Mission to the Americas

Serving Ministries and Missions in Latin America

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Archives for November 2008

Helping Others Forgive

November 15, 2008 by ecoach Leave a Comment

DSCF1444, nikon
Martha Tinoco - Vida Joven Staff

Vida Joven Leader Martha Tinoco (pictured standing right) wrote in a note to us after the event with them last year:

Thanks for sharing with us.  You are an example for my life.  I can see how [your team] works in unity, love, and respect.  I saw the presence of God in your lives, as great servants of God, with great gifts.  I don’t have enough words to express our thanks! – M Tinoco, Vida Joven, Matagalpa, Nicaragua, December 2007.

Leave Your Weapons at the Door:

Imagine proclaiming Christ among:

  • Some of the poorest social conditions in Latin America.
  • Poverty, gangs, crime, and lack of available food.
  • Helping those victimized by wars, crime and abuse find faith in Christ.
  • Sexual, physical, and verbal abuse.
  • Broken family systems where one might have 18 – 25 half siblings.
  • Living on a garbage landfill recycling scrap metals.

One club leader has a policy:

If you come to our bible study, leave your weapons at the door. 

Other leaders have already served time in jail for crimes they committed before finding Christ and now want to go back to their gangs and proclaim the gospel.

Vida Joven

Vida Joven has been ministering in this context for over 15 years in Nicaragua, proclaiming and demonstrating the love of Jesus. 

Each year in the mountains outside of Matagalpa Nicaragua, their leadership gathers for an intense week of training, encouragement, and refreshment.  Proclaiming the love of Jesus in such areas can be dangerous work: physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  The camp gives the leadership opportunity to heal, forgive, and grow.

We have been on two trips to provide leadership training.  Two issues routinely come up:

  1. How do the leaders find healing for the personal junk in their lives?
  2. How can they minister to the broken who are coming to faith in Christ and want to find the healing of their own wounds?

Last Year’s Nicaragua Team

The Team with Omar
The Team with Omar

Last year, a leader said to me:

“It’s good to have a cry fest here and get things solved, but some of these healings have to go much deeper.  We simply don’t have the trained staff here to do it.”

I was with a team from PRMI (Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International) who went to Nicaragua.  You can read about that trip at Reflections from Nicaragua.

At both locations last year, we presented on worldview, who is the Holy Spirit, the four works of the Holy Spirit, how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and then how to listen to the voice of God.  This material is the basis of Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International’s Ignite Project.  We had the teaching slides translated into Spanish, and had more material than we could cover in our limited time.

A New Team

Vida Joven Farm
Vida Joven Landscape

This January, another team from PRMI will be going to the Vida Joven Camp outside of Matagalpa to help address this need.

I will be part of this team.

We will use the basic material found in the healing Dunamis from PRMI that has made a countless impact around the world.

I look forward to meeting the leaders again and sharing with them tools that can help their evangelism.  It is our family’s desire to help these leaders grow more effective in their evangelistic calling by equipping them with some skills in trusting the Holy Spirit to bring the healing of Jesus.

Evangelism can be messy!

Ministering in a context like this can be really messy —

  • abuse victims suddenly dealing with their issues,
  • hearing stories of being gang raped,
  • infected with veneral diseases,
  • wounding from assaults,
  • or filled with hatred because a sibling was killed in a gang.  

Very different ministry context than suburban north American culture where I have ministered for 11 years where people stress about their 401(k)s and the economy.

We’d like to offer help and training to the advanced leadership team so that they can be equipped in the power of the Holy Spirit to help in the healing work of Jesus in this local context.

How can you help?

1.  Prayer.  This is spiritually challenging work and we need significant prayer covering.  I’d like you to contact me to be put on the intercessors list for this event.  

2.  Finances.  Our team’s budget is $6000 and our team is raising the funds collectively through PRMI.  Most of this is for airfare, materials translation, and some in country expenses.  We need to raise it and count on the generosity of God’s people who believe our dream.

You can donate online to PRMI for this project specifically (which is different than our own support).  

 

Donate Online Now
Mark Latin America Misisons

Click – Donate Online Now.  

Mark Contributions to Latin American Missions.  You will have to create an account with PRMI before donating, or use the one you have.  

Donate Via Check?

Mark Latin American Missions, payable to PRMI,

Mail to PRMI

P.O.Box 429
Black Mountain NC 28711

Note: This project is different than our monthly support for our ministry.  Funds for will be used for team expenses which includes my airfare.  Any overages will be used for PRMI’s other Latin American callings and as seed money for future PRMI teams to Latin America.

Filed Under: Ministry, Nicaragua, Support

November 3 and 4: Independence Day Parades

November 5, 2008 by ecoach Leave a Comment

November 2008 031

This week, Panama celebrates it freedoms. 

The entire nations shuts down for vacation, parades, and celebrations.  Flags are hanging from buildings, being waved in the streets, and celebrated with as much fervor as July 4 in the United States.

 

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November 2008 010 

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See the full album at our Facebook page

Filed Under: Life, Panama Tagged With: features

Meditation on Romans 10

November 5, 2008 by ecoach Leave a Comment

missionsthumb Romans 10:14-15b:

“How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?”

In this Romans passage, there are three groups of people: the unsaved, the senders and the goers.

Our family are the goers.  We know that we’ve been called to this part of the world.  It is our calling to work cross-culturally and help train Latin American churches in evangelism in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Our vision is clear

Our supporters, both our donors and our prayer warriors, are our senders.  You help us reach the churches and provide the training to reach the nations.  We are but one family.  We can’t reach the world.  However, with your support we can train up intelligent evangelists to reach the nations.

Filed Under: Support, vision

Would you say Grace?

November 1, 2008 by ecoach Leave a Comment

Earlier this fall, we had a chance to meet up with our Sunday School class for dinner at a local restaurant. 

Our church, though very large, does not have an active small group ministry.  The Sunday school class is attempting to fill that void and felt need.  What a joy to visit with people and to share a little time of fellowship.

We attended the married couples class.  We break down into smaller groups based on the seasons of marriage (1-5 years, 6-10 years, 11-20 years, 20+) when we meet on Sundays but this was the first attempt at gathering many of us together.

PICT0365
Celebrating the Waiter's Birthday

As it turned out, it was also our waiter’s birthday, so the class took a moment to honor him, then pray for him a blessing.  It was our chance to minister to him.  

Saying Grace in Public

The biggest surprise of the night for me was being called on to say grace for our food.

Praying an impromptu prayer, in Spanish, before a crowd of listeners (and God, of course) turned on the anxiety faucet pretty quickly. However, I stumbled through it.

Spanish for me still is a little clumsy, but conversationally I do OK.  I’m told it’s still a little “heavy” meaning the grammar is not always right, the prepositions might be in the wrong direction. 

Fellowship Photos

Filed Under: Life

Growing A Small Group

November 1, 2008 by ecoach Leave a Comment

We’ve recently gotten connected with a local small group.  It meets in a living room home, about a 15 minute walk from our house.  Most of the attendees are from Panama or Venezuela.  It is in Spanish.  

Our host is the Vargas/Sifontes Family, church planters from Venezuela pictured.

The blessing to us after the first year here is that it is a place where we are connecting with people, slowly. 

It’s still a little chaotic with the people coming only 1 time to check it out, but those that remain are beginning to connect.

Each week thus far has been on self-care, using excellent Bible passages.  It is an honest and accurate mix of psychology and Scripture and each group ends with a practical application.

I also like that each ending is focused on who will I be inviting next week?

So, who am I iniviting?

I’m inviting the security guard who works in front of our building.  We’ve been talking in recent days and he seems to be awakening in his faith.  When he first started working here he was self-described as far from God.

However, he’s recently asked me for devotional books in Spanish. 

I shared with him a monthly devotional that I use, which he has been reading in his own time.  It has Bible verses, a meditation, and questions about the text.   It also has directions for prayer.

He wants more, so I invited him to join our Bible Study.

Pray for our security guard.  He has already invited his teenage daughter to come with him to the study.

Filed Under: Life, Prayer

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