and wondering how I would be able to function for the two day conference that I was supposed to lead.
We woke up the next morning and made our way to the conference site not sure how many people would actually attend. Upon our arrival I was utterly humbled and my leisurely travel the day prior was placed into perspective. I was introduced to one pastor, Eusebio, who had traveled 3 days by bus all the way from El Salvador! He was 67 years old and I would soon learn that he had the strength of an ox and the vision of the Apostle Paul for planting churches. There was also Johnny who traveled from Costa Rica after an English-speaking translator returned to his church with a report of all that God was doing through Global Missions Fellowship in Panama. By the end of the weekend Johnny was in tears of repentance crying out that God would use him to plant churches. Then there was a group of about 25 Guaymi Indians that had walked some 8-10 hours through the mountains to come and participate – one of the ladies was even pregnant! By this time I had stopped grumbling about the coach flight and air-conditioned bus that I had to ride in. In all there were nearly 70 leaders in attendance for this conference.
But one of the conference participants stood out above all the rest. Back in 1996 I came to this area on my first ever mission trip. Little did I know that my participation in that trip was in response to the prayers of a woman that I had never met. Her name is "Itzel" and she lives in a tiny village in North Western Panama called "Tejeras". Itzel's village had no evangelical church and she had to travel over an hour to a larger city to attend worship. Itzel had begun to pray as Jesus instructed in Matthew 9:38 - "Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest." Back in ’96 I became the answer to Itzel's simple prayer! When I arrived in Panama, I invested several days training Itzel and a few others in how to share the gospel and going door to door through her village. By the end of that week over 70 people had made professions of faith and Itzel's prayer for an evangelical church in her own village had been answered! On that last day with Itzel I had left her with a modest gift of about $40 to help cover her expenses in hosting us for the week. I left Tejeras and traveled back to the city of David where the host churches had planned a celebration service in honor of the missionaries who had come to help them start new churches. I remember kneeling at the altar that night as many came by to pray over me - most of the voices I did not recognize. But then I felt a tear drop fall down onto my neck and I heard a familiar voice . . . it was Itzel along with many of those who had accepted Christ in her village. They had used the money that I left with them to rent a van and come to thank me once again for helping them! As you can imagine, I left the country of Panama changed once again by a "Divine opportunity" that God had placed before me.
Now here I stood in San Felix, Panama eight years later and to my amazement, Itzel was there at the conference! As we saw one another we embraced and cried out praising God for how He had used us to touch one another’s lives back in 1996. I learned that the little church planted in Tejeras had planted another church in a neighboring village. And now Itzel had come to learn how to keep that vision growing by planting even more churches!
The conference went great. Everyone was blessed by the biblical instruction and practical application that I challenged them with. At the end of the conference we challenged the participants to take the materials we provided and reproduce the conference for people under their influence. The result is that the 70 people there committed to train over 500 others in how to do evangelism and discipleship in a way that starts new churches! As I read Itzel’s commitment I was overwhelmed to see that she had committed to train 100 people herself. And I thought to myself, “What if I had missed that opportunity back in 1996? What if I had missed this opportunity to be here today?” There were obstacles back then and new obstacles today, but when faith becomes sight I can only thank God for the grace that brought me to this point.
And I praise God for you . . . the people that have been a significant part of our growth in ministry through your prayers, financial contributions, and encouragement. And Itzel wanted me to give you a message from the church in Tejeras. They thank you for what you have done to change their lives. And although you may never meet Itzel this side of heaven, I am quite confident that she will greet you on the other side and she’ll have hundreds, if not thousands, that she has brought along with her!
The Rest of the Story . . .
After that first night of the LDC several of us men decided to drive over to the Pacific beach and sleep out under the stars. It was an incredible night listening to the waves crash 30 yards away and looking up in wonder at more stars than I had ever seen in my life. All I could think of is God’s promise to Abram that he would make his descendants as numerous as the stars – wow, what a promise! And there I lay on a beach in Panama looking up at those same stars
working to see that promise come to fruition through the Great Commission.
When the conference came to a close we headed up into the Guaymi Indian Reservation to meet with leaders there and select the sites where we will bring our team in June. The ride up over the mountains was unlike any I have ever taken. It was 4x4 the entire trip with us three “gringos” and about 15 others piled into the back of an old LandCruiser truck. From the outset we had to choose our rut carefully because we would be spending the next 4 hours in it! By the time we arrived in Cuernavaca, it was already dark. We hiked into the village by flashlight (no electricity up there) and set up camp in the small tin church that a team had constructed last year. The wind was fierce, blowing at about 40 mph but we squatted in a little stick hut with the beautiful Guaymi believers and looked on as they cooked our oatmeal supper over a small fire.
The next day we hiked and drove through several other villages greeting the small congregations along the way. The Guaymi are descendents of the Mayas and most worship spirits and ancestors. So these small churches are working to push back that darkness. Many of the pastors/leaders that attended the conference accompanied us through the day. In one village called “Escopeta”, there is no existing church. We visited with the “Chief” there and I shared the gospel with him. He did not receive Christ, but he did give us permission to bring a team there to work in June. We were so blessed to work alongside these modern-day Guaymi “apostles” who are carrying the gospel to places where it has never before been preached. Even though most of their congregations have fewer than 20 adults, they, like the church in Antioch, were praying and sending out missionaries to take the gospel deeper into the mountainous reservation. What a blessing and privilege it is to be a part of what God is doing among the Guaymi. Please pray for them that they would be strong and courageous and that the word of God would spread through them and churches be planted in every village!
I left home at 5 a.m. and arrived in Panama City, Panama at 3:30 where we quickly boarded a public bus and traveled to the city of David, arriving at our hotel at 10:30 p.m. As you can imagine, I was exhausted and wondering how I would be able to function for the two day conference that I was supposed to lead.
We woke up the next morning and made our way to the conference site not sure how many people would actually attend. Upon our arrival I was utterly humbled and my leisurely travel the day prior was placed into perspective. I was introduced to one pastor, Eusebio, who had traveled 3 days by bus all the way from El Salvador! He was 67 years old and I would soon learn that he had the strength of an ox and the vision of the Apostle Paul for planting churches. There was also Johnny who traveled from Costa Rica after an English-speaking translator returned to his church with a report of all that God was doing through Global Missions Fellowship in Panama. By the end of the weekend Johnny was in tears of repentance crying out that God would use him to plant churches. Then there was a group of about 25 Guaymi Indians that had walked some 8-10 hours through the mountains to come and participate – one of the ladies was even pregnant! By this time I had stopped grumbling about the coach flight and air-conditioned bus that I had to ride in. In all there were nearly 70 leaders in attendance for this conference.
But one of the conference participants stood out above all the rest. Back in 1996 I came to this area on my first ever mission trip. Little did I know that my participation in that trip was in response to the prayers of a woman that I had never met. Her name is "Itzel" and she lives in a tiny village in North Western Panama called "Tejeras". Itzel's village had no evangelical church and she had to travel over an hour to a larger city to attend worship. Itzel had begun to pray as Jesus instructed in Matthew 9:38 - "Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest." Back in ’96 I became the answer to Itzel's simple prayer! When I arrived in Panama, I invested several days training Itzel and a few others in how to share the gospel and going door to door through her village. By the end of that week over 70 people had made professions of faith and Itzel's prayer for an evangelical church in her own village had been answered! On that last day with Itzel I had left her with a modest gift of about $40 to help cover her expenses in hosting us for the week. I left Tejeras and traveled back to the city of David where the host churches had planned a celebration service in honor of the missionaries who had come to help them start new churches. I remember kneeling at the altar that night as many came by to pray over me - most of the voices I did not recognize. But then I felt a tear drop fall down onto my neck and I heard a familiar voice . . . it was Itzel along with many of those who had accepted Christ in her village. They had used the money that I left with them to rent a van and come to thank me once again for helping them! As you can imagine, I left the country of Panama changed once again by a "Divine opportunity" that God had placed before me.
Now here I stood in San Felix, Panama eight years later and to my amazement, Itzel was there at the conference! As we saw one another we embraced and cried out praising God for how He had used us to touch one another’s lives back in 1996. I learned that the little church planted in Tejeras had planted another church in a neighboring village. And now Itzel had come to learn how to keep that vision growing by planting even more churches!
The conference went great. Everyone was blessed by the biblical instruction and practical application that I challenged them with. At the end of the conference we challenged the participants to take the materials we provided and reproduce the conference for people under their influence. The result is that the 70 people there committed to train over 500 others in how to do evangelism and discipleship in a way that starts new churches! As I read Itzel’s commitment I was overwhelmed to see that she had committed to train 100 people herself. And I thought to myself, “What if I had missed that opportunity back in 1996? What if I had missed this opportunity to be here today?” There were obstacles back then and new obstacles today, but when faith becomes sight I can only thank God for the grace that brought me to this point.
And I praise God for you . . . the people that have been a significant part of our growth in ministry through your prayers, financial contributions, and encouragement. And Itzel wanted me to give you a message from the church in Tejeras. They thank you for what you have done to change their lives. And although you may never meet Itzel this side of heaven, I am quite confident that she will greet you on the other side and she’ll have hundreds, if not thousands, that she has brought along with her!
The Rest of the Story . . .
After that first night of the LDC several of us men decided to drive over to the Pacific beach and sleep out under the stars. It was an incredible night listening to the waves crash 30 yards away and looking up in wonder at more stars than I had ever seen in my life. All I could think of is God’s promise to Abram that he would make his descendants as numerous as the stars – wow, what a promise! And there I lay on a beach in Panama looking up at those same stars
working to see that promise come to fruition through the Great Commission.
When the conference came to a close we headed up into the Guaymi Indian Reservation to meet with leaders there and select the sites where we will bring our team in June. The ride up over the mountains was unlike any I have ever taken. It was 4x4 the entire trip with us three “gringos” and about 15 others piled into the back of an old LandCruiser truck. From the outset we had to choose our rut carefully because we would be spending the next 4 hours in it! By the time we arrived in Cuernavaca, it was already dark. We hiked into the village by flashlight (no electricity up there) and set up camp in the small tin church that a team had constructed last year. The wind was fierce, blowing at about 40 mph but we squatted in a little stick hut with the beautiful Guaymi believers and looked on as they cooked our oatmeal supper over a small fire.
The next day we hiked and drove through several other villages greeting the small congregations along the way. The Guaymi are descendents of the Mayas and most worship spirits and ancestors. So these small churches are working to push back that darkness. Many of the pastors/leaders that attended the conference accompanied us through the day. In one village called “Escopeta”, there is no existing church. We visited with the “Chief” there and I shared the gospel with him. He did not receive Christ, but he did give us permission to bring a team there to work in June. We were so blessed to work alongside these modern-day Guaymi “apostles” who are carrying the gospel to places where it has never before been preached. Even though most of their congregations have fewer than 20 adults, they, like the church in Antioch, were praying and sending out missionaries to take the gospel deeper into the mountainous reservation. What a blessing and privilege it is to be a part of what God is doing among the Guaymi. Please pray for them that they would be strong and courageous and that the word of God would spread through them and churches be planted in every village!
"Divine Inconveniences" (Peru - April 10, 2005)
buenas dias from the city of lima where kevin queen and i got to add a day onto our trip. more on that later.
first, friday night was a HUGE blessing as we held the community wide rally where we had been working all week. when we arrived in the late afternoon there were already about 300 waiting before we set up. by the end of the night there were over 1000 people standing in a dirt parking lot, some hearing the gospel for the first time. the youth from crossroads did an outstanding job . . . they put together a rock band and played worship songs, they did drama, they did a childrens program. it was amazing to see each member of the team using their gifts to honor God. Kevin preached in an environment that was much like what Jesus must have experienced with the crowds of people in his day. we are not sure how many people came to faith in Christ that night but we do know that over 350 professions of faith were made in personal encounters throughout the week. nearly half of those received at least one follow up discipleship visit. many of those people were at the rally on friday.
saturday was a great time of sharing and shopping. we got to the airport in plenty of time and all seemed to be going smoothly. our team boarded the plane and as kevin and i sat talking on the plane the stewardess approached us and asked kevin if he had an infectious disease called shingles. he had been feeling rough the last few days and had a rash, as well as plenty of bug bites. when he told her he was not sure, she called the captain and he ordered kevin off of the plane. i have heard of becoming a contagious christian, but this is not what we bargained for! we were in shock as there was no opportunity for discussion or explanation at all. i jumped up and handed the mantle to diane, my coleader and kevin and i made our way off of the plane. the youth were upset to see their leader being taken off, but those guys know how to pray so they took it to God. as we stood at the gate trying to find out what our options were, God sent us an answer to the kids prayers in a man named Carlos. he was the customer service guy and he immediately acknowledged that the way things were handled on the plane was not good. so he started to go to work for us, finding options, a hotel, and all the info we need to get on the next flight. because the captain red flagged kev he had to get a medical authorization to fly so after getting to the hotel and having a couple of hours of sleep, we got up this a.m. and went to breakfast. there we met an aussie named todd that we got to share our testimonies with and pray with. God has reasons for everything that are sometimes beyond our sight. after eating we went to a clinic where the doctor immediately told us this was no infectious disease, but instead was salmonella. the doc was super helpful too and gave kev the meds he needed to clear it up and a certificate to fly.
so we are getting ready now to head back to the airport and make our way home. hopefully you wont get another e-mail from lima tomorrow . . . pray that we get home to our families and that we have more opportunities to share, like with our person of peace at the airport, carlos, who is meeting us there tonight and walking us through everything.
often times divine opportunities are cloaked in the disguise of an inconvenience. and if we lose sight of who is in control of ALL THINGS we will miss blessings untold. so today has been a great day . . . not what we expected, but great none the less. kev and i have had some wonderful talks and walks and we are looking for the next step in this journey that our loving Rabbi will take us on. may we be covered in His dust with a smile on our faces.
first, friday night was a HUGE blessing as we held the community wide rally where we had been working all week. when we arrived in the late afternoon there were already about 300 waiting before we set up. by the end of the night there were over 1000 people standing in a dirt parking lot, some hearing the gospel for the first time. the youth from crossroads did an outstanding job . . . they put together a rock band and played worship songs, they did drama, they did a childrens program. it was amazing to see each member of the team using their gifts to honor God. Kevin preached in an environment that was much like what Jesus must have experienced with the crowds of people in his day. we are not sure how many people came to faith in Christ that night but we do know that over 350 professions of faith were made in personal encounters throughout the week. nearly half of those received at least one follow up discipleship visit. many of those people were at the rally on friday.
saturday was a great time of sharing and shopping. we got to the airport in plenty of time and all seemed to be going smoothly. our team boarded the plane and as kevin and i sat talking on the plane the stewardess approached us and asked kevin if he had an infectious disease called shingles. he had been feeling rough the last few days and had a rash, as well as plenty of bug bites. when he told her he was not sure, she called the captain and he ordered kevin off of the plane. i have heard of becoming a contagious christian, but this is not what we bargained for! we were in shock as there was no opportunity for discussion or explanation at all. i jumped up and handed the mantle to diane, my coleader and kevin and i made our way off of the plane. the youth were upset to see their leader being taken off, but those guys know how to pray so they took it to God. as we stood at the gate trying to find out what our options were, God sent us an answer to the kids prayers in a man named Carlos. he was the customer service guy and he immediately acknowledged that the way things were handled on the plane was not good. so he started to go to work for us, finding options, a hotel, and all the info we need to get on the next flight. because the captain red flagged kev he had to get a medical authorization to fly so after getting to the hotel and having a couple of hours of sleep, we got up this a.m. and went to breakfast. there we met an aussie named todd that we got to share our testimonies with and pray with. God has reasons for everything that are sometimes beyond our sight. after eating we went to a clinic where the doctor immediately told us this was no infectious disease, but instead was salmonella. the doc was super helpful too and gave kev the meds he needed to clear it up and a certificate to fly.
so we are getting ready now to head back to the airport and make our way home. hopefully you wont get another e-mail from lima tomorrow . . . pray that we get home to our families and that we have more opportunities to share, like with our person of peace at the airport, carlos, who is meeting us there tonight and walking us through everything.
often times divine opportunities are cloaked in the disguise of an inconvenience. and if we lose sight of who is in control of ALL THINGS we will miss blessings untold. so today has been a great day . . . not what we expected, but great none the less. kev and i have had some wonderful talks and walks and we are looking for the next step in this journey that our loving Rabbi will take us on. may we be covered in His dust with a smile on our faces.
"End of the Week" (Peru - April 7, 2005)
The LORD is continuing to do immeasurable more than we could hope or ask for. As of Wednesday evening we have had 300 professions of faith solely from personal evangelism and half of those have received in home follow up or come to a discipleship class at the church or home of a believer. We are partnering with 8 local churches helping to plant 6 new works. Please pray that these 6 new churches be established in the faith.
Here are a few highlights from yesterday . . .
One team was doing childrens ministry in the afternoon and they asked the children to go and bring their parents back. In a few minutes a group of mothers showed up and one of our youth girls led all those mothers to faith in Christ having gained their favor through loving the children.
One of our youth had swollen feet from all the walking and when she was at a new believers house doing discipleship that she had led to Christ the day before, the new believer asked if she could wash our students feet. The student wept as the older woman as a babe in Christ washed and rubbed her dirty swollen feet!
In another area 3 generations came to Christ together as one of our youth helped lead a grandmother, mother and granddaughter all to faith in Christ!
This and more happened as our focus was on discipleship. God provided these opportunities to continue to bring new believers into the Kingdom because our people were being faithful at following up what was already given. The WORD says that if we are faithful with what we have, we will be given more. Praise God for His provision.
Pray for stamina as were nearing the end of the week and for Gods favor on the Community Rally tomorrow. Also tonight we are showing the passion in the street at one church.
God is growing His church and were glad you are a part of that!
Here are a few highlights from yesterday . . .
One team was doing childrens ministry in the afternoon and they asked the children to go and bring their parents back. In a few minutes a group of mothers showed up and one of our youth girls led all those mothers to faith in Christ having gained their favor through loving the children.
One of our youth had swollen feet from all the walking and when she was at a new believers house doing discipleship that she had led to Christ the day before, the new believer asked if she could wash our students feet. The student wept as the older woman as a babe in Christ washed and rubbed her dirty swollen feet!
In another area 3 generations came to Christ together as one of our youth helped lead a grandmother, mother and granddaughter all to faith in Christ!
This and more happened as our focus was on discipleship. God provided these opportunities to continue to bring new believers into the Kingdom because our people were being faithful at following up what was already given. The WORD says that if we are faithful with what we have, we will be given more. Praise God for His provision.
Pray for stamina as were nearing the end of the week and for Gods favor on the Community Rally tomorrow. Also tonight we are showing the passion in the street at one church.
God is growing His church and were glad you are a part of that!
"Crossroads mid-week Update" (Peru - April 6, 2005)
WOW! You must really be praying because Ive never seen such an anointing on a trip as this one. This morning as we were having our devotion the Holy Spirit was so manifested that the entire team was on our faces worshipping and laying our lives before the LORD. We are confident that He has called us to something so far beyond what we are capable, that unless He intervenes we could not do it. And so we laid ourselves before Him in submission and He showed up!
Let me give you just a glimpse of whats been happening. On Monday and Tuesday alone we had over 250 professions of faith through personal evangelism! Many of these have begun discipleship already and today we are shifting our focus almost exclusively to following those new believers up and establishing them in the faith. A few stories . . .
One team yesterday was following up a new believer and his parents were in the house. When asked if they were believers they responded, maybe one day we will be. At this our team shared the gospel with them and then helped the new believer lead his own parents to faith in Christ!
In another location our team came upon a women{s sewing group in a house. Many of the women had already received visits in their homes but had not received Christ. When our team asked to pray over them and their babies the mothers started asking how they could know the peace that our team displayed. One of our young men shared the gospel and all 12 mothers prayed to receive Christ and will likely start a bible study out of a sewing group!
In the evening one group went around and invited many new believers in their area to a bible study and 15 showed up with their children. They had a wonderful time investing in those new believers lives.
There are MANY more stories I dont have time to share. I do want to ask that you be praying as our teams do follow up today and tomorrow. Then on Friday our team is going to do a community wide rally in a park. The Crossroads Band is playing, our youth are joining Peruvian youth to do a drama, and we will have a childrens program as well. This will take place from 4 til 8 pm on Friday so please pray. We expect hundreds or more to come to this as we are distributing tickets through the area.
The Spirit of the LORD is upon us and He has anointed us to preach the good news to the poor . ..
Let me give you just a glimpse of whats been happening. On Monday and Tuesday alone we had over 250 professions of faith through personal evangelism! Many of these have begun discipleship already and today we are shifting our focus almost exclusively to following those new believers up and establishing them in the faith. A few stories . . .
One team yesterday was following up a new believer and his parents were in the house. When asked if they were believers they responded, maybe one day we will be. At this our team shared the gospel with them and then helped the new believer lead his own parents to faith in Christ!
In another location our team came upon a women{s sewing group in a house. Many of the women had already received visits in their homes but had not received Christ. When our team asked to pray over them and their babies the mothers started asking how they could know the peace that our team displayed. One of our young men shared the gospel and all 12 mothers prayed to receive Christ and will likely start a bible study out of a sewing group!
In the evening one group went around and invited many new believers in their area to a bible study and 15 showed up with their children. They had a wonderful time investing in those new believers lives.
There are MANY more stories I dont have time to share. I do want to ask that you be praying as our teams do follow up today and tomorrow. Then on Friday our team is going to do a community wide rally in a park. The Crossroads Band is playing, our youth are joining Peruvian youth to do a drama, and we will have a childrens program as well. This will take place from 4 til 8 pm on Friday so please pray. We expect hundreds or more to come to this as we are distributing tickets through the area.
The Spirit of the LORD is upon us and He has anointed us to preach the good news to the poor . ..
"I Once Was Blind" (Peru - April 5, 2005)
God continues to move in amazing ways among us. on monday the teams went out for the entire day to work with their respective churches. here are just a few highlights . . . one team is at the top of the mountain working among the poorest of the poor. as i was driving up to check on them there must have been 100 children surrounding the youth. upon arrival we learned that when they showed up the community was so excited about the visitors that they started coming to the home where the future church will be planted. the team hardly went house to house because they were bombarded by whole families that wanted to receive Christ! In all they saw over 30 adults come to Christ and were able to minister to their children as well!
when i arrived to check on another team one of the youth was leading a husband, wife and their 3 children to faith in Christ. with joy this family was changed in an instant!
many of the students have said that this is the first time they have ever led someone to Christ and in a single day they saw as many as a dozen come to faith! What a blessing to hear the reports and to see the joy on their faces. last night they shared that after just one day, they are already thinking about ways to be more bold in their witness back home. watch out Atlanta!
Finally i want to share with you a story of a man that i was able to share with. as i sat on the bus waiting for a team a 70 year old man just got on the bus thinking that it was a public transport. when he sat down he looked around and asked what all the gringos are doing here. i started to share with him. immediately he told us of a dream that he had where he was walking over a mountain and saw a single staircase leading up into heaven. when he climbed the staircase he could see God from a distance and God was asking him why he was not worshipping on his knees and that he needed to draw near to God and worship. As I shared the evangecube with him the old man realized that Jesus is the ONLY WAY to heaven and that through a relationship with CHrist he can draw near to God and worship. He placed his faith in Christ with tears in his eyes and afterward shook everyones hand on the bus in gratitude for the hope that he received. one of the local church leaders met with him and they arranged a time for discipleship in the mans home. thats just the kind of trip we are having ... God seems to be sending people to us faster than we can get out to them!
keep praying! God is using your prayers. For all you Crossroads folks, youre team is doing a FANTASTIC job. everyone is healthy and secure.
when i arrived to check on another team one of the youth was leading a husband, wife and their 3 children to faith in Christ. with joy this family was changed in an instant!
many of the students have said that this is the first time they have ever led someone to Christ and in a single day they saw as many as a dozen come to faith! What a blessing to hear the reports and to see the joy on their faces. last night they shared that after just one day, they are already thinking about ways to be more bold in their witness back home. watch out Atlanta!
Finally i want to share with you a story of a man that i was able to share with. as i sat on the bus waiting for a team a 70 year old man just got on the bus thinking that it was a public transport. when he sat down he looked around and asked what all the gringos are doing here. i started to share with him. immediately he told us of a dream that he had where he was walking over a mountain and saw a single staircase leading up into heaven. when he climbed the staircase he could see God from a distance and God was asking him why he was not worshipping on his knees and that he needed to draw near to God and worship. As I shared the evangecube with him the old man realized that Jesus is the ONLY WAY to heaven and that through a relationship with CHrist he can draw near to God and worship. He placed his faith in Christ with tears in his eyes and afterward shook everyones hand on the bus in gratitude for the hope that he received. one of the local church leaders met with him and they arranged a time for discipleship in the mans home. thats just the kind of trip we are having ... God seems to be sending people to us faster than we can get out to them!
keep praying! God is using your prayers. For all you Crossroads folks, youre team is doing a FANTASTIC job. everyone is healthy and secure.
"Crossroads Youth Headed to Peru" (Peru - April 3, 2005)
Thanks for your prayers over the last 24 hours. They have been a challenging blessing. Let me explain ... first the airport shuttle service arrived late to pick us up but I just so happened to recognize that the driver was Pakistani and from Ibad where i used to live. As we talked he was open to spiritual things so I shared the gospel with him using a method i developed recently. he was extremely interested and when he dropped us off he asked me to pray for him in the name of Jesus the Healer. I got his info and will follow up when Im back.
We got inside the airport and the wait was FIVE HOURS! We were 3 hours early but a Delta agent slipped our group of 26 into the first class line and we were through in about an hour . . . blessing number 2.
We got to the gate and realized that the flight was overbooked and our travel dept had not reserved seats . . . not happy, but we trusted. We had 14 waitlisted and waited prayerfully and patiently til only 2 were left . . . my co'leader and one other. 5 minutes before scheduled departure we prayed as a group asking God for 2 more seats and immediately 2 Peruvians volunteered to give us there seats! When we got on board, 5 of us including me were seated in FIRST CLASS! Blessing number 3.
THe guy behind me is the attorney for the 49'ers and is on his way to meet the owner here in Peru. After sharing with him he told me he had no purpose or passion in life and would give anything to go back and trade his lonely high life for what I have in Christ. I shared the gospel with him and although he did not receive Christ at the time he asked me to come to SF on his dime and share with him more next time on my way to Portland for my doctoral class. Blessing number 4!
Today we met with the 7 host churches and worshipped with their leaders. The team was overwhelmed at the poverty and yet the rich faith these people have. While our service was going on 2people walked in from the street and said they needed what we have. Pastor Juvenal led them to faith in Christ right there on the spot! If thats not enough a blind brother came up and asked me to pray for him. I felt led to call the whole group around . . . 16 h.s. students and 10 adults, and we laid hands on him and prayed in tears that God would both heal and provide. At the end we sang amazing grace ... was blind but now i see took on a whole new meaning. the man was not immediately healed but i can say that many on our team were healed of spiritual blindness and there was not a dry eye in the place.
we spent this afternoon on the beach ... not what you{ve got in mind as its quite dirty, but nevertheless its been good rest and wind down time for the team before we start working tomorrow. continue to pray that God would keep making a way where we dont see it and do great and mighty things for his glory. the team is all healthy, here and in good spirits. thanks for your prayers . . . were excited to report to you the rest of the week!
We got inside the airport and the wait was FIVE HOURS! We were 3 hours early but a Delta agent slipped our group of 26 into the first class line and we were through in about an hour . . . blessing number 2.
We got to the gate and realized that the flight was overbooked and our travel dept had not reserved seats . . . not happy, but we trusted. We had 14 waitlisted and waited prayerfully and patiently til only 2 were left . . . my co'leader and one other. 5 minutes before scheduled departure we prayed as a group asking God for 2 more seats and immediately 2 Peruvians volunteered to give us there seats! When we got on board, 5 of us including me were seated in FIRST CLASS! Blessing number 3.
THe guy behind me is the attorney for the 49'ers and is on his way to meet the owner here in Peru. After sharing with him he told me he had no purpose or passion in life and would give anything to go back and trade his lonely high life for what I have in Christ. I shared the gospel with him and although he did not receive Christ at the time he asked me to come to SF on his dime and share with him more next time on my way to Portland for my doctoral class. Blessing number 4!
Today we met with the 7 host churches and worshipped with their leaders. The team was overwhelmed at the poverty and yet the rich faith these people have. While our service was going on 2people walked in from the street and said they needed what we have. Pastor Juvenal led them to faith in Christ right there on the spot! If thats not enough a blind brother came up and asked me to pray for him. I felt led to call the whole group around . . . 16 h.s. students and 10 adults, and we laid hands on him and prayed in tears that God would both heal and provide. At the end we sang amazing grace ... was blind but now i see took on a whole new meaning. the man was not immediately healed but i can say that many on our team were healed of spiritual blindness and there was not a dry eye in the place.
we spent this afternoon on the beach ... not what you{ve got in mind as its quite dirty, but nevertheless its been good rest and wind down time for the team before we start working tomorrow. continue to pray that God would keep making a way where we dont see it and do great and mighty things for his glory. the team is all healthy, here and in good spirits. thanks for your prayers . . . were excited to report to you the rest of the week!
"Bibles, Baptism and Beautiful Feet" (South Asia - November 2, 2005)
Please do not distribute this or share details from this where those in the Muslim community could learn of the work. Doing so could endanger us, our national friends and the work that God is doing there.
Last week I traveled with 11 other North American believers back to a Muslim-dominated South Asian country. We divided our group into three teams: Training, City and Rural. Following are the highlights from each team’s experiences.
We started the week conducting a discipleship and church planting seminar in the southern part of the country where the movement is still in its early stages and leaders are very young in the faith. When we arrived at the training center we were greeted by 25 people, only 21 of which were registered. The other 4 had been invited by other participants and had only recently begun to believe in Jesus. My best friend and co-laborer, Pat Powell and I were teaching through the curriculum that I have been helping to develop this year. Central to the church planting training is the command to make disciples who understand and obey the commands of Christ. I have adapted a tool that a professor of mine had developed called “The 7 Basic Commands of Jesus”: repent and believe to receive the Holy Spirit, be baptized, worship and celebrate the Lord’s Supper, love God and others, pray and engage in spiritual warfare, give generously, and make disciples of others by reproducing what you’ve learned. So we taught a session on each of these commands and then watched God move mightily. I asked the participants to create a way to remember the commands and to my surprise they wrote a song and made up hand motions which we used at the beginning of each session thereafter.
After the first session I felt God impressing on me to make sure that all of the participants understood what it means to repent and trust that Jesus is our substitute making us righteous in God’s sight. One of the unregistered attendees stood and said that he had never understood that but that he now wanted to surrender his life to Jesus. The other 3 followed his lead and before I knew it we were sitting around a table coaching the national leaders as these 4 former Muslims placed their faith in Christ alone for salvation. The most amazing thing is that our first session the next morning was on baptism and the leaders decided that we should start the day with an early morning baptism in the pond adjacent to the training center! It was such an amazing thing to see these new converts boldly declaring their faith in Jesus by being baptized in public as Muslims passed by on the nearby path. Each subsequent session was equally moving – especially when I taught on prayer and the leaders decided to gather around me and pray for my ministry and for my mother-in-law Susan in her battle against cancer. We had no sooner completed the one training commissioning those leaders to go and reproduce what they had learned when we had to depart and go do the same thing with a group of leaders whom I had worked with in 2004 up in the northern part of the country.
After a full day’s journey in a cramped van we arrived for the second training and I was blessed to see so many familiar faces of those amazing men I had done an initial training with last year by teaching through Acts 1-10 and challenging them to plant new churches in unreached areas. An initial survey upon my arrival revealed that the 20 leaders had 32 churches at the time of my training last year which had now multiplied to become 67 churches with literally hundreds of new believers! I was so blessed to learn that they had taken what I taught them last year back and trained their groups and then followed up on many of the areas where we’d distributed Scripture portions, which is where the new believers and churches emerged.
There were several highlights to this second seminar. One came when we were teaching on baptism and a younger leader stood up and exclaimed, “I’m confused. My leader has told me that new believers need to wait to be baptized until they’ve proven themselves, but what you’re teaching from God’s word seems to say that believers should be baptized immediately without unnecessary delay. Which authority do I follow?” After collaboration we decided that in order to keep the senior leader from losing face that we would ask forgiveness for our predecessors teaching something contrary to God’s revealed word. At that the senior leader stood up and looked at the younger leader whom he had been discipling and said, “Young man, you have heard the truth from God’s word. That alone is your authority. You obey God!” Immediately the crowd of leaders burst into applause and excitement that they could now go back and baptize so many whom they had previously told to wait. Pat and I sat back in amazement as they were developing a theology based solely upon the authority of God’s word! Another moving moment came after the session on giving where Pat had taught, but because we were running short on time we cut out the activity at the end. One small man who I imagine looks something like Zaccheus jumped to his feet with several Taka (currency) thrust up into the air and proclaimed, “Wait a minute! I want a chance to give! Every session we’ve had the opportunity to practice what we learned. Where’s my opportunity to give?” We sat in awe as these men who make less than $350 a year placed their money into a box to meet needs both within the community of believers as well as to fund outreach to Muslims. We finished the training with our activity displaying how we are to love as the local missionary and I called the leaders forward and washed their feet. One of the first men tried to pull us off the floor and put us in the chair but we persisted and as his beautifully calloused feet were covered with water his tears poured forth. Some of the leaders after having their feet washed buried their faces in their hands wailing and weeping that their teacher would become their servant. My friend told them, “As I have washed your feet and loved you, so you should do the same to others.” After we had finished they placed us in the chair and washed our feet – and we wept with them! As we departed from there the leaders affirmed that once again they would take what they had learned and teach the hundreds in their churches releasing them to go and plant more churches among the unreached. As soon as I got home I had an e-mail waiting on me that my translator and dear friend had already trained the leaders of the 18 churches that he supervises and they were excited to multiply the training through their ranks.
As for the Rural Team which was led by Rick Camp, they did bible distribution and personal evangelism in mosques, Muslim schools and even in an Al-Quaida member’s home! Everywhere they went they prayed with people and gave them copies of God’s word trusting that the national believers would follow up and see a harvest.
Following is an amazing story that comes from one of the members of the City Team:
“We were walking through a housing colony in the capital, we had been in there for awhile and were getting ready to leave. As we were entering the gates our translator said that we should turn down a path. We did so and as soon as we got a little way down the road, our translator noticed someone watching me from above. I stopped and said "Hello", she then immediatly invited us up. Her home was small, but very warm and inviting. We knew instantly that we had found a person of peace (Luke 10). After chatting about our families for 10 minutes she told us that we were not just guests in her home, but her children. It was then about 3 p.m. and she asked if we would join her family for Iftar (the first meal at the end of the Ramadan Fast day). After some debating we accepted. We spent the time leading up to Iftar doing mehndi decorations on our hands and learning more about each other. After enjoying a wonderful feast we decided it was time to speak with her about Christ. We started our conversation relying on the Camel method (using questions about the Koran to stimulate discussion about Jesus). She was not only very receptive, but knew alot about Isa (Arabic for Jesus). We had many emotional moments as she realized that Isa is the only way to heaven and she subsequently accepted to follow him as her savior. I felt in those intimate moments with H. that God was not only watching this, but sitting right next to us guiding us with words of wisdom and encouragement. Even more amazing is that her 2 daughters were in the room also, and we know that at least 1 of the daughters also prayed to surrender to Christ. I felt so blessed to be used in such an awesome way that day. I really feel that God brought me half way across the world just to spend that day with H. and her family. It is something that I will never be able to truly display in words.” - Katherine
It is amazing to think what God accomplished in a 10 day journey through a small group of reconciled sinners. We distributed Bibles, saw new believers baptized and we even had the privilege of washing some beautiful feet! And the best thing about it is that God gets the glory as His fame spreads through the land of South Asia and beyond.
Update on the Bible Project: Many of you have been praying for and giving toward this effort to raise funds and provide bibles for the over half a million new believers in South Asia. Thus far God has blessed us with $190,000 and we have printed and distributed nearly 50,000 whole bibles as well as thousands of New Testaments and copies of Luke. In my most recent meeting with the Strategy Coordinator in South Asia he requested that we try to now begin fundraising for an Audio Bible Story Project which will be used to teach the tens of thousands of illiterate believers. Almost every family even in rural areas has an old cassette player and radio. The plan is that eventually these stories would be aired on radio as well. If you would like to give toward that project, please make a check payable to “International Mission Board, SBC” and mail it to me with a note indicating you’re giving toward the Audio Bible Story Project.
Thank you once again for your incredible partnership in the gospel. Know that God is using you to make a difference!
click here to see photos:
http://www.photoshow.net/watch/nP9iX7Sv
Last week I traveled with 11 other North American believers back to a Muslim-dominated South Asian country. We divided our group into three teams: Training, City and Rural. Following are the highlights from each team’s experiences.
We started the week conducting a discipleship and church planting seminar in the southern part of the country where the movement is still in its early stages and leaders are very young in the faith. When we arrived at the training center we were greeted by 25 people, only 21 of which were registered. The other 4 had been invited by other participants and had only recently begun to believe in Jesus. My best friend and co-laborer, Pat Powell and I were teaching through the curriculum that I have been helping to develop this year. Central to the church planting training is the command to make disciples who understand and obey the commands of Christ. I have adapted a tool that a professor of mine had developed called “The 7 Basic Commands of Jesus”: repent and believe to receive the Holy Spirit, be baptized, worship and celebrate the Lord’s Supper, love God and others, pray and engage in spiritual warfare, give generously, and make disciples of others by reproducing what you’ve learned. So we taught a session on each of these commands and then watched God move mightily. I asked the participants to create a way to remember the commands and to my surprise they wrote a song and made up hand motions which we used at the beginning of each session thereafter.
After the first session I felt God impressing on me to make sure that all of the participants understood what it means to repent and trust that Jesus is our substitute making us righteous in God’s sight. One of the unregistered attendees stood and said that he had never understood that but that he now wanted to surrender his life to Jesus. The other 3 followed his lead and before I knew it we were sitting around a table coaching the national leaders as these 4 former Muslims placed their faith in Christ alone for salvation. The most amazing thing is that our first session the next morning was on baptism and the leaders decided that we should start the day with an early morning baptism in the pond adjacent to the training center! It was such an amazing thing to see these new converts boldly declaring their faith in Jesus by being baptized in public as Muslims passed by on the nearby path. Each subsequent session was equally moving – especially when I taught on prayer and the leaders decided to gather around me and pray for my ministry and for my mother-in-law Susan in her battle against cancer. We had no sooner completed the one training commissioning those leaders to go and reproduce what they had learned when we had to depart and go do the same thing with a group of leaders whom I had worked with in 2004 up in the northern part of the country.
After a full day’s journey in a cramped van we arrived for the second training and I was blessed to see so many familiar faces of those amazing men I had done an initial training with last year by teaching through Acts 1-10 and challenging them to plant new churches in unreached areas. An initial survey upon my arrival revealed that the 20 leaders had 32 churches at the time of my training last year which had now multiplied to become 67 churches with literally hundreds of new believers! I was so blessed to learn that they had taken what I taught them last year back and trained their groups and then followed up on many of the areas where we’d distributed Scripture portions, which is where the new believers and churches emerged.
There were several highlights to this second seminar. One came when we were teaching on baptism and a younger leader stood up and exclaimed, “I’m confused. My leader has told me that new believers need to wait to be baptized until they’ve proven themselves, but what you’re teaching from God’s word seems to say that believers should be baptized immediately without unnecessary delay. Which authority do I follow?” After collaboration we decided that in order to keep the senior leader from losing face that we would ask forgiveness for our predecessors teaching something contrary to God’s revealed word. At that the senior leader stood up and looked at the younger leader whom he had been discipling and said, “Young man, you have heard the truth from God’s word. That alone is your authority. You obey God!” Immediately the crowd of leaders burst into applause and excitement that they could now go back and baptize so many whom they had previously told to wait. Pat and I sat back in amazement as they were developing a theology based solely upon the authority of God’s word! Another moving moment came after the session on giving where Pat had taught, but because we were running short on time we cut out the activity at the end. One small man who I imagine looks something like Zaccheus jumped to his feet with several Taka (currency) thrust up into the air and proclaimed, “Wait a minute! I want a chance to give! Every session we’ve had the opportunity to practice what we learned. Where’s my opportunity to give?” We sat in awe as these men who make less than $350 a year placed their money into a box to meet needs both within the community of believers as well as to fund outreach to Muslims. We finished the training with our activity displaying how we are to love as the local missionary and I called the leaders forward and washed their feet. One of the first men tried to pull us off the floor and put us in the chair but we persisted and as his beautifully calloused feet were covered with water his tears poured forth. Some of the leaders after having their feet washed buried their faces in their hands wailing and weeping that their teacher would become their servant. My friend told them, “As I have washed your feet and loved you, so you should do the same to others.” After we had finished they placed us in the chair and washed our feet – and we wept with them! As we departed from there the leaders affirmed that once again they would take what they had learned and teach the hundreds in their churches releasing them to go and plant more churches among the unreached. As soon as I got home I had an e-mail waiting on me that my translator and dear friend had already trained the leaders of the 18 churches that he supervises and they were excited to multiply the training through their ranks.
As for the Rural Team which was led by Rick Camp, they did bible distribution and personal evangelism in mosques, Muslim schools and even in an Al-Quaida member’s home! Everywhere they went they prayed with people and gave them copies of God’s word trusting that the national believers would follow up and see a harvest.
Following is an amazing story that comes from one of the members of the City Team:
“We were walking through a housing colony in the capital, we had been in there for awhile and were getting ready to leave. As we were entering the gates our translator said that we should turn down a path. We did so and as soon as we got a little way down the road, our translator noticed someone watching me from above. I stopped and said "Hello", she then immediatly invited us up. Her home was small, but very warm and inviting. We knew instantly that we had found a person of peace (Luke 10). After chatting about our families for 10 minutes she told us that we were not just guests in her home, but her children. It was then about 3 p.m. and she asked if we would join her family for Iftar (the first meal at the end of the Ramadan Fast day). After some debating we accepted. We spent the time leading up to Iftar doing mehndi decorations on our hands and learning more about each other. After enjoying a wonderful feast we decided it was time to speak with her about Christ. We started our conversation relying on the Camel method (using questions about the Koran to stimulate discussion about Jesus). She was not only very receptive, but knew alot about Isa (Arabic for Jesus). We had many emotional moments as she realized that Isa is the only way to heaven and she subsequently accepted to follow him as her savior. I felt in those intimate moments with H. that God was not only watching this, but sitting right next to us guiding us with words of wisdom and encouragement. Even more amazing is that her 2 daughters were in the room also, and we know that at least 1 of the daughters also prayed to surrender to Christ. I felt so blessed to be used in such an awesome way that day. I really feel that God brought me half way across the world just to spend that day with H. and her family. It is something that I will never be able to truly display in words.” - Katherine
It is amazing to think what God accomplished in a 10 day journey through a small group of reconciled sinners. We distributed Bibles, saw new believers baptized and we even had the privilege of washing some beautiful feet! And the best thing about it is that God gets the glory as His fame spreads through the land of South Asia and beyond.
Update on the Bible Project: Many of you have been praying for and giving toward this effort to raise funds and provide bibles for the over half a million new believers in South Asia. Thus far God has blessed us with $190,000 and we have printed and distributed nearly 50,000 whole bibles as well as thousands of New Testaments and copies of Luke. In my most recent meeting with the Strategy Coordinator in South Asia he requested that we try to now begin fundraising for an Audio Bible Story Project which will be used to teach the tens of thousands of illiterate believers. Almost every family even in rural areas has an old cassette player and radio. The plan is that eventually these stories would be aired on radio as well. If you would like to give toward that project, please make a check payable to “International Mission Board, SBC” and mail it to me with a note indicating you’re giving toward the Audio Bible Story Project.
Thank you once again for your incredible partnership in the gospel. Know that God is using you to make a difference!
click here to see photos:
http://www.photoshow.net/watch/nP9iX7Sv
"Transition to e3 Partners" (August 2005)
Thank you so much for your continuing partnership in this ministry through prayer! Over the last several months we have been working on revising our "First Steps: Mobilize Your Church to Multiply Your Church" training curriculum. You may be asking why I would spend time on helping to develop training curriculum. The answer lies in our ministry's new branding . . . E3 Partners.
In the past I have worked with Global Missions Fellowship helping to ESTABLISH churches through short-term journeys, GoLeaders.net helping to EQUIP national leaders, and Evangecube Ministries to develop materials to EVANGELIZE the nations. We are currently reorganizing to maximize the partnership of all 3 divisions under the new name "E3 Partners". Together we EQUIP leaders, EVANGELIZE the lost and ESTABLISH churches. I wanted you to understand this because many of you have asked why you're getting mail and information from an organization that you've never heard of.
So here's your heads up . . . I'm now working with E3 Partners doing what I've always done, but now with greater efficiency and results. How are we getting greater results? I'm glad you asked. In 2005 E3 Partners has equipped national leaders in several East African nations using the materials that I'm helping to develop. We now have 108 trainers in those countries that are cascading that information down to thousands of churches. In Ethiopia alone we have now seen nearly 15,000 nationals equipped with First Steps and Evangecube training resulting in almost 5,000 professions of faith and 28 new churches established! Through your partnership you're making a global impact even though you and I have never even been to Ethiopia! (see the attachment for more details)
So keep praying and know that even though the name of our ministry is changing, the focus is more God-glorifying than ever. May the LORD bless you as you're a blessing to others.
In the past I have worked with Global Missions Fellowship helping to ESTABLISH churches through short-term journeys, GoLeaders.net helping to EQUIP national leaders, and Evangecube Ministries to develop materials to EVANGELIZE the nations. We are currently reorganizing to maximize the partnership of all 3 divisions under the new name "E3 Partners". Together we EQUIP leaders, EVANGELIZE the lost and ESTABLISH churches. I wanted you to understand this because many of you have asked why you're getting mail and information from an organization that you've never heard of.
So here's your heads up . . . I'm now working with E3 Partners doing what I've always done, but now with greater efficiency and results. How are we getting greater results? I'm glad you asked. In 2005 E3 Partners has equipped national leaders in several East African nations using the materials that I'm helping to develop. We now have 108 trainers in those countries that are cascading that information down to thousands of churches. In Ethiopia alone we have now seen nearly 15,000 nationals equipped with First Steps and Evangecube training resulting in almost 5,000 professions of faith and 28 new churches established! Through your partnership you're making a global impact even though you and I have never even been to Ethiopia! (see the attachment for more details)
So keep praying and know that even though the name of our ministry is changing, the focus is more God-glorifying than ever. May the LORD bless you as you're a blessing to others.
"Bruised but Beautiful Feet" (Panama - June 2005)
What an adventure the last couple of weeks have been. On June 1st I traveled along with 25 others from Destiny Metro Church of Marietta, GA to conduct a church planting campaign in western Panama. We had 16 that worked in the city of David and 10 went along with me to work in the mountainous jungles of the Guaymi Indian Reservation. God was so faithful in guiding us every step of the way - literally!
After a 4.5 hour trip in a 4x4 up the extremely difficult mountain dirt/mud road I started my first section of backpacking carrying everything that I thought I'd need for the coming week of ministry in remote villages. Not even an hour into our hiking journey I noticed a problem - the sole of my boot was coming apart. The problem was that this trail out to the village called Hacha required us to traverse a thigh deep river over a dozen times and most of our walking was on sharp and jagged river rocks. As I followed my national guides I started to worry because I thought that my feet would be the key to our work for the week to come. As the sole of my boot worked its way loose I finally just pulled the thing off and endured the next hour with nothing but a soft rubber cushion between my already aching feet and the stones that lined our path. Once we arrived in Hacha I inspected my boots and realized they were just going to slow me down so I put on my Teva river sandals (heavy duty flip flops) and started to pray for my feet as I never have before.
Over the next day and a half we saw God work some amazing miracles in the village of Hacha. There were only about a dozen believers in this village of about 80-100 people and only one of them was an adult male. We knew that the potential of planting a church there would be dependent upon having a trained adult male leader. As we talked with Virgilio we realized that he had never been baptized. We spent the rest of the day visiting homes in this animistic village (religion that believes that every object is inhabited by a spirit) praying for the sick and sharing the gospel. We also invited them down to the river for a late afternoon baptism service as Virgilio had expressed the desire for his family to be baptized. As the time approached we all made our way down to the river where our national workers (all from other villages where we've planted churches in the past) sang hymns and prayed at the water's edge. I had Joshua (the missions pastor at Destiny) and a visiting Guaymi pastor work together to baptize Virgilio, his wife and his teenage daughter. It was a beautiful sight - both the baptism and the dozens of unbelievers lining the banks to watch in curiosity. After the baptism we invited everyone back to Virgilio's house for an evening meeting where we would serve the Lord's Supper for the first time ever in this village. After dark the round stick house with a thatch roof started to fill with many standing outside the doorway peering in at our service. I preached a simple message describing the Fall of mankind and God's plan of redemption culminating with Christ's substitutionary death. We ended the service by celebrating the Lord's Supper using cookies and Tang (both are available locally) and all of the believers rejoiced at our participation in the Body and the blood of Christ. I was incredibly encouraged as this is the first time I've worked to plant a house church where we actually got the privilege of celebrating baptism and the Lord's Supper - the two things that Christ commanded in regards to planting churches.
The next morning I strapped on my sandals and my backpack and we were headed out for a half day hike to an even more remote village called Oriente. Amazingly Virgilio sent his 18 year old and 10 year old daughters along with us as an offering to the church planting work! As I scrambled through rivers, across rope bridges, and along the ledges of massive river gorges, I prayed that God would establish my aching feet and keep them planted firmly on the rock. Little Judy, Virgilio's 10 year old daughter, carried a live chicken which we planned to kill and cook for supper that night. She didn't seem the least bit phased by what I would consider to be one of the most grueling and dangerous treks I've ever been on. We arrived in the afternoon at Oriente and worshipped in a small house church that had been planted there previously. I focused on training the locals by telling and acting out Bible stories that they could remember and pass on to their families and friends. We used a community house as our base in Oriente, but were focusing our work on the neighboring village of Toloste which had no church. In our 3 days between those two villages we saw 8 people come to faith in Christ, including one of the chief elders in the village of Toloste. He was what I would consider to be a "man of peace" (see Luke 10) and after coming to Christ immediately offered some of his land as a location for a new church to be established.
All of our visits were not as easy as that one. It was in Toloste that I encountered the most extreme poverty and horrid living conditions that I think I've ever seen. One family's house was built literally on top of a pig sty. As I crossed the nasty mud going into the house I entered and saw about a dozen children, some partially dressed and some naked, all filthy. Some of the infants were laying naked on the mud floor staring up at this strange white man the likes of whom they'd never seen. As we shared the gospel with this family we recognized that like many of the animistic Guaymi, they were hard and resistant. However, they did ask us to pray for their sick grandmother. I approached the mat where the older lady was covered in blankets and it was clear to me why she was sick. The pigs were running in and out of the large stick house and she was only a few feet from their wallowing mud pit. I laid hands on this lady and prayed that God would have mercy and restore her health so that the family would repent and turn to faith in Christ. As we left that house I emptied my bag of all my snack bars and dispersed them among the children praying that like the loaves and fish, God would multiply this nutrition and bring health to their frail little filthy bodies. We went from there to another similar home where we were asked to pray for a man's 12 year old son. Upon our arrival most of the village came and stood around the outside of this house peering in as we shared the gospel. We also read from the Scripture about how Jesus healed and even raised some from the dead. Several of the women that lived in this communal family house starting telling us to get out of their house. Our brave young interpreter, Joseph, quickly turned to the man and asked if he were in charge or the taunting women. He hushed the women and then humbly laid some blankets on the dirt floor. I had noticed the bulging blankets curled up in the corner when we first came in but was unable to see the sick boy until his father uncovered him, to which the boy responded with painful groans. As his father picked him up and brought him into the light I was horrified to see the little boy's head swollen beyond recognition - eyes swollen shut. His little torso was frail and disfigured with a skin rash covering it. I'm no doctor but I knew I had no business putting my hands on this child for fear that something may be contagious. Instead we gathered the team around and stretched out our hands over the boy and prayed with all our hearts that Christ would be glorified in that home and that the father would lead the home in repentance and turning to Christ. We prayed the God would do the miraculous and heal the boy. As we walked away from there we all felt overwhelmed with the challenges of the day.
We made our way back to Oriente and bathed in the river just before the evening rains set in. Little did we know that the rains would become torrential raising the river to a level that the locals said they'd never seen before. As we started our evening meeting the river had grown so fierce that we could hear the boulders under the raging surface tumbling downstream. We walked up the entrance trail to the village and were shocked to see the whole trail under the rapids. We wondered - and prayed that God would preserve our only way out and that the river would subside by morning. When morning came we were blessed to see the sun and to hear that the river had indeed gone down considerably. As we started the trek back to Hacha the trail was washed out in several places where we had to negotiate some pretty scary cliffs. Not far out of the village I stubbed a toe through the open front sandals and it quickly turned black and blue. I kept praying for my feet that they would carry me back home to see my sweet family whom I missed terribly by this point. I'm not used to being completely cut off with no communication so this trip was indeed hard for me. Little Judy was walking in rubber boots but I noticed she had one in her hand, that foot exposed to the sharp rocks. I stopped her and broke out my first aid kit and took her dirty little calloused feet into my hands and began to clean and bandage them. God spoke to me clearly that these were indeed beautful feet! I pulled out a pair of my socks and gave them to her - you would have thought it was Christmas. She ran practically the rest of the way back to Hacha!
Upon our return there we had one more evening service and several of the seekers from the village came again. It was a sweet service and I left there the following morning confident that God had indeed established the church in Virgilio's house. It looked an awful lot like what we read about in the book of Acts where virtually every church met in a new believer's home. The next morning we made our way back to the road, caught our 4x4 and made the long and grueling trip back down the mountain where we'd meet up with all the others and hear stories of their week. It was a joyful reunion where we learned that 270 people had come to faith in Christ with almost half enrolled and attending discipleship classes. God had established 5 new churches through us in the week. And in one location where I had worked last year to plant a new church, we learned that they were now averaging 60 on a regular basis where there was just the pastor's family before our 2004 campaign! All of this is a testimony to what God can do when we commit our feet to him. They may get bruised and battered, but His word promises, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!" Romans 10:15 And just before that verse it says, "And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" Thank you for sending me out with your prayers and financial partnership . . . that makes YOUR feet beautiful too!
After a 4.5 hour trip in a 4x4 up the extremely difficult mountain dirt/mud road I started my first section of backpacking carrying everything that I thought I'd need for the coming week of ministry in remote villages. Not even an hour into our hiking journey I noticed a problem - the sole of my boot was coming apart. The problem was that this trail out to the village called Hacha required us to traverse a thigh deep river over a dozen times and most of our walking was on sharp and jagged river rocks. As I followed my national guides I started to worry because I thought that my feet would be the key to our work for the week to come. As the sole of my boot worked its way loose I finally just pulled the thing off and endured the next hour with nothing but a soft rubber cushion between my already aching feet and the stones that lined our path. Once we arrived in Hacha I inspected my boots and realized they were just going to slow me down so I put on my Teva river sandals (heavy duty flip flops) and started to pray for my feet as I never have before.
Over the next day and a half we saw God work some amazing miracles in the village of Hacha. There were only about a dozen believers in this village of about 80-100 people and only one of them was an adult male. We knew that the potential of planting a church there would be dependent upon having a trained adult male leader. As we talked with Virgilio we realized that he had never been baptized. We spent the rest of the day visiting homes in this animistic village (religion that believes that every object is inhabited by a spirit) praying for the sick and sharing the gospel. We also invited them down to the river for a late afternoon baptism service as Virgilio had expressed the desire for his family to be baptized. As the time approached we all made our way down to the river where our national workers (all from other villages where we've planted churches in the past) sang hymns and prayed at the water's edge. I had Joshua (the missions pastor at Destiny) and a visiting Guaymi pastor work together to baptize Virgilio, his wife and his teenage daughter. It was a beautiful sight - both the baptism and the dozens of unbelievers lining the banks to watch in curiosity. After the baptism we invited everyone back to Virgilio's house for an evening meeting where we would serve the Lord's Supper for the first time ever in this village. After dark the round stick house with a thatch roof started to fill with many standing outside the doorway peering in at our service. I preached a simple message describing the Fall of mankind and God's plan of redemption culminating with Christ's substitutionary death. We ended the service by celebrating the Lord's Supper using cookies and Tang (both are available locally) and all of the believers rejoiced at our participation in the Body and the blood of Christ. I was incredibly encouraged as this is the first time I've worked to plant a house church where we actually got the privilege of celebrating baptism and the Lord's Supper - the two things that Christ commanded in regards to planting churches.
The next morning I strapped on my sandals and my backpack and we were headed out for a half day hike to an even more remote village called Oriente. Amazingly Virgilio sent his 18 year old and 10 year old daughters along with us as an offering to the church planting work! As I scrambled through rivers, across rope bridges, and along the ledges of massive river gorges, I prayed that God would establish my aching feet and keep them planted firmly on the rock. Little Judy, Virgilio's 10 year old daughter, carried a live chicken which we planned to kill and cook for supper that night. She didn't seem the least bit phased by what I would consider to be one of the most grueling and dangerous treks I've ever been on. We arrived in the afternoon at Oriente and worshipped in a small house church that had been planted there previously. I focused on training the locals by telling and acting out Bible stories that they could remember and pass on to their families and friends. We used a community house as our base in Oriente, but were focusing our work on the neighboring village of Toloste which had no church. In our 3 days between those two villages we saw 8 people come to faith in Christ, including one of the chief elders in the village of Toloste. He was what I would consider to be a "man of peace" (see Luke 10) and after coming to Christ immediately offered some of his land as a location for a new church to be established.
All of our visits were not as easy as that one. It was in Toloste that I encountered the most extreme poverty and horrid living conditions that I think I've ever seen. One family's house was built literally on top of a pig sty. As I crossed the nasty mud going into the house I entered and saw about a dozen children, some partially dressed and some naked, all filthy. Some of the infants were laying naked on the mud floor staring up at this strange white man the likes of whom they'd never seen. As we shared the gospel with this family we recognized that like many of the animistic Guaymi, they were hard and resistant. However, they did ask us to pray for their sick grandmother. I approached the mat where the older lady was covered in blankets and it was clear to me why she was sick. The pigs were running in and out of the large stick house and she was only a few feet from their wallowing mud pit. I laid hands on this lady and prayed that God would have mercy and restore her health so that the family would repent and turn to faith in Christ. As we left that house I emptied my bag of all my snack bars and dispersed them among the children praying that like the loaves and fish, God would multiply this nutrition and bring health to their frail little filthy bodies. We went from there to another similar home where we were asked to pray for a man's 12 year old son. Upon our arrival most of the village came and stood around the outside of this house peering in as we shared the gospel. We also read from the Scripture about how Jesus healed and even raised some from the dead. Several of the women that lived in this communal family house starting telling us to get out of their house. Our brave young interpreter, Joseph, quickly turned to the man and asked if he were in charge or the taunting women. He hushed the women and then humbly laid some blankets on the dirt floor. I had noticed the bulging blankets curled up in the corner when we first came in but was unable to see the sick boy until his father uncovered him, to which the boy responded with painful groans. As his father picked him up and brought him into the light I was horrified to see the little boy's head swollen beyond recognition - eyes swollen shut. His little torso was frail and disfigured with a skin rash covering it. I'm no doctor but I knew I had no business putting my hands on this child for fear that something may be contagious. Instead we gathered the team around and stretched out our hands over the boy and prayed with all our hearts that Christ would be glorified in that home and that the father would lead the home in repentance and turning to Christ. We prayed the God would do the miraculous and heal the boy. As we walked away from there we all felt overwhelmed with the challenges of the day.
We made our way back to Oriente and bathed in the river just before the evening rains set in. Little did we know that the rains would become torrential raising the river to a level that the locals said they'd never seen before. As we started our evening meeting the river had grown so fierce that we could hear the boulders under the raging surface tumbling downstream. We walked up the entrance trail to the village and were shocked to see the whole trail under the rapids. We wondered - and prayed that God would preserve our only way out and that the river would subside by morning. When morning came we were blessed to see the sun and to hear that the river had indeed gone down considerably. As we started the trek back to Hacha the trail was washed out in several places where we had to negotiate some pretty scary cliffs. Not far out of the village I stubbed a toe through the open front sandals and it quickly turned black and blue. I kept praying for my feet that they would carry me back home to see my sweet family whom I missed terribly by this point. I'm not used to being completely cut off with no communication so this trip was indeed hard for me. Little Judy was walking in rubber boots but I noticed she had one in her hand, that foot exposed to the sharp rocks. I stopped her and broke out my first aid kit and took her dirty little calloused feet into my hands and began to clean and bandage them. God spoke to me clearly that these were indeed beautful feet! I pulled out a pair of my socks and gave them to her - you would have thought it was Christmas. She ran practically the rest of the way back to Hacha!
Upon our return there we had one more evening service and several of the seekers from the village came again. It was a sweet service and I left there the following morning confident that God had indeed established the church in Virgilio's house. It looked an awful lot like what we read about in the book of Acts where virtually every church met in a new believer's home. The next morning we made our way back to the road, caught our 4x4 and made the long and grueling trip back down the mountain where we'd meet up with all the others and hear stories of their week. It was a joyful reunion where we learned that 270 people had come to faith in Christ with almost half enrolled and attending discipleship classes. God had established 5 new churches through us in the week. And in one location where I had worked last year to plant a new church, we learned that they were now averaging 60 on a regular basis where there was just the pastor's family before our 2004 campaign! All of this is a testimony to what God can do when we commit our feet to him. They may get bruised and battered, but His word promises, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!" Romans 10:15 And just before that verse it says, "And how shall they preach unless they are sent?" Thank you for sending me out with your prayers and financial partnership . . . that makes YOUR feet beautiful too!
"Welcome to the Jungle" (Panama - May 31, 2005)
As always I appreciate your prayers and support as I head out on another adventure, this time to the jungles of Panama to work among the Guaymi (pronounced: why me) Indians. I have worked among the Guaymi for the last year and a half but always those at the entry of the reservation in villages along the roadside. We have helped establish about a half dozen churches there thus far. I'm particularly excited about this trip because I finally get a chance to go deep into the jungle, along with Guaymi pastors that we've trained, and preach the gospel in villages where there are no roads, no electricity, no running water, and worst of all, no disciples meeting together (churches). I'll be traveling with 10 others from Destiny Metropolitan Church on this extreme backpacking adventure storying the gospel to these animistic tribal Indians. At the same time we'll have 16 others from Destiny at work on a city campaign in David City. This trip will be a bit different in that I won't be able to bring you the daily updates from the field as I normally do so I ask you to please take the time to print out the attached prayer calendar and make it a point to pray for us daily and I promise to write you with the best stories from the field once I get home. Our travel dates are June 1 - 10. Thanks for your prayers - especially for my family in my absence.
"Praying for a House Church" (Peru - December 13, 2004)
I just received a message from Manuel (my translator) that Filomena (remember my story of the sweet lady that said she'd been waiting her whole life to hear from God) will be hosting her first house church meeting this Wednesday night and is inviting all of her family. That is a HUGE step of faith for her because her family has many problems - divorce, rape, child abandonment, etc. - so please join me in praying specifically for the church that meets in Abuelita Filomena's house in Tacna!
"The Word Went Out and Disciples Multiplied" (South Asia - December 9, 2004)
I just got off of the phone with a friend from South Asia and have received a fresh update as to all the LORD is doing in the wake of our Oct. work there.
We left there on Oct. 10th and the best estimates are that by Nov. 10th there were over 400 Muslims baptized by the 76 people that participated in our Leadership Conference! The area leader was alarmed at the rapid growth as they had been averaging about 20 baptisms per month prior to the conference. Over the last month and a half, they have been averaging 200 muslims being baptized each week! That area leader has now formed a leadership team of about 8 men that will oversee the discipleship of these new believers and help to form them into new house churches. Churches there average between 15-40 people so it seems as though they will start a minimum of 10 new churches (more likely 20-25) from these new converts.
Many of you prayed for and gave to the Bible Project. The first batch of 3000 bibles has been completed and are being distributed throughout the most needy areas to church leaders that have no personal copy. The second batch of 3000 is already on the press and will be released after the 1st of the year. The Bible Project will be an on-going thing so if the LORD lays this on your heart, contact me and I'll let you know how you can help.
This past weekend there was a massive distribution of the Book of Luke that took place in the capital city. Over 250,000 copies of Luke were given out in one weekend! Please pray for the LORD of the Harvest to send the laborers out now to reap that harvest.
Finally, please be praying about the possibility of joining me on a journey to South Asia in 2005. I'll be leading 2 teams - one in July and the other in October. If you're interested, let me know.
Thanks for your prayers and support in helping make this GOD-sized movement continue!
We left there on Oct. 10th and the best estimates are that by Nov. 10th there were over 400 Muslims baptized by the 76 people that participated in our Leadership Conference! The area leader was alarmed at the rapid growth as they had been averaging about 20 baptisms per month prior to the conference. Over the last month and a half, they have been averaging 200 muslims being baptized each week! That area leader has now formed a leadership team of about 8 men that will oversee the discipleship of these new believers and help to form them into new house churches. Churches there average between 15-40 people so it seems as though they will start a minimum of 10 new churches (more likely 20-25) from these new converts.
Many of you prayed for and gave to the Bible Project. The first batch of 3000 bibles has been completed and are being distributed throughout the most needy areas to church leaders that have no personal copy. The second batch of 3000 is already on the press and will be released after the 1st of the year. The Bible Project will be an on-going thing so if the LORD lays this on your heart, contact me and I'll let you know how you can help.
This past weekend there was a massive distribution of the Book of Luke that took place in the capital city. Over 250,000 copies of Luke were given out in one weekend! Please pray for the LORD of the Harvest to send the laborers out now to reap that harvest.
Finally, please be praying about the possibility of joining me on a journey to South Asia in 2005. I'll be leading 2 teams - one in July and the other in October. If you're interested, let me know.
Thanks for your prayers and support in helping make this GOD-sized movement continue!
"I'm a Star . . . in Tacna, Peru!" (Peru - November 2003)
Thanks again for praying for us here in Peru. The team left to head back to the States on Friday but I'll be here till Sunday late night. Kevin Queen, One of my great friends and compadres in ministry came down on Thursday to help me with a Church Planting Vision Conference we held on Friday and Saturday nights. We just completed the conference with over 60 adults in attendance, in preparation for bringing Kevin's youth group down in April.
Did I tell you all that I'm now famous in southern Peru? The Tacna tv station came to our hotel the other night and interviewed me and one of my other best friends in the world, Pat Powell. We were able to tell about our work there and give a witness to Christ. They gave me a dvd copy of the interview after it aired to nearly half a million people! Too funny!!!
One final note before I head back on Sunday night. Our team saw over 500 people pray to receive Christ in total with a couple of new churches in the works. Glory to God for allowing us to join in His work! Please pray as we preach in several churches on Sunday and for our flight back.
We love and appreciate you all!
Did I tell you all that I'm now famous in southern Peru? The Tacna tv station came to our hotel the other night and interviewed me and one of my other best friends in the world, Pat Powell. We were able to tell about our work there and give a witness to Christ. They gave me a dvd copy of the interview after it aired to nearly half a million people! Too funny!!!
One final note before I head back on Sunday night. Our team saw over 500 people pray to receive Christ in total with a couple of new churches in the works. Glory to God for allowing us to join in His work! Please pray as we preach in several churches on Sunday and for our flight back.
We love and appreciate you all!
"Filamena's Story and the Church at Her House" (Peru- November 2004)
Thank you so much for your prayers to this point. The transportation strike you prayed about failed to bring the Lords work to a halt. In fact, it accelerated it because so many natives of Tacna were unable to go to work or school so we found more people at home!
In all we have had over 400 people pray to receive Christ this week, but even more exciting is the fact that over 200 of those have either attended a home bible study/cell group meeting or received followup discipleship in their homes already. Our focus is not making converts, because that is not the Lords focus. He said, "Go make DISCIPLES" and that is what has been done this week. Which brings me to the next page in the story on sister Filomena I mentioned the other day . . .
I used Tuesdays strike as an opportunity to go and visit the other teams and make sure they were doing okay so I did not go back out to the area where Filomena lives that day. But on Wednesday when Pastor Julian arrived to pick me up he told me that the nationals that I had trained in his church went ahead and worked without me on Tuesday. He said it almost apologetically as if I would be offended that they didn't wait on me. I put my arm around the Pastor and told him that was my intention all along - to empower his leaders to do the ministry without our help. They saw 24 more people receive Christ on Tuesday and made many follow-up visits as well. However, they had not gone back to Filomenas house yet. So that was my priority. When we arrived, we went straight to her house and although she was busy chopping some kindling for her "kitchen" (in reality it was a large coffee can with a hole in the bottom that she would feed the kindling into which then served as a stove on which she was cooking soup), she invited us in as she wiped the sweat from her smiling face. We talked with her and encouraged her and she told us that for 2 days in a row she was happy because she had read God's word first thing. She spoke of the peace in the midst of trials, but this time with the sweet smile of the Spirit. Then we asked her if she would be willing to use her home as the center of ministry in her community by hosting a bible study each week. She was delighted at the offer and thus, the seeds of a new church have been planted through a person of peace (read Luke 10). When we left Filomenas house we were both a little teary eyed. I told her that she is my Peruvian "Abuelita" (sweet little grandma) and she responded with a warm embrace and a smile. Of course that's not the end of the story. The story of a house church emerging in the impoverished area of Sauces in Tacna, Peru has just begun. And think of all the other "Filomenas" out there that will find hope, peace, and salvation as a result. The story of Filomena will go on . . . . Thanks for being used of God to help "write" a few lines in that life-changing story.
By the way, the team is doing great - healthy and happy. They'll be on the way back to the States early Saturday morning.
In all we have had over 400 people pray to receive Christ this week, but even more exciting is the fact that over 200 of those have either attended a home bible study/cell group meeting or received followup discipleship in their homes already. Our focus is not making converts, because that is not the Lords focus. He said, "Go make DISCIPLES" and that is what has been done this week. Which brings me to the next page in the story on sister Filomena I mentioned the other day . . .
I used Tuesdays strike as an opportunity to go and visit the other teams and make sure they were doing okay so I did not go back out to the area where Filomena lives that day. But on Wednesday when Pastor Julian arrived to pick me up he told me that the nationals that I had trained in his church went ahead and worked without me on Tuesday. He said it almost apologetically as if I would be offended that they didn't wait on me. I put my arm around the Pastor and told him that was my intention all along - to empower his leaders to do the ministry without our help. They saw 24 more people receive Christ on Tuesday and made many follow-up visits as well. However, they had not gone back to Filomenas house yet. So that was my priority. When we arrived, we went straight to her house and although she was busy chopping some kindling for her "kitchen" (in reality it was a large coffee can with a hole in the bottom that she would feed the kindling into which then served as a stove on which she was cooking soup), she invited us in as she wiped the sweat from her smiling face. We talked with her and encouraged her and she told us that for 2 days in a row she was happy because she had read God's word first thing. She spoke of the peace in the midst of trials, but this time with the sweet smile of the Spirit. Then we asked her if she would be willing to use her home as the center of ministry in her community by hosting a bible study each week. She was delighted at the offer and thus, the seeds of a new church have been planted through a person of peace (read Luke 10). When we left Filomenas house we were both a little teary eyed. I told her that she is my Peruvian "Abuelita" (sweet little grandma) and she responded with a warm embrace and a smile. Of course that's not the end of the story. The story of a house church emerging in the impoverished area of Sauces in Tacna, Peru has just begun. And think of all the other "Filomenas" out there that will find hope, peace, and salvation as a result. The story of Filomena will go on . . . . Thanks for being used of God to help "write" a few lines in that life-changing story.
By the way, the team is doing great - healthy and happy. They'll be on the way back to the States early Saturday morning.
"A Third Generation Church?" (Peru - November 2004)
Just a quick note to let you know that nearly 200 people in Tacna have placed their faith in Jesus Christ over the last few days! The work is going well and the team is doing a great job.
One campaigner, Allen, worked last year helping to plant 2 churches in an area of Tacna. This year Allen returned with his 16 year old daughter, Sarah. They are working with those 2 churches that were planted last year and are amazed at how the Lord has established that work. Both churches are doing well and the leadership has a vision to continue to multiply. It is wonderful to see how the fruit of our labors from last year and to see those who received Christ last year, working to bring others in this year!
One quick prayer request. The city of Tacna is experiencing a 2 day transportation strike which means that taxis are limited. The good side of this is that most people are not working so they are available to share with. Pray for our teams today that they will have many opportunities and that God would use this strike for good. This is a perfect example of how God can use all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Pray that the strike will not hinder the work in any way. This is not a safety issue so dont worry.
One campaigner, Allen, worked last year helping to plant 2 churches in an area of Tacna. This year Allen returned with his 16 year old daughter, Sarah. They are working with those 2 churches that were planted last year and are amazed at how the Lord has established that work. Both churches are doing well and the leadership has a vision to continue to multiply. It is wonderful to see how the fruit of our labors from last year and to see those who received Christ last year, working to bring others in this year!
One quick prayer request. The city of Tacna is experiencing a 2 day transportation strike which means that taxis are limited. The good side of this is that most people are not working so they are available to share with. Pray for our teams today that they will have many opportunities and that God would use this strike for good. This is a perfect example of how God can use all things to work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Pray that the strike will not hinder the work in any way. This is not a safety issue so dont worry.
"Filamena's Face" (Peru - November 15, 2004)
what a day! words cannot express all that God is doing through the team here, but I will tell one story so you can get a glimpse.
this morning i was working in a very impoverished area on the outskirts of this desert town. The first house we went to was that of Elia. She was a little shy but as I shared my testimony with her she opened up a bit. After a short while of sharing with her she indicated that she would like to receive Christ. One of the first things we ask is if they know someone else that needs to hear the gospel. She pointed across the dusty road and said that her best friend and neighbor needed to hear this. We made our way across the street and knocked on the door. The older lady that came to the door looked a bit surprised. When we introduced ourselves I was blown away by her response. The lady I later came to know as Filamena said she had been waiting all of her life for God to send someone to give her hope. And at that she welcomed us into her modest courtyard and cleaned off a bench seat. She sat down on a stool in front of me and told me that she was ready to receive what God wanted to tell her. As soon as I started sharing my testimony tears welled up in her eyes. At one point I just had to stop talking and put my arm around her. But she requested that I continue on. She eventually revealed to us what a sad life she has lived. She was left by her husband years ago. Filamena has four children, three of which have left their own children with her to raise, and the other who is abusive to her. She told us that she had never had a happy day in her life. After hearing of Gods love for her, we asked her if she wanted to place her faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and so He could change her life. She responded with an enthusiastic OF COURSE. We explained to her that she now has a family in the members of the church that we are establishing in her neighborhood. She was excited to hear what it meant to be a part of Gods family. We invited her to come with her neighbor, Elia, to our evening bible study to learn more about Gods word. She assured us she would be there.
We were to begin at 630, but we are on latin time. By 830 they had not showed up so I decided to model a cell group meeting for the church members there. We got about half way through and Filamena and Elia stuck their heads in the door and asked if it was too late to learn more about God. We welcomed them in and started over. As we studied the simple lesson on the meaning of salvation, the two women hung on every word. I noticed that Filamena had Elia writing the answers on her sheet as well as I assume she cannot write. By the end of the service I saw a big smile on Filamenas face . . . something she said she never does. As we left the meeting tonight I knew that God had done an amazing work on this day. I watched those two precious new believers going the opposite direction down the dark, dusty road and my translator, Manuel, looked at me with a grin and said, I would love to overhear what they are talking about right now. I agreed. In one day they both received hope, peace, salvation, and a new family . . . the family of God. What could be better than that?
Keep praying. There are a hundred more stories of lives changing as God works to bring glory to His Son.
this morning i was working in a very impoverished area on the outskirts of this desert town. The first house we went to was that of Elia. She was a little shy but as I shared my testimony with her she opened up a bit. After a short while of sharing with her she indicated that she would like to receive Christ. One of the first things we ask is if they know someone else that needs to hear the gospel. She pointed across the dusty road and said that her best friend and neighbor needed to hear this. We made our way across the street and knocked on the door. The older lady that came to the door looked a bit surprised. When we introduced ourselves I was blown away by her response. The lady I later came to know as Filamena said she had been waiting all of her life for God to send someone to give her hope. And at that she welcomed us into her modest courtyard and cleaned off a bench seat. She sat down on a stool in front of me and told me that she was ready to receive what God wanted to tell her. As soon as I started sharing my testimony tears welled up in her eyes. At one point I just had to stop talking and put my arm around her. But she requested that I continue on. She eventually revealed to us what a sad life she has lived. She was left by her husband years ago. Filamena has four children, three of which have left their own children with her to raise, and the other who is abusive to her. She told us that she had never had a happy day in her life. After hearing of Gods love for her, we asked her if she wanted to place her faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins and so He could change her life. She responded with an enthusiastic OF COURSE. We explained to her that she now has a family in the members of the church that we are establishing in her neighborhood. She was excited to hear what it meant to be a part of Gods family. We invited her to come with her neighbor, Elia, to our evening bible study to learn more about Gods word. She assured us she would be there.
We were to begin at 630, but we are on latin time. By 830 they had not showed up so I decided to model a cell group meeting for the church members there. We got about half way through and Filamena and Elia stuck their heads in the door and asked if it was too late to learn more about God. We welcomed them in and started over. As we studied the simple lesson on the meaning of salvation, the two women hung on every word. I noticed that Filamena had Elia writing the answers on her sheet as well as I assume she cannot write. By the end of the service I saw a big smile on Filamenas face . . . something she said she never does. As we left the meeting tonight I knew that God had done an amazing work on this day. I watched those two precious new believers going the opposite direction down the dark, dusty road and my translator, Manuel, looked at me with a grin and said, I would love to overhear what they are talking about right now. I agreed. In one day they both received hope, peace, salvation, and a new family . . . the family of God. What could be better than that?
Keep praying. There are a hundred more stories of lives changing as God works to bring glory to His Son.
"A Neighborhood Transformed" (Peru - April 28, 2003)
our team of 30 north americans arrived friday night in peru all safe and sound. our hotel is about 3 blocks from the pacific ocean which i cannot wait to walk down to. saturday morning we met with the peruvian leaders who we have been coordinating with and learned that as a result of the training that we will provide later this week, they will be staging 9 peruvian only church planting campaigns throughout the rest of this year! these leaders will be going into the whole country training others with the materials and training we give them, and then they will start new churches in those areas. what a blessing to see God at work in this place and to know that He is allowing us (you and me) to be a part of it.
thank you for your faithful prayers . . . God is using them in mighty ways, even in my ability to communicate. i am speaking spanish pretty well this time and understanding even more. how exciting . . . which leads me to report that we had 10 pray to recieve christ sunday just in my group (we have 13 groups working in lima)in 2 hours of door to door! PTL! i love the church that i am working with . . . the Lord has already given me 3 disciples (people i am investing much time in to train them to reproduce the ministry here)the pastor has caught the vision on the first day so much so that he repented in front of the church sunday night for not leading them to do evangelism, discipleship and church planting! wow! i have the same translator as in february and he is now feeling called into missions and says that i am giving him good training. and the last is a missionary from switzerland that is here working in an orphanage. today she
helped with translation and came back and said that is the first time she ever led someone to christ and she was so thankful that god sent me to teach her how . . . a true missionary now!
there are over 20 people from the church that i am working with that are going out with us and i am training them on the job.
i praise God for each of you who have joined me in the battle for souls in peru . . . the Lord if Hosts has proclaimed victory and we are simply marching around the walls and going in to claim new territory (see Joshua 6)
so, today (monday) was awesome. we had 41 receive Jesus just at the church that i am working with! i trained the church in how to do cell groups and we hosted one tonight and 3 new believers came as well as 20 member who were each being trained in how to lead cell groups. it was so wonderful teaching them how to find things in their bible and how to sing worship songs. the innocence and newness was a beautiful sight. i am really enjoying training the members of this church because they are going out. today we had eight teams go out and everyone was able to lead someone to faith in Christ. some in the streets, some in the houses. i even had one receive Christ through an open window! we were walking away from the house and the young girl opened the window and yelled out at us. we went back and did a gospel presentation as she peered out her window. her demeanor changed and she joyfully received Christ. one drug addict tried to sell us some and when we stopped he asked us what we were doing. so i shared my testimony with him and then used the evangecube to share the gospel. he asked Jesus into his heart and went home to change clothes because he wanted to look different! Two young mothers received Christ in their home (2 family house) and they bothcame to the cell group together. the joy on their faces as they realized for the first time that the Bible was accesible to them and written for them.
pray that God would spread a passion for His glory among these churches and that we would be enabled to be humble servants as they step out in faith to start new churches.
thank you for your faithful prayer support! you are fighting the spiritual battle with your prayers and i cannot wait to tell you all that the Lord does because of your faithfulness.
thank you for your faithful prayers . . . God is using them in mighty ways, even in my ability to communicate. i am speaking spanish pretty well this time and understanding even more. how exciting . . . which leads me to report that we had 10 pray to recieve christ sunday just in my group (we have 13 groups working in lima)in 2 hours of door to door! PTL! i love the church that i am working with . . . the Lord has already given me 3 disciples (people i am investing much time in to train them to reproduce the ministry here)the pastor has caught the vision on the first day so much so that he repented in front of the church sunday night for not leading them to do evangelism, discipleship and church planting! wow! i have the same translator as in february and he is now feeling called into missions and says that i am giving him good training. and the last is a missionary from switzerland that is here working in an orphanage. today she
helped with translation and came back and said that is the first time she ever led someone to christ and she was so thankful that god sent me to teach her how . . . a true missionary now!
there are over 20 people from the church that i am working with that are going out with us and i am training them on the job.
i praise God for each of you who have joined me in the battle for souls in peru . . . the Lord if Hosts has proclaimed victory and we are simply marching around the walls and going in to claim new territory (see Joshua 6)
so, today (monday) was awesome. we had 41 receive Jesus just at the church that i am working with! i trained the church in how to do cell groups and we hosted one tonight and 3 new believers came as well as 20 member who were each being trained in how to lead cell groups. it was so wonderful teaching them how to find things in their bible and how to sing worship songs. the innocence and newness was a beautiful sight. i am really enjoying training the members of this church because they are going out. today we had eight teams go out and everyone was able to lead someone to faith in Christ. some in the streets, some in the houses. i even had one receive Christ through an open window! we were walking away from the house and the young girl opened the window and yelled out at us. we went back and did a gospel presentation as she peered out her window. her demeanor changed and she joyfully received Christ. one drug addict tried to sell us some and when we stopped he asked us what we were doing. so i shared my testimony with him and then used the evangecube to share the gospel. he asked Jesus into his heart and went home to change clothes because he wanted to look different! Two young mothers received Christ in their home (2 family house) and they bothcame to the cell group together. the joy on their faces as they realized for the first time that the Bible was accesible to them and written for them.
pray that God would spread a passion for His glory among these churches and that we would be enabled to be humble servants as they step out in faith to start new churches.
thank you for your faithful prayer support! you are fighting the spiritual battle with your prayers and i cannot wait to tell you all that the Lord does because of your faithfulness.
"The Ambassador to Peru" (Peru - November 9, 2004)
I recently started studying through the book of Romans and was instantly astounded with what I read: "Paul, a servant (literally 'slave') of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle (literally 'one sent out with a mission', elsewhere referred to as 'ambassador'), and set apart for the gospel of God" - Romans 1:1 We often think about what a privilege it is to be children of God, but when is the last time that you thought of yourself as His slave? A slave has no personal rights, but he is entitled to certain privileges at the Master's discretion. We were each bought with a price - the very blood of Jesus - so we are debtors to God. There is no amount of religious activity that could possibly diminish the infinite debt that we owe to God. He showed grace in making us slaves, and then more grace by appointing us to have the responsibilities of an ambassador. Think about it . . . although our debt was enormous, He has given us a position in Christ with authority. We are called to deliver the gospel (literally 'good news'). In Paul's day the Roman government had an official that would go into the public square and shout, "This is the gospel from Rome!" But in this verse we find Paul saying in essence, "This is the Gospel TO Rome!" What a privilege to announce the good news that there is life and hope and peace and salvation and redemption and sanctification and glorification - all IN CHRIST!
So I write to you today as a slave that has been appointed as an ambassador - this time to the people of Peru. And I ask you to join me in prayer as I and 15 others from around the U.S. go into the streets and proclaim the good news. You may not hold an airline ticket for this trip, but you have the privilege of taking part through waging spiritual warfare in the heavenlies. I remind you of John Piper's quote, "Prayer is a war-time walkie-talkie, not a domestic intercom." Join us on the platform before our Lord and Savior and by your petitions, proclaim with us that Jesus Christ is the benevolent ruler of our hearts. After all, our debt to Him made us slaves but He set us apart to herald the message of grace. And none can preach that message better than a slave that has been set free!
Find attached a prayer calendar to guide you in your daily prayer time. Feel free to copy this and pass it around to others. Also, be looking for our updates from the field to get the specific "coordinates" to help you call in the "Fire Power" in this war we're waging.
So I write to you today as a slave that has been appointed as an ambassador - this time to the people of Peru. And I ask you to join me in prayer as I and 15 others from around the U.S. go into the streets and proclaim the good news. You may not hold an airline ticket for this trip, but you have the privilege of taking part through waging spiritual warfare in the heavenlies. I remind you of John Piper's quote, "Prayer is a war-time walkie-talkie, not a domestic intercom." Join us on the platform before our Lord and Savior and by your petitions, proclaim with us that Jesus Christ is the benevolent ruler of our hearts. After all, our debt to Him made us slaves but He set us apart to herald the message of grace. And none can preach that message better than a slave that has been set free!
Find attached a prayer calendar to guide you in your daily prayer time. Feel free to copy this and pass it around to others. Also, be looking for our updates from the field to get the specific "coordinates" to help you call in the "Fire Power" in this war we're waging.
"A Missionary Movement in Peru" (Peru - September 17, 2004)
Thanks for your prayers last weekend as I traveled down to Peru for a Leadership Development Conference in Tacna and a Missions Conference in Lima! The Lord was faithful and everything went above all that which we hoped or asked for.
I was blessed this time to have with me, Patrick Powell, who is one of my best friends in the world and former partner from my year in Pakistan. Also joining us was brother Larry Galindo, the Latin America Director for WalkThru the Bible Ministries. The three of us flew on a different plane and slept in different beds for 4 days straight! But the Lord really compounded our effectiveness and much was accomplished.
In Tacna we worked to equip 75+ leaders from 9 different churches, each of which will be participating with us on our November Campaign. The leadership there was very excited and receptive to the train and at the end of the conference they committed to collectively train an additional 1000 people over the coming year in the principles of prayer, evangelism, discipleship, congregating, developing leaders, and multiplying churches. We still need workers to join us on that trip from November 12-20 . . . please pray about it and click here to sign up.
But the real story from this trip lay in the vision of our Peruvian National Mobilization Director, Juvenal Bejar. Juvenal is an unassuming leader who once was associated with the terrorist group, The Shining Path. Juvenal was saved out of that socialistic movement years ago and eventually felt God's call to devote his life to spreading the Truth of Jesus Christ. Now the lead pastor of a network of house churches in the capital city of Lima, Juvenal has discipled leaders and equipped them to plant churches throughout all Peru. One might think that's quite a vision - to be on the forefront of reaching his own country with the gospel. But Juvenal's vision is much larger than that! Last year Juvenal invited me to come and conduct a conference on Islam so that leaders would be equipped to stave off a rising muslim population in Peru. As we met and talked he became convinced that they were to do more than simply "defend their country" - instead he has decided to lead the way and take the offensive.
This weekend Pat and I led an evening conference at Juvenal's church casting the vision for sending missionaries to the least reached countries in the area known as the 10/40 Window. From that small church in Lima, Peru God has raised up a young couple that will soon be going to China. That couple, already fluent in Chinese, has trained 3 other young people that will join them there next year. There is another lady in Juvenal's church that has been called to work with muslims, and another that has been called to India. In all, more than 15 people came forward in a time of commitment and laying on of hands in a church of about 65 people! I spoke to them of how God is raising up the Church in Latin America to go to the ends of the earth and complete the Great Commission - and they affirmed that hypothesis with a resounding "Here I am Lord, send me!" Just as we were leaving the service to run catch a plane, Juvenal addressed the congregation with the most selfless words I think I've ever heard a pastor speak. He said, "I look out at you and see so many of you responding to God's call knowing that you're being sent out from here. But I want you to know that I do not feel a sense of loss. Instead I feel this church is gaining so much in sending you out. If God sends all of you out as missionaries and I have noone left to preach to, noone left to give an offering, that's okay. I will just have to work hard and raise up another congregation and prepare to send them out right behind you. This is "Iglesia Missionera Cristo Viene" (The Missionary Church because Christ is Coming Back) and we will raise up soldiers that are prepared for the front-lines of the battle." Please be in prayer for Juvenal as I would like to send him on a vision trip to Asia next year with a friend that has recently formed Conexion 10/40, an organization that will act as a bridge for missionaries coming out of Latin America going to the ends of the earth. I believe helping to send him on that journey where he will meet other Spanish speaking missionaries already at work in that part of the world, will only pour fuel on the fire.
A movement is at hand and it requires a God-sized vision! It is estimated that there are now more born again believers south of the equator than north. Those countries that have in the past been recipients of missionaries - countries like Peru - are going to be the driving force for the Great Commission in the 21st Century. And your prayers and support are helping to make that happen! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I was blessed this time to have with me, Patrick Powell, who is one of my best friends in the world and former partner from my year in Pakistan. Also joining us was brother Larry Galindo, the Latin America Director for WalkThru the Bible Ministries. The three of us flew on a different plane and slept in different beds for 4 days straight! But the Lord really compounded our effectiveness and much was accomplished.
In Tacna we worked to equip 75+ leaders from 9 different churches, each of which will be participating with us on our November Campaign. The leadership there was very excited and receptive to the train and at the end of the conference they committed to collectively train an additional 1000 people over the coming year in the principles of prayer, evangelism, discipleship, congregating, developing leaders, and multiplying churches. We still need workers to join us on that trip from November 12-20 . . . please pray about it and click here to sign up.
But the real story from this trip lay in the vision of our Peruvian National Mobilization Director, Juvenal Bejar. Juvenal is an unassuming leader who once was associated with the terrorist group, The Shining Path. Juvenal was saved out of that socialistic movement years ago and eventually felt God's call to devote his life to spreading the Truth of Jesus Christ. Now the lead pastor of a network of house churches in the capital city of Lima, Juvenal has discipled leaders and equipped them to plant churches throughout all Peru. One might think that's quite a vision - to be on the forefront of reaching his own country with the gospel. But Juvenal's vision is much larger than that! Last year Juvenal invited me to come and conduct a conference on Islam so that leaders would be equipped to stave off a rising muslim population in Peru. As we met and talked he became convinced that they were to do more than simply "defend their country" - instead he has decided to lead the way and take the offensive.
This weekend Pat and I led an evening conference at Juvenal's church casting the vision for sending missionaries to the least reached countries in the area known as the 10/40 Window. From that small church in Lima, Peru God has raised up a young couple that will soon be going to China. That couple, already fluent in Chinese, has trained 3 other young people that will join them there next year. There is another lady in Juvenal's church that has been called to work with muslims, and another that has been called to India. In all, more than 15 people came forward in a time of commitment and laying on of hands in a church of about 65 people! I spoke to them of how God is raising up the Church in Latin America to go to the ends of the earth and complete the Great Commission - and they affirmed that hypothesis with a resounding "Here I am Lord, send me!" Just as we were leaving the service to run catch a plane, Juvenal addressed the congregation with the most selfless words I think I've ever heard a pastor speak. He said, "I look out at you and see so many of you responding to God's call knowing that you're being sent out from here. But I want you to know that I do not feel a sense of loss. Instead I feel this church is gaining so much in sending you out. If God sends all of you out as missionaries and I have noone left to preach to, noone left to give an offering, that's okay. I will just have to work hard and raise up another congregation and prepare to send them out right behind you. This is "Iglesia Missionera Cristo Viene" (The Missionary Church because Christ is Coming Back) and we will raise up soldiers that are prepared for the front-lines of the battle." Please be in prayer for Juvenal as I would like to send him on a vision trip to Asia next year with a friend that has recently formed Conexion 10/40, an organization that will act as a bridge for missionaries coming out of Latin America going to the ends of the earth. I believe helping to send him on that journey where he will meet other Spanish speaking missionaries already at work in that part of the world, will only pour fuel on the fire.
A movement is at hand and it requires a God-sized vision! It is estimated that there are now more born again believers south of the equator than north. Those countries that have in the past been recipients of missionaries - countries like Peru - are going to be the driving force for the Great Commission in the 21st Century. And your prayers and support are helping to make that happen! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
"Striking the Match" (Peru - September 8, 2004)
At Global Missions Fellowship, we believe in making the most of every opportunity so that God receives even more glory. In November we will be joining together with churches from Tacna, Peru and working alongside them to do evangelism and discipleship that results in new cell groups or churches. In essence, we will be attempting to ignite a wildfire that spreads throughout that city and beyond.
The Analogy:
Our last home had a woodburning stove in it that taught me a great deal about starting fires. I used to strike match after match cramming the thing with logs and newspaper . . . usually to no avail. I learned that to start a fire you have to make the conditions right. By taking the extra time on the front end of arranging small pieces of kindling, I could insure that when the match was struck the outcome would be a fire. The same can be said for our trip in November. A short-term mission trip, like a match, has a very short amount of time to accomplish a much greater task. Many organizations strike the match, but never take time to arrange the kindling. Not so with GMF. For that reason, Pat Powell and I will be traveling to Tacna this weekend to conduct a Leadership Development Conference where all the pastors and leaders from the participating churches will be gathered together for a time of prayer, training, and planning. It is our desire that as we take the time to "arrange the kindling" through this conference, that when November comes and we show up to "strike the match", the results of our campaign will far outlast our presence and a wildfire of the Spirit of God will spread in our wake.
Please take the time right now to pray for Pat and I as we head out. Pray for the following:
- That God would give us travel mercies and all our flights will be on time and peaceful
- That God would assemble the churches and leaders that HE wants to participate
- That God would give Pat and I wisdom and boldness to be able to communicate effectively
- That the conditions would be made right for a church planting movement to erupt in our wake
- That God provide the finances and people on this end (in the U.S.) for each person going and to cover our budget
- That God would raise up at least 5 more people to join us on the trip so we can work with every church that has expressed interest . . . could that person be YOU? Don't answer that question . . . let God answer it for you. If God says, "GO", then click here and you can sign up for the November 12-20 trip online. The cost is $1900.
We appreciate your prayers and your willingness to follow God in this Divine Opportunity! I look forward to reporting to you all that God does this weekend.
The Analogy:
Our last home had a woodburning stove in it that taught me a great deal about starting fires. I used to strike match after match cramming the thing with logs and newspaper . . . usually to no avail. I learned that to start a fire you have to make the conditions right. By taking the extra time on the front end of arranging small pieces of kindling, I could insure that when the match was struck the outcome would be a fire. The same can be said for our trip in November. A short-term mission trip, like a match, has a very short amount of time to accomplish a much greater task. Many organizations strike the match, but never take time to arrange the kindling. Not so with GMF. For that reason, Pat Powell and I will be traveling to Tacna this weekend to conduct a Leadership Development Conference where all the pastors and leaders from the participating churches will be gathered together for a time of prayer, training, and planning. It is our desire that as we take the time to "arrange the kindling" through this conference, that when November comes and we show up to "strike the match", the results of our campaign will far outlast our presence and a wildfire of the Spirit of God will spread in our wake.
Please take the time right now to pray for Pat and I as we head out. Pray for the following:
- That God would give us travel mercies and all our flights will be on time and peaceful
- That God would assemble the churches and leaders that HE wants to participate
- That God would give Pat and I wisdom and boldness to be able to communicate effectively
- That the conditions would be made right for a church planting movement to erupt in our wake
- That God provide the finances and people on this end (in the U.S.) for each person going and to cover our budget
- That God would raise up at least 5 more people to join us on the trip so we can work with every church that has expressed interest . . . could that person be YOU? Don't answer that question . . . let God answer it for you. If God says, "GO", then click here and you can sign up for the November 12-20 trip online. The cost is $1900.
We appreciate your prayers and your willingness to follow God in this Divine Opportunity! I look forward to reporting to you all that God does this weekend.
"Training New Staff" (Panama - March 24, 2004)
I just wanted to remind you all to be in prayer as I fly out tomorrow morning for Panama. I will be teaching a Leadership Conference along with my dear friend and new staff member, Todd Szalkowski. Also traveling with us is Josh Yarbrough, the missions pastor from Destiny Metropolitan Church in Marietta, GA. On Saturday we will be backpacking into the jungle to scout out a few villages in the Guaymi Indian Reservation where we'll be sending teams this summer.
As always, I covet your prayers as I travel. God is listening and we can truly feel the impact when you pray and open the way for us. Remember to pray specifically for my beautiful wife, Catherine, and our children, Aidan, Tori Beth, and Caleb. As you can imagine, when I travel it is especially difficult on them.
As always, I covet your prayers as I travel. God is listening and we can truly feel the impact when you pray and open the way for us. Remember to pray specifically for my beautiful wife, Catherine, and our children, Aidan, Tori Beth, and Caleb. As you can imagine, when I travel it is especially difficult on them.
"The Passion" (Tennessee - January 2004)
This weekend Catherine and I have been asked to lead a college ministry retreat focusing on "The Passion of Christ". As you know with all of the media buzz about Mel Gibson's incredible film on the subject, society is asking many questions right now. It is our desire to equip these young leaders in a way that they can be on the forefront providing answers as to the purpose of Christ's Passion. Please pray that we would be covered by the Holy Spirit and that our conversations and teaching times would be honoring to the One that suffered and died that we might inherit eternal life.
I also wanted to make you aware of an incredible resource that will help you to minister on the same subject. John Piper has released a new book called The Passion of Jesus Christ: Fifty Reasons Why Christ Suffered and Died. I recommend it highly!
Thank you for your prayers in advance. We wouldn't want to do ministry without you!
I also wanted to make you aware of an incredible resource that will help you to minister on the same subject. John Piper has released a new book called The Passion of Jesus Christ: Fifty Reasons Why Christ Suffered and Died. I recommend it highly!
Thank you for your prayers in advance. We wouldn't want to do ministry without you!
"A $50 Lesson in a Frozen Land" (November 2003)
Thanks for your faithful prayers and support while I was in Alaska. We definitely put on some miles during the short trip. In addition to the 8 hours of flying time, we based out of Fairbanks and did training seminars in Delta Junction which is 2.5 hours southwest and Healy, which is 2.5 hours southeast. The roads were unseasonably icy - they are usually packed with snow, but because of the "warm" (yea right!) temperatures driving conditions were much more precarious.
On our last day of training I had the privilege of training three adult small group leaders representing three different churches. After about an hour of training/sharing, two of the trainees were broken and in tears! As I encouraged them to never retreat from the call to make disciples, one of the ladies confessed that she had been ready to give up. Her husband was the Associate Pastor of the church and she taught an adult ladies class. When her husband told her about the training, she said, "NO WAY! I've got plans with my girlfriends and the last thing I need is to waste time listening to some boring lecture." Just before our lunch break the lady shared with me that she was convinced that the Lord had brought me there to train/encourage/equip her. She went to the phone and called her friends and told them that she would not be making their outing . . . she had something more important to attend to! Throughout the day we shared and interacted as a group and the three left with all of my training materials and a firm resolution to train their churches and replicate the infused passion that they had received. I was so blessed because I know that it only takes one person that's committed to investing in lives to make a difference. I praise God for my Sunday School teacher back in '91 taking the time for me!
The next morning we loaded up and hit the airport at 5 am with plenty of time to make our 6:30 flight . . . or so we thought. Once we got to the front of the line, the airline representative told me that my bag was overweight and that I'd have to pay a $50 surcharge or unload some stuff right away. There were about 20 people behind me in line and they were already calling to board my flight so I was upset and went ahead and paid rather than cause the rest of those people to miss the flight. I was steamin mad though because I had unloaded most of my materials in Alaska and was not charged for extra weight on the way up. So I grumbled all the way onto the plane and got seated. I couldn't get my mind off of the $50 because I look at my money as a stewardship. So I sat there staring out at the dark and icy runway and finally decided to look in the Scripture and see what it said about "anger". Boy, did God ever let me have it! "Be angry and sin not." "Put away all anger, bitterness, and wrath" "the one who says 'you fool' is in danger of the fire of hell". As I read verse after verse I came under deep conviction. Then I read, "Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." After several minutes pondering the whole situation I pulled out my CD player and started listening to some great worship music and humming along - much to the chagrin of the guy sitting next to me I'm sure. But within minutes my entire disposition had changed. My heart changed from being cold, hard and icy like the runway that we'd left a half hour before to being warm and glad. As I worshiped the bitterness melted into mercy and the anger into gratitude. And to think that I could learn such a valuable lesson for a mere $50! The freedom I felt after worshiping through the trial was priceless.
On our last day of training I had the privilege of training three adult small group leaders representing three different churches. After about an hour of training/sharing, two of the trainees were broken and in tears! As I encouraged them to never retreat from the call to make disciples, one of the ladies confessed that she had been ready to give up. Her husband was the Associate Pastor of the church and she taught an adult ladies class. When her husband told her about the training, she said, "NO WAY! I've got plans with my girlfriends and the last thing I need is to waste time listening to some boring lecture." Just before our lunch break the lady shared with me that she was convinced that the Lord had brought me there to train/encourage/equip her. She went to the phone and called her friends and told them that she would not be making their outing . . . she had something more important to attend to! Throughout the day we shared and interacted as a group and the three left with all of my training materials and a firm resolution to train their churches and replicate the infused passion that they had received. I was so blessed because I know that it only takes one person that's committed to investing in lives to make a difference. I praise God for my Sunday School teacher back in '91 taking the time for me!
The next morning we loaded up and hit the airport at 5 am with plenty of time to make our 6:30 flight . . . or so we thought. Once we got to the front of the line, the airline representative told me that my bag was overweight and that I'd have to pay a $50 surcharge or unload some stuff right away. There were about 20 people behind me in line and they were already calling to board my flight so I was upset and went ahead and paid rather than cause the rest of those people to miss the flight. I was steamin mad though because I had unloaded most of my materials in Alaska and was not charged for extra weight on the way up. So I grumbled all the way onto the plane and got seated. I couldn't get my mind off of the $50 because I look at my money as a stewardship. So I sat there staring out at the dark and icy runway and finally decided to look in the Scripture and see what it said about "anger". Boy, did God ever let me have it! "Be angry and sin not." "Put away all anger, bitterness, and wrath" "the one who says 'you fool' is in danger of the fire of hell". As I read verse after verse I came under deep conviction. Then I read, "Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." After several minutes pondering the whole situation I pulled out my CD player and started listening to some great worship music and humming along - much to the chagrin of the guy sitting next to me I'm sure. But within minutes my entire disposition had changed. My heart changed from being cold, hard and icy like the runway that we'd left a half hour before to being warm and glad. As I worshiped the bitterness melted into mercy and the anger into gratitude. And to think that I could learn such a valuable lesson for a mere $50! The freedom I felt after worshiping through the trial was priceless.
"Training Workers in Alaska" (November 2003)
Greetings from the "Last Frontier" of Alaska! We arrived here on Wednesday night to temperatures in the mid-20's and ice on the ground and to our surprise some of the folks here in Fairbanks were wearing shorts and flip flops! Boy have they got a different perspective on weather than those of us in the Southeast. It has snowed a little since our arrival and yet amazingly everything continues to operate - no school closings, all of the supermarkets even still have milk and bread on their shelves!!! Can you believe it? :)
We've spent the last two days traveling to small villages around Fairbanks to equip and encourage the churches there. Thursday night we were in Delta Junction and trained a small group from there and another frontier village called Tok. It was great to see how encouraged the folks were by our training. One adult Sunday School teacher named Debra told me that she'd been teaching for 12 years and never received training and she couldn't believe that God would send me all the way from Atlanta, GA just to help her. She left with a vision for reaching her small village of 1500 people and with tools to do it.
Today we drove down to the last village outside of Denali National Park - the home of Mt. McKinley, which is the tallest peak in North America. It was a beautiful drive - a little scary since there was plenty of snow, ice and fog. But in the small town of Healy a little Baptist church called Morningstar is working hard to reach their 600 neighbors. Healy is a mining town and the church has been providing AWANAS children's ministry for the worker's children after school rather than in the evening. They are currently going throught the 40 days of Purpose and have 9 groups meeting to study that. They average about 70 in worship, which is not bad - over 10% of the population. The pastor has been there for 20 years and is leaving in the Spring to go to southeast Alaska to oversea an association of churches there. We talked with him and helped him to strategize on reproducing leaders in preparation for his departure so the work of the ministry doesn't suffer.
On Saturday I'll be training a group of adult workers in Moose Creek. Please pray for that.
Thank you for making it possible for these little frontier villages to get the resources and encouragement they need to keep growing the Kingdom here in the "Last Frontier".
You are the BEST ministry partners in the world and I love each of you for being a part of this!
We've spent the last two days traveling to small villages around Fairbanks to equip and encourage the churches there. Thursday night we were in Delta Junction and trained a small group from there and another frontier village called Tok. It was great to see how encouraged the folks were by our training. One adult Sunday School teacher named Debra told me that she'd been teaching for 12 years and never received training and she couldn't believe that God would send me all the way from Atlanta, GA just to help her. She left with a vision for reaching her small village of 1500 people and with tools to do it.
Today we drove down to the last village outside of Denali National Park - the home of Mt. McKinley, which is the tallest peak in North America. It was a beautiful drive - a little scary since there was plenty of snow, ice and fog. But in the small town of Healy a little Baptist church called Morningstar is working hard to reach their 600 neighbors. Healy is a mining town and the church has been providing AWANAS children's ministry for the worker's children after school rather than in the evening. They are currently going throught the 40 days of Purpose and have 9 groups meeting to study that. They average about 70 in worship, which is not bad - over 10% of the population. The pastor has been there for 20 years and is leaving in the Spring to go to southeast Alaska to oversea an association of churches there. We talked with him and helped him to strategize on reproducing leaders in preparation for his departure so the work of the ministry doesn't suffer.
On Saturday I'll be training a group of adult workers in Moose Creek. Please pray for that.
Thank you for making it possible for these little frontier villages to get the resources and encouragement they need to keep growing the Kingdom here in the "Last Frontier".
You are the BEST ministry partners in the world and I love each of you for being a part of this!
Alaska - November 2003
The folks at Atlanta Hartsfield know me by first name now . . . J
No really, please be in prayer as I head out on Wednesday morning for my last mission trip of the year. This trip is a little different in that I will be staying inside the U.S. – although Alaska is a whole different world! I am traveling with several other pastoral staff from Hebron Baptist Church (my home church in Dacula, GA) to Fairbanks in order to train an association of churches there. I will be conducting several training seminars on Organizing Adults for Sunday School/Small Groups. This one is short, but I still covet your prayers. I’ll be back home late Sunday night with frozen toes!!!
As always, my top prayer request is that you lift up my sweet wife and beautiful children as I’m gone.
Thanks for your prayers and support!
No really, please be in prayer as I head out on Wednesday morning for my last mission trip of the year. This trip is a little different in that I will be staying inside the U.S. – although Alaska is a whole different world! I am traveling with several other pastoral staff from Hebron Baptist Church (my home church in Dacula, GA) to Fairbanks in order to train an association of churches there. I will be conducting several training seminars on Organizing Adults for Sunday School/Small Groups. This one is short, but I still covet your prayers. I’ll be back home late Sunday night with frozen toes!!!
As always, my top prayer request is that you lift up my sweet wife and beautiful children as I’m gone.
Thanks for your prayers and support!
"A Story of Transformation" (Peru - October 2003)
The Lord of the Harvest has answered our prayers for the city of Tacna, Peru by bringing forth 1273 new believers and 5 new churches using your prayers and a team of 15 North Americans combined with a team of 14 Peruvian missionaries that we trained earlier in the year! Thank you for your faithful prayers over the past week for God has surely heard and answered “exceedingly abundant above all that we could ever imagine or ask for”!
It is hard to connect with these kind of “numbers” having not been there to experience it. That’s why we focus on equipping and working together with nationals and their churches so that the ministry continues long after we have come back to the States. To help you connect, take a few moments to read the story below:
On Tuesday afternoon I was supervising at a new church start located in a remote and impoverished district of Tacna known as “New Jerusalem”. Thousands of people live in this area although the amenities are few. There are water spigots placed occasionally throughout the development but few of the homes have their own running water. Most of the houses are made from straw mats and a few from cinder blocks with corrugated tin roofs. I was excited to be a part of this initiation service for the first evangelical church in this physically and spiritually thirsty community.
At around 4 pm the mother church jumped a wire off of the power line and rigged up about 8 light bulbs around a dry little patch of dirt that will one day contain a building. They also brought out a sound system and cranked up the children’s Christian music attracting the attention of multitudes. As the children came running in, the adults of the mother church greeted them and began to teach them the songs and dance moves (yes, it is biblical to dance for the Lord!). I enjoyed being a part of that, but was eagerly anticipating the 7 pm evening service.
At around 6 pm one of my national leaders approached me and told me we needed to make a visit. I questioned him, partly because it was getting dark and its not wise for a “gringo” to wander around in the dark, and partly because I didn’t want to miss the service. After much prompting I asked why we needed to make a visit so close to time for the service. That is when they introduced me to Alesia – a short Peruvian mother wearing the traditional clothing and carrying a small baby strapped around her back using a long piece of brightly colored cloth. They told me that Alesia had prayed to receive Christ the day before and that her husband had become angry and forbid her to have contact with the church because he did not like “religion”. So there it was, a third reason why I didn’t want to go . . . an angry husband that thought that we had undermined his authority. Nevertheless, my friends convinced me and we slipped away from the loud music and began to make our way down the dusty path into the darkness.
With the music still within hearing distance we broke off from the path and made our way toward a house. Just before we got there a shadowy figure appeared pushing a bicycle. It was Alesia’s husband – Serapio. One of my friends introduced us and began to talk with the man, but it was obvious that he was not comfortable with our being there. Meanwhile, Alesia slipped behind the gate and into her small home out of sight. After about a minute of talking, my friend motioned for me to go on through the gate and I reluctantly did so. Once inside the one-room home I looked around – it was about 12 feet by 12 feet and contained two small single beds, each along separate walls. There was a dresser with clothes and things piled up on it and a few wooden stools, one of which I sat down upon. The room was dimly lit by a single candle that hung from the ceiling on a disassembled coat hanger. The husband sat down directly across from me on the edge of a bed. I got straight to the point and began to share my testimony in my feeble and broken Spanish explaining how my life had been transformed by a relationship with Christ. After that I took out an Evangecube which clearly tells the story of the gospel through pictures. I explained the pictures and noticed that the stern look on his face had not changed much.
I had just about come to the end of my Spanish when Serapio jumped in and began to explain his disillusionment with religion because his parents had been Adventists and he had never connected with that. After he shared a little bit, one of my friends began to explain the difference between religion and a relationship with God. His tense look had dissipated significantly, but he still was not convinced.
In all, we shared for about an hour – all the while hearing the service broadcasting through the loud speakers on the other side of the sand dune. I knew we were missing the service, but this guy was beginning to open up. Before I knew it, my friend looked over and said, “He’s ready to pray and receive Christ.” We led the man in prayer and when he looked up the biggest smile was on his face. We talked a little more and he was laughing and joking – a total countenance change! And then my friend challenged him to be a godly husband and father and what happened next amazed me. Serapio stood up and walked over to where his wife had been quietly sitting and breast feeding the baby. He sat down beside her and put his arm around her and apologized in front of all of us! Wow, what a transformation! When we were leaving he was still embracing her. We encouraged them both to walk up to the service, which we figured was just about to end. After all, this was now their church!
As I climbed back over the hill the sound of Pastor Bustamante preaching grew louder and louder. The little light bulbs hanging from the wire stretched light across the dark little hillside revealing about 50 adults and at least that many children all listening to the Pastor explain that this church was to be theirs – a place of refuge for the forgotten community. As the service came to a close, I looked over and there was Serapio, Alesia and their baby – his arm was still around her and now they both had smiles on their faces. After the service we mingled through the crowd and then I made my way over to the young couple to give them a Bible for they did not own one. Those of us that had been in their home signed our names in the front and wrote encouraging notes to the couple as they embarked on their spiritual journey together. All around us the children were laughing and dancing, still singing the tunes they had learned earlier about Jesus’ love. I couldn’t help but think that their generation would grow up on that dusty sand dune – but now they all had a spring of water welling up from within to quench their spiritual thirst. As I embraced Serapio one more time before he and Alesia disappeared over the dark hill, I praised God once again for the “Divine inconveniences” of life that allow me AND YOU to be a part of something so beautiful and so lasting as seeing husband reconciled to wife and both reconciled to their Heavenly Father!
Thank you for your prayers and financial contributions that made this and 1271 other stories of transformed lives happen last week in Tacna, Peru! Who knows, maybe you’ll be there with us this time next year??? Could it be that God has a “Divine Inconvenience” for you?
It is hard to connect with these kind of “numbers” having not been there to experience it. That’s why we focus on equipping and working together with nationals and their churches so that the ministry continues long after we have come back to the States. To help you connect, take a few moments to read the story below:
On Tuesday afternoon I was supervising at a new church start located in a remote and impoverished district of Tacna known as “New Jerusalem”. Thousands of people live in this area although the amenities are few. There are water spigots placed occasionally throughout the development but few of the homes have their own running water. Most of the houses are made from straw mats and a few from cinder blocks with corrugated tin roofs. I was excited to be a part of this initiation service for the first evangelical church in this physically and spiritually thirsty community.
At around 4 pm the mother church jumped a wire off of the power line and rigged up about 8 light bulbs around a dry little patch of dirt that will one day contain a building. They also brought out a sound system and cranked up the children’s Christian music attracting the attention of multitudes. As the children came running in, the adults of the mother church greeted them and began to teach them the songs and dance moves (yes, it is biblical to dance for the Lord!). I enjoyed being a part of that, but was eagerly anticipating the 7 pm evening service.
At around 6 pm one of my national leaders approached me and told me we needed to make a visit. I questioned him, partly because it was getting dark and its not wise for a “gringo” to wander around in the dark, and partly because I didn’t want to miss the service. After much prompting I asked why we needed to make a visit so close to time for the service. That is when they introduced me to Alesia – a short Peruvian mother wearing the traditional clothing and carrying a small baby strapped around her back using a long piece of brightly colored cloth. They told me that Alesia had prayed to receive Christ the day before and that her husband had become angry and forbid her to have contact with the church because he did not like “religion”. So there it was, a third reason why I didn’t want to go . . . an angry husband that thought that we had undermined his authority. Nevertheless, my friends convinced me and we slipped away from the loud music and began to make our way down the dusty path into the darkness.
With the music still within hearing distance we broke off from the path and made our way toward a house. Just before we got there a shadowy figure appeared pushing a bicycle. It was Alesia’s husband – Serapio. One of my friends introduced us and began to talk with the man, but it was obvious that he was not comfortable with our being there. Meanwhile, Alesia slipped behind the gate and into her small home out of sight. After about a minute of talking, my friend motioned for me to go on through the gate and I reluctantly did so. Once inside the one-room home I looked around – it was about 12 feet by 12 feet and contained two small single beds, each along separate walls. There was a dresser with clothes and things piled up on it and a few wooden stools, one of which I sat down upon. The room was dimly lit by a single candle that hung from the ceiling on a disassembled coat hanger. The husband sat down directly across from me on the edge of a bed. I got straight to the point and began to share my testimony in my feeble and broken Spanish explaining how my life had been transformed by a relationship with Christ. After that I took out an Evangecube which clearly tells the story of the gospel through pictures. I explained the pictures and noticed that the stern look on his face had not changed much.
I had just about come to the end of my Spanish when Serapio jumped in and began to explain his disillusionment with religion because his parents had been Adventists and he had never connected with that. After he shared a little bit, one of my friends began to explain the difference between religion and a relationship with God. His tense look had dissipated significantly, but he still was not convinced.
In all, we shared for about an hour – all the while hearing the service broadcasting through the loud speakers on the other side of the sand dune. I knew we were missing the service, but this guy was beginning to open up. Before I knew it, my friend looked over and said, “He’s ready to pray and receive Christ.” We led the man in prayer and when he looked up the biggest smile was on his face. We talked a little more and he was laughing and joking – a total countenance change! And then my friend challenged him to be a godly husband and father and what happened next amazed me. Serapio stood up and walked over to where his wife had been quietly sitting and breast feeding the baby. He sat down beside her and put his arm around her and apologized in front of all of us! Wow, what a transformation! When we were leaving he was still embracing her. We encouraged them both to walk up to the service, which we figured was just about to end. After all, this was now their church!
As I climbed back over the hill the sound of Pastor Bustamante preaching grew louder and louder. The little light bulbs hanging from the wire stretched light across the dark little hillside revealing about 50 adults and at least that many children all listening to the Pastor explain that this church was to be theirs – a place of refuge for the forgotten community. As the service came to a close, I looked over and there was Serapio, Alesia and their baby – his arm was still around her and now they both had smiles on their faces. After the service we mingled through the crowd and then I made my way over to the young couple to give them a Bible for they did not own one. Those of us that had been in their home signed our names in the front and wrote encouraging notes to the couple as they embarked on their spiritual journey together. All around us the children were laughing and dancing, still singing the tunes they had learned earlier about Jesus’ love. I couldn’t help but think that their generation would grow up on that dusty sand dune – but now they all had a spring of water welling up from within to quench their spiritual thirst. As I embraced Serapio one more time before he and Alesia disappeared over the dark hill, I praised God once again for the “Divine inconveniences” of life that allow me AND YOU to be a part of something so beautiful and so lasting as seeing husband reconciled to wife and both reconciled to their Heavenly Father!
Thank you for your prayers and financial contributions that made this and 1271 other stories of transformed lives happen last week in Tacna, Peru! Who knows, maybe you’ll be there with us this time next year??? Could it be that God has a “Divine Inconvenience” for you?
"Above and Beyond All That We Asked" (Peru - October 24, 2003)
GOD HAS SO FAR EXCEEDED OUR EXPECTATIONS WITH WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED THIS WEEK IN TACNA, PERU. I GUESS I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN . . . AFTER ALL, HIS WORD PROMISES THAT HIS WAYS ARE HIGHER THAN OUR WAYS AND HIS PLANS HIGHER THAN OURS.
TODAY IS OUR LAST DAY OF MINISTRY AMONG THE CHURCHES OF TACNA. OUR TEAMS ARE LEAVING RIGHT NOW TO GO OUT AND THEY ARE EXCITED. TONIGHT WE WILL BE HAVING A CLOSING VICTORY RALLY IN THE OLD TOWN CINEMA . . . WE ARE EXPECTING IT TO BE A PACKED HOUSE! WE EVEN HAD A RADIO SPOT YESTERDAY WHERE ONE TEAM SHARED THE GOSPEL AND 10 CALLED IN TO RECEIVE CHRIST. AN INVITATION WAS GIVEN ON THE RADIO TO COME. PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR TEAMS AS THEY PREPARE FOR THE CELEBRATION . . . WHICH IS USUALLY A VERY EMOTIONAL TIME BECAUSE OF THE RELATIONSHIPS THAT HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED IN THE HOLY SPIRIT THROUGHOUT THE WEEK.
AS OF WEDNESDAY, THE LORD HAS BROUGHT 448 PEOPLE ON PERSONAL VISITS TO ACCEPT THE GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST . MANY MORE HAVE RECEIVED CHRIST THROUGH STREET PREACHING, RADIO MINISTRY, AND IN EVENING SERVICE ALTAR CALLS . . . MORE THAN WE COULD KEEP TRACK OF! ONE OF THE GREATEST BLESSINGS IS THAT A THIRD OF THOSE THAT HAVE RECEIVED CHRIST HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED AT LEAST ONE FOLLOW UP DISCIPLESHIP VISIT IN THEIR HOMES. IT HAS NOT BEEN UNCOMMON THAT OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS HAVE ACCEPTED CHRIST DURING THOSE DISCIPLESHIP VISITS.
THE FOLLOWING IS A STORY FROM ONE TEAM MEMBER . . .
I HAVE BEEN AMAZED THIS WEEK TO SEE HOW THE LORD HAS MADE DISCIPLES IN OUR CHURCH. AMONG THEM IS NESTOR, A 15 OR 16 YEAR OLD BOY THAT LIVES A FEW BLOCKS AWAY FROM THE CHURCH. ON MONDAY WE KNOCKED ON NESTORS DOOR AND PAULI, ONE OF THE PERUVIAN GIRLS WORKING WITH US, SHARED THE GOSPEL WITH NESTOR. I WATCHED AS HIS FACE CHANGED FROM A DISINTERESTED BUT POLITE LOOK TO A LOOK OF INTENSE INTEREST IN WHAT HE WAS HEARING. AFTER SOME TIME OF SHARING, NESTOR PRAYED TO RECEIVE CHRIST AND WE REJOICED. THE NEXT DAY WE WENT BACK TO HIS HOUSE TO FOLLOW UP WITH HIM AND BEGIN TEACHING HIM HOW TO STUDY GODS WORD AND GROW AS A NEW BELIEVER. PAULI ASKED NESTOR IF HE UNDERSTOOD WHAT HAD HAPPENED ON THE DAY BEFORE AND HE REVEALED THAT THERE WAS SOME CONFUSION. SO PAULI AND I REVIEWED THE GOSPEL WITH HIM AND HELPED TO CLEAR UP THE CONFUSION. THEN WE STARTED WITH THE BIBLE STUDY LESSON TEACHING HIM HOW TO FIND VERSES IN THE SCRIPTURE THAT CONTAINED THE ANSWERS TO THE STUDY QUESTIONS. THAT NIGHT HE ATTENDED OUR EVENING SERVICE AND WE LOVED ALL OVER HIM LETTING HIM KNOW HOW HAPPY WE WERE TO SEE HIM. THE DISCIPLESHIP PROCESS WILL CONTINUE LONG AFTER WE LEAVE AND I AM CONFIDENT THAT HE WHO BEGAN A GOOD WORK IN NESTOR WILL SEE IT THROUGH TO COMPLETION. PRAISE GOD FOR HIS GRACE IN USING ME AND USING YOU, OUR PRAYER FORCE, TO SEE LIVES LIKE NESTORS CHANGED ALL THE WAY DOWN HERE IN TACNA, PERU!
TODAY IS OUR LAST DAY OF MINISTRY AMONG THE CHURCHES OF TACNA. OUR TEAMS ARE LEAVING RIGHT NOW TO GO OUT AND THEY ARE EXCITED. TONIGHT WE WILL BE HAVING A CLOSING VICTORY RALLY IN THE OLD TOWN CINEMA . . . WE ARE EXPECTING IT TO BE A PACKED HOUSE! WE EVEN HAD A RADIO SPOT YESTERDAY WHERE ONE TEAM SHARED THE GOSPEL AND 10 CALLED IN TO RECEIVE CHRIST. AN INVITATION WAS GIVEN ON THE RADIO TO COME. PLEASE PRAY FOR OUR TEAMS AS THEY PREPARE FOR THE CELEBRATION . . . WHICH IS USUALLY A VERY EMOTIONAL TIME BECAUSE OF THE RELATIONSHIPS THAT HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED IN THE HOLY SPIRIT THROUGHOUT THE WEEK.
AS OF WEDNESDAY, THE LORD HAS BROUGHT 448 PEOPLE ON PERSONAL VISITS TO ACCEPT THE GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST . MANY MORE HAVE RECEIVED CHRIST THROUGH STREET PREACHING, RADIO MINISTRY, AND IN EVENING SERVICE ALTAR CALLS . . . MORE THAN WE COULD KEEP TRACK OF! ONE OF THE GREATEST BLESSINGS IS THAT A THIRD OF THOSE THAT HAVE RECEIVED CHRIST HAVE ALREADY RECEIVED AT LEAST ONE FOLLOW UP DISCIPLESHIP VISIT IN THEIR HOMES. IT HAS NOT BEEN UNCOMMON THAT OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS HAVE ACCEPTED CHRIST DURING THOSE DISCIPLESHIP VISITS.
THE FOLLOWING IS A STORY FROM ONE TEAM MEMBER . . .
I HAVE BEEN AMAZED THIS WEEK TO SEE HOW THE LORD HAS MADE DISCIPLES IN OUR CHURCH. AMONG THEM IS NESTOR, A 15 OR 16 YEAR OLD BOY THAT LIVES A FEW BLOCKS AWAY FROM THE CHURCH. ON MONDAY WE KNOCKED ON NESTORS DOOR AND PAULI, ONE OF THE PERUVIAN GIRLS WORKING WITH US, SHARED THE GOSPEL WITH NESTOR. I WATCHED AS HIS FACE CHANGED FROM A DISINTERESTED BUT POLITE LOOK TO A LOOK OF INTENSE INTEREST IN WHAT HE WAS HEARING. AFTER SOME TIME OF SHARING, NESTOR PRAYED TO RECEIVE CHRIST AND WE REJOICED. THE NEXT DAY WE WENT BACK TO HIS HOUSE TO FOLLOW UP WITH HIM AND BEGIN TEACHING HIM HOW TO STUDY GODS WORD AND GROW AS A NEW BELIEVER. PAULI ASKED NESTOR IF HE UNDERSTOOD WHAT HAD HAPPENED ON THE DAY BEFORE AND HE REVEALED THAT THERE WAS SOME CONFUSION. SO PAULI AND I REVIEWED THE GOSPEL WITH HIM AND HELPED TO CLEAR UP THE CONFUSION. THEN WE STARTED WITH THE BIBLE STUDY LESSON TEACHING HIM HOW TO FIND VERSES IN THE SCRIPTURE THAT CONTAINED THE ANSWERS TO THE STUDY QUESTIONS. THAT NIGHT HE ATTENDED OUR EVENING SERVICE AND WE LOVED ALL OVER HIM LETTING HIM KNOW HOW HAPPY WE WERE TO SEE HIM. THE DISCIPLESHIP PROCESS WILL CONTINUE LONG AFTER WE LEAVE AND I AM CONFIDENT THAT HE WHO BEGAN A GOOD WORK IN NESTOR WILL SEE IT THROUGH TO COMPLETION. PRAISE GOD FOR HIS GRACE IN USING ME AND USING YOU, OUR PRAYER FORCE, TO SEE LIVES LIKE NESTORS CHANGED ALL THE WAY DOWN HERE IN TACNA, PERU!
"A Church is Born!" (Peru - October 22, 2003)
THE AMAZEMENT AT GODS GRACE AND PLAN FOR THIS CAMPAIGN CONTINUES. WE ARE HUMBLED AT THE WONDERFUL THINGS THAT WE ARE HAVING THE PRIVILEGE TO EXPERIENCE. SO MANY OF YOU OUT THERE HAVE MADE FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO HELP MAKE THIS HAPPEN AND WE THANK YOU SINCERELY AS DO THE CHURCHES IN TACNA. HERE IS ONE STORY OF HOW GOD IS WORKING THROUGH ONE OF OUR TEAMS . . .
THE LORD LAID A VISION ON PASTOR PATRICIOS HEART THAT IS FAR BEYOND WHAT I HAD REALIZED. OUR EFFORTS IN EVANGELISM HAVE BEEN CONCENTRATED ON AN AREA OF TACNA KNOWN AS NEW JERUSALEM. THIS IS WHERE THE POOREST OF THE POOR LIVE. THEY HAVE NO RUNNING WATER, HOUSES ARE MADE OF STRAW MATS AND CORRUGATED TIN, AND SOME CINDER BLOCK. THERE IS NO SEWAGE SYSTEM, AND NO OTHER AMENITIES . . . BUT THERE IS PLENTY OF DESPAIR. THE LORD LAID THIS AREA ON PATRICIOS HEART. IN ANTICIPATION OF THIS CAMPAIGN HE BOUGHT A SMALL PIECE OF LAND THERE ON WHICH A CHURCH BUILDING CAN ONE DAY BE CONSTRUCTED. THIS WEEK WAS THE KICK OFF OF THAT VISION. AS WE WENT DOOR TO DOOR AND MAT HOUSE TO MAT HOUSE I SAW TWO TEEN AGED BOYS MEANDERING ABOUT. I ASKED OUR INTERPRETER LOUIS TO GO WITH US AND SHARE THE GOSPEL WITH THEM. LOUIS TOLD US THERE WAS NO NEED BECAUSE PATRICIO HAD VISITED WITH THEM WHEN HE BOUGHT THE LAND. WHEN I ASKED HIM WHY, LOUIS TOLD ME THAT PATRICIO HAD BOUGHT TWO GUITARS AND ASKED GOD WHOM TO GIVE THEM TO. THE LORD LED PATRICIO TO THOSE TWO TEENAGE BOYS AND AFTER SHARING THE GOSPEL WITH THEM, PATRICIO GAVE THEM THE GUITARS AND TOLD THEM TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY BECAUSE HE WOULD NEED THEM TO BE WORSHIP LEADERS ONE DAY IN THE NEW CHURCH THERE! LAST NIGHT THEY HAD THEIR FIRST EVER SERVICE ON THE LAND IN NEW JERUSALEM. FROM 5 TIL 7 THEY HAD A SOUND SYSTEM SET UP PLAYING CHILDRENS MUSIC AND DOZENS OF CHILDREN CAME AND LEARNED THE SONGS ABOUT JESUS AND HIS LOVE WHILE DANCING AND PLAYING. THEN FROM 7 TIL 8 THE PASTORS WELCOMED ALL OF THE COMMUNITY TO A CELEBRATION OF THE NEW CHURCH. ABOUT 40 ADULTS AND 50 CHILDREN WERE THERE INCLUDING MANY OF THE NEW BELIEVERS. I THOUGHT THAT WE WERE BRINGING CHRIST TO TACNA BUT I WAS MISTAKEN. CHRIST HAS BEEN AT WORK HERE LONG BEFORE WE ARRIVED, AND FROM THE LOOKS OF THINGS, HE WILL CONTINUE LONG AFTER WE HAVE RETURN HOME.
PRAISE GOD FOR STORIES LIKE THIS . . . THERE ARE HUNDREDS MORE LIKE THEM THAT WE HOPE TO SHARE WITH YOU IN THE DAYS TO COME. BUT FOR NOW, MAGNIFY THE NAME OF CHRIST WITH US AS WE HAVE SEEN HIM BRING OVER 300 NEW SOULS INTO THE KINGDOM THIS WEEK. AND THE GREATEST THING IS THAT DOZENS OF THEM HAVE WELCOMED OUR TEAMS INTO THEIR HOMES FOR BIBLE STUDY WHERE THEY ARE BEING DISCIPLED. EVEN THERE THE GOSPEL IS STILL GOING OUT AS FAMILY MEMBERS SEE THE CHANGES IN THEIR LOVED ONES LIVES AND THEY THEN ACCEPT CHRIST! PRAISE GOD WITH US FOR ALL OF THIS.
PRAYER REQUESTS. TRISH IS FEELING MUCH BETTER TODAY AND IS BACK OUT WORKING! PRAY FOR THE DISCIPLESHIP OF NEW BELIEVERS THAT WILL TAKE PLACE TODAY. PRAY FOR OUR CLOSING RALLY THAT WILL BE HELD TOMORROW AS ALL OF THE CHURCHES COME TOGETHER TO CELEBRATE WHAT GOD HAS ACCOMPLISHED THIS WEEK. PRAY THAT OUR TEAM REMAINS HEALTHY AND THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO BE AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE LOCAL BELIEVERS.
WE LOVE YOU AND APPRECIATE YOUR VITAL WORK OF PRAYER!
BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING,
THE LORD LAID A VISION ON PASTOR PATRICIOS HEART THAT IS FAR BEYOND WHAT I HAD REALIZED. OUR EFFORTS IN EVANGELISM HAVE BEEN CONCENTRATED ON AN AREA OF TACNA KNOWN AS NEW JERUSALEM. THIS IS WHERE THE POOREST OF THE POOR LIVE. THEY HAVE NO RUNNING WATER, HOUSES ARE MADE OF STRAW MATS AND CORRUGATED TIN, AND SOME CINDER BLOCK. THERE IS NO SEWAGE SYSTEM, AND NO OTHER AMENITIES . . . BUT THERE IS PLENTY OF DESPAIR. THE LORD LAID THIS AREA ON PATRICIOS HEART. IN ANTICIPATION OF THIS CAMPAIGN HE BOUGHT A SMALL PIECE OF LAND THERE ON WHICH A CHURCH BUILDING CAN ONE DAY BE CONSTRUCTED. THIS WEEK WAS THE KICK OFF OF THAT VISION. AS WE WENT DOOR TO DOOR AND MAT HOUSE TO MAT HOUSE I SAW TWO TEEN AGED BOYS MEANDERING ABOUT. I ASKED OUR INTERPRETER LOUIS TO GO WITH US AND SHARE THE GOSPEL WITH THEM. LOUIS TOLD US THERE WAS NO NEED BECAUSE PATRICIO HAD VISITED WITH THEM WHEN HE BOUGHT THE LAND. WHEN I ASKED HIM WHY, LOUIS TOLD ME THAT PATRICIO HAD BOUGHT TWO GUITARS AND ASKED GOD WHOM TO GIVE THEM TO. THE LORD LED PATRICIO TO THOSE TWO TEENAGE BOYS AND AFTER SHARING THE GOSPEL WITH THEM, PATRICIO GAVE THEM THE GUITARS AND TOLD THEM TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY BECAUSE HE WOULD NEED THEM TO BE WORSHIP LEADERS ONE DAY IN THE NEW CHURCH THERE! LAST NIGHT THEY HAD THEIR FIRST EVER SERVICE ON THE LAND IN NEW JERUSALEM. FROM 5 TIL 7 THEY HAD A SOUND SYSTEM SET UP PLAYING CHILDRENS MUSIC AND DOZENS OF CHILDREN CAME AND LEARNED THE SONGS ABOUT JESUS AND HIS LOVE WHILE DANCING AND PLAYING. THEN FROM 7 TIL 8 THE PASTORS WELCOMED ALL OF THE COMMUNITY TO A CELEBRATION OF THE NEW CHURCH. ABOUT 40 ADULTS AND 50 CHILDREN WERE THERE INCLUDING MANY OF THE NEW BELIEVERS. I THOUGHT THAT WE WERE BRINGING CHRIST TO TACNA BUT I WAS MISTAKEN. CHRIST HAS BEEN AT WORK HERE LONG BEFORE WE ARRIVED, AND FROM THE LOOKS OF THINGS, HE WILL CONTINUE LONG AFTER WE HAVE RETURN HOME.
PRAISE GOD FOR STORIES LIKE THIS . . . THERE ARE HUNDREDS MORE LIKE THEM THAT WE HOPE TO SHARE WITH YOU IN THE DAYS TO COME. BUT FOR NOW, MAGNIFY THE NAME OF CHRIST WITH US AS WE HAVE SEEN HIM BRING OVER 300 NEW SOULS INTO THE KINGDOM THIS WEEK. AND THE GREATEST THING IS THAT DOZENS OF THEM HAVE WELCOMED OUR TEAMS INTO THEIR HOMES FOR BIBLE STUDY WHERE THEY ARE BEING DISCIPLED. EVEN THERE THE GOSPEL IS STILL GOING OUT AS FAMILY MEMBERS SEE THE CHANGES IN THEIR LOVED ONES LIVES AND THEY THEN ACCEPT CHRIST! PRAISE GOD WITH US FOR ALL OF THIS.
PRAYER REQUESTS. TRISH IS FEELING MUCH BETTER TODAY AND IS BACK OUT WORKING! PRAY FOR THE DISCIPLESHIP OF NEW BELIEVERS THAT WILL TAKE PLACE TODAY. PRAY FOR OUR CLOSING RALLY THAT WILL BE HELD TOMORROW AS ALL OF THE CHURCHES COME TOGETHER TO CELEBRATE WHAT GOD HAS ACCOMPLISHED THIS WEEK. PRAY THAT OUR TEAM REMAINS HEALTHY AND THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO BE AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO THE LOCAL BELIEVERS.
WE LOVE YOU AND APPRECIATE YOUR VITAL WORK OF PRAYER!
BLESSED TO BE A BLESSING,
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