17 Feb Leadership Change in Honduras

Francisco Raudales, center, with the plaque I presented on behalf of Global Ministries.

Francisco Raudales and I pray over Juanita Chavez, as she begins her new role as superintendent of Honduras Conference.

In January, I was privileged to attend the Honduras National Conference. This was the going-away conference for Francisco Raudales, who had served as superintendent since January 1997.

There were many expressions of appreciation for his ministry over the years. I presented a plaque on behalf of Global Ministries.

Juanita Chavez was elected as the new superintendent. They didn’t announce the vote tally, but her selection definitely pleased the crowd, and people were supportive even if they personally didn’t vote for her.

I wasn’t able to stay for the closing service on Saturday night, but Francisco told her 2000 people attended. My last official act was to pray for Juanita Chavez.

Prior to the election, Juanita had been working on a strategic plan for the coming years. It wasn’t a plan with specific outcomes in terms of numbers, but outcomes in relation to healthy church development and healthy conference development. That was exciting to see. They were looking down the road–how do we get there? how do we know when we’ve developed healthy ministries?

It was something their governing council, the junta, put together, and they gave her the lead. It’ll be neat seeing her work through that in the coming years.