23 Apr Help for Mattru Hospital

Here’s an encouraging update regarding the Mattru Hospital in Sierra Leone. Billy Simbo writes:

The First Lady of Sierra Leone came through on the promised help from the Nigerian Embassy (High Commision). The Nigerians recently did an on-site visit and will be sending us 1 doctor and 2 midwives with a possible aaditional doctor in the near future. The hospital is responsible for providing accommodation and things like fridge, stove etc. for the house. They are supposed to come the first week in May. We are going to temporarily lodge them in the guest house used by the Medical Team whilst we work on getting Baker house ready. This will be a tremendous boost for the hospital.

This past week, Mrs. Sia Nyama Koroma, the First Lady of Sierra Leone, attended (with the vice president’s wife) the USA Doctors Summit in Los Angeles. They also met with Rick and Kay Warren at Saddleback Church.

15 Apr Update from the Reecks

Roger Reeck, UB endorsed missionary with Wycliffe, recently travelled to the Zapotec town in southern Mexico where they worked many years ago translating the Bible. Roger still speaks the language, and it was a great homecoming for him. He went to do a Storying workshop, and reported:

I had a great time in the San Juan Mixtepec with Meinardo, our Mexican son and his family.

Telling Bible stories (instead of reading them) has turned out to be an exciting new way to share God’s Word. Over 20 Zapotec Indians attended the workshop. They came each day to learn the stories and how to present them.

On Good Friday, they all climbed into the back of a big old truck and travelled to a nearby Zapotec town, San Andres. There, each one told the story they had memorized (all 18 of them). The stories started with the creation of the world and went through the story of Jesus and the cross, and then to the beginning of the church.

The team did a great job of telling the big story. Our friend Sergio accepted the Lord and everyone wants to keep on learning and telling stories. We praise God for how well everything went!

Roger and Marilyn met up in Texas, where they spoent a few days with their daughters Teresa and Elisa. Amanda was in Lima, Peru, for a few weeks with a research team, and oldest daughter Chrysti and her family were back in Honduras.

Roger and Marilyn are now on their way to Michigan, and will spent the next two months visiting churches in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ontario, and Maryland until the beginning of June. Then Marilyn will return to Honduras and Roger will travel to Israel to take an advanced Hebrew course.

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.

06 Apr Going Where the Needs Are

Nicaraguan superintendent Juan Pavon and Francisco Najera, superintendent of our churches in Guatemala, overlook new target area for church planting in Guatemala.

At one of our churches in Guatemala, I met a fellow who emerged from a life of adultery. He had a confirmed case of AIDS, came to Christ…and no longer has AIDS.

They have people who have come out of extreme alcoholism, homosexuality, addictions–all sorts of things–and God has set them free.

I’m glad we’re not just planting churches in some areas that are already saturated with churches, but going into areas of desperate need.

24 Mar An Honor for Owen Gordon

Dr. Owen Gordon (right), president of Jamaica Bible College, was elected vice president of the Caribbean Evangelical Theological Association. He’ll serve a two-year term.

The group recently met March 16-20 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad & Tobago. Leaders representing over 40 undergraduate and graduate theological institutions gathered to reflect and interact around the theme of “Strengthening Theological Education in a Changing Environment.”

Owen Gordon, an ordained UB minister and pastor in Jamaica, is an endorsed missionary with Global Ministries.

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.