25 May Costa Rica: with Pastor Eric

While I was visiting in Pastor Eric’s church in San Jose, Costa Rica, I met one fellow who came out of a drug addiction background. He first came to the church to case the joint–see what kind of sound system they had, so he could come back and steal it. Instead, he became a Christian. If he doesn’t become a pastor or preacher in some way, I’ll be surprised.

He developed a huge tumor on his neck, about the size of a soccer ball. It was intertwined with his vocal chords. The doctor said, “You can have the surgery, but you’ll probably never speak again.” The church prayed over him. He speaks a little rough, but he has a voice and he intends to use it.

At this same church, we heard a knock at the door, and a fellow entered with his wife and two young children (in pajamas). He had been influenced by the church for some time. He was a heroin addict, and wanted to be set free. We prayed with them as he confessed his sin and accepted Christ into his life.

14 May It’s Becoming a Dangerous World

At the Cristo Rey UB church in Costa Rica.

Before Charlene and I went to Spain as missionaries, we spent a year attending language school in Costa Rica. When I visited San Jose in January to see our churches in that city, I discovered some major changes.

The city is much more violent. I used to walk all around the city with no sense of danger. Now, I was told, even the locals don’t go out walking on the streets.

Probably the biggest crime now is extortion–not only in Costa Rica, but all through Central America. Someone calls you on a cell phone and says that if you don’t leave a certain amount of money at a certain place tomorrow, they’ll kill you, or your wife, or your children. They don’t even bother to kidnap you. They just threaten you over the phone.

Anyone who appears to have any money is at risk. You don’t need to be rich; a middle class person will do. The police don’t know what to do about it, because how do you prove anything from a phone call? And people don’t go to the police, because they have no idea who called them. Maybe it was a policeman.

In Honduras, one day I walked from the Bethel School, where we held the conference, back to my hotel. I heard about it. They said I shouldn’t put myself at risk like that.

The same is true in many places around the world. In the Philippines, Sierra Leone, and other places where United Brethren churches operate, you just don’t go walking around. Even locals get mugged, have their pockets picked, have cell phones taken off their belt. If they’re hitting the nationals, sooner or later, if you visit regularly, you’ll get victimized if you don’t take reasonable precautions.

13 Apr When is the Right Time to Have a Child?

My wife and I were both 23 years old when we had our first child. Some today believe that was pretty young, and no doubt it was. However, my kids are now having grandkids, and I’m glad I’ve got the strength and energy to enjoy them.

It seems the trend today is toward having children later in life. I suppose that helps explain why fertility clinics are doing so well. Some just seem to wait far too long. For some it may be a matter of completing their education, others a question of maturity, some just never think they can afford a child.

Planting churches is similar to having babies. Some wonder if it’s the right time, if they have enough resources, or if they should have a baby at all.

Our United Brethren churches in Latin America can’t follow that logic. They daughter churches at a pace that would frighten most people. The term “Octochurch” might even apply in some cases. Seemingly unconcerned about resources, timing or preparation, they simply gather believers in a new area and begin outreach. Once they begin having an impact, they build a simple shelter and before you know it, a new church has been organized. Within ten years or so, that church will probably give birth to a new church itself.

I admit, not all new churches succeed; up to one-half of all new church plants in Latin America fail. But they seem willing to tolerate a lot of failures on the road to success.

In the photograph is a group of believers who have assembled to plant one of two new churches in Managua, Nicaragua. During recent visits to Central America, I must have visited no less then 30 churches just like this one in Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Honduras.

Everyone in church planting and missions is agreed that the most effective way to saturate a region for Christ is through the multiplication of growing churches. So why doesn’t it happen more often.

What about you? Have you had a baby yet? What are you waiting for?

08 Apr Our Role in a Highly-Churched Country

The countries of Central America have large evangelical populations. Guatemala and El Salvador are 26% evangelical, Honduras is 23%, Nicaragua 22%. That’s nearly as high as the United States (26%, according to one study). So how does this affect our role?

Those countries don’t need pioneering missionaries from North America. They have plenty of Christians. Instead, our work really consists of church expansion. We want to provide resources and train leaders, and to help the Hondurans and Nicaraguans and others take the next step in becoming healthy, growing, viable congregations. That’s what they seem to look to us for.

Central America isn’t the 10/40 window, that area of the world stretching across Asia and northern Africa where 95% of the people haven’t heard the Gospel, and which is home to 87% of the world’s poorest of the poor.

Part of the Gospel ministry is compassion. But the other side is to reach the unreached. We must keep that balance. We will encounter compassionate needs everywhere we go, and we want to partner with people who are starting new churches. But we need to keep our eye on the unreached and the 10/40 window.

One of the stated priorities of Global Ministries is, “We focus our efforts and resources on lesser-reached people groups.” We don’t want to spend all our resources in heavily-churched countries, and not get around to countries where there is no opportunity to hear the gospel.

23 Mar Costa Rica: Going Where It’s Dangerous

Worship at Casa de Adoracion (House of Prayer) in Guadalupe, Costa Rica.

We have four churches in Costa Rica, and they are doing well. There are a lot of evangelical churches in San Jose, and a relatively high percentage of evangelicals. So when I visited there in January, I was encouraged that we weren’t just building one more church in a neighborhood of churches.

Rather than follow the suburban model of planting yourself in a nice community, our churches in San Jose are focusing on some rough, dangerous neighborhoods nobody would go through.

I visited Costa Rica in January, and was joined there by Joe Leighton, pastor of Salem Chapel UB church in Junction City, Ohio.

Cristo Rey, where Pastor Marvin and Aura work, is one of the most violent neighborhoods in San Jose. They’ve been working there for a number of years.

As we worshipped at House of Prayer, crazed drug addicts yelled through the windows. We were there two nights. The second night, the pastor called us about a half hour before the service with a heads-up.

“The neighborhood is really on edge,” he warned. “Be sure to drive your van right up to the door, so you don’t have to walk through the neighborhood.”

As it turned out, the only violence that night was two huge alley cats who actually fell through the roof while I was preaching. I didn’t know what was happening. “What kind of demon-possessed people are they?” I thought. But it was just cats.

19 Mar Guatemala: Our Next National Conference?

Church planting team in Esquintla, Guatemala, looks over a new site.

Next January when the international General Conference meets, we hope to welcome Guatemala as our newest national conference–our tenth. I visited Guatemala earlier this year. Let me tell you about our pastors and churches there.

Eight million people live in Guatemala City. Five volcanoes, two of them quite active, surround the city. The landscape is flat with huge gullies produced by lava flows. The roads curve around through the lava flows. It takes a long time to drive anywhere in Guatemala City.However, Guatemala is probably more developed than the other countries where we operate in Central America–Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador. There are a lot of shopping malls. But because Guatemala City has eight million people, you do see a lot of poverty in that mix.

We have 12 churches in Guatemala, and a number of new church plants. They are basically divided into two geographical locations–around Guatemala City, and in the coastal area of Esquintla. I visited a number of the churches. Some are what I describe as “picnic shelters.”

I was so impressed with the pastors, especially their level of dedication. They work with very few resources. Most have committed themselves fulltime to the work, even if they have no income. They live by faith. Nobody owns a vehicle. One project for Self Denial is to purchase a vehicle for the conference.

A United Brethren church in Esquintla, Guatemala.

The pastors live very simply. Most of them have a humble, one-bedroom home. Everybody sleeps in the same room. All resources go into the ministry.

Our leader in Guatemala is Francisco Najera. He is a wonderful,  humble, committed leader. You can see leadership oozing out of this guy in the way he develops a sense of teamwork among his fellow pastors. I’m excited about how God is using him.

09 Mar Honduras: Recognizing Francisco Raudales

Francisco Raudales (center) with the plaque presented by Global Ministries.

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.

Praying for Juanita Chavez as she begins her new role as Honduran Superintendent. L-r: Francisco Raudales, Juanita Chavez, Jeff Bleijerveld.

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.

03 Mar “We Need to Support Ourselves”

The church at Bo, in Sierra Leone

While attending Sierra Leone Conference, I didn’t sense a strong feeling of expectation in regard to support from North America. In fact, a number of younger pastors–some of the rising young leaders in the conference–came to me and said, “We need to be supporting ourselves. We appreciate everything the US and Canada have done in the past, but it’s time for us to take ownership of the ministry God has given us.”

The church in Bo just completed a new sanctuary that seats 400. It would be an impressive building in the United States. And they never asked the conference or the US for a penny. They built it themselves. They also run a school next door to the church, and it receives no outside funding that I know of.

encountered something similar in Nicaragua. A discussion began about how Central American churches could participate in mission giving. They said, “We’ve been on the receiving end for a long time. We’d like to do something that puts us on the giving side.”

They raised the idea of taking a missions offering and sending it to the United States. I told them about how the Canadians already participate with us in two offerings, Self Denial and Thank Offering.

They jumped all over that, thought it was fantastic. We need to work out the details of how we distribute the funds they send; they wouldn’t want us to send it back to them. But to send money to us, and then it goes somewhere else–that’s something we can do for them, as they seek to reach out to the world.