From Lonely to Unity

Thanks for praying for our trip to Peru last week. Sorry I wasn't able to send back "on the field" reports--my laptop crashed. But your prayers were answered in powerful ways.

“I feel so alone.”

This was the most consistent comment as we began our Leaders Summit. It was shared by several of the e3 country leaders. Even though ministry was going well in every country, many shared how they felt they were going it alone, trying to organize campaigns, cast vision and grow into a larger e3 ministry. But by the end of the trip what we heard was . . .

“We are together. I now know the other e3 leaders, and we are going to work together and help each other.”

By the grace of God, He took away the sense of loneliness that some of the leaders came to Lima with. They laughed together, prayed together, worshipped together, and heard testimonies of how God is at work in the e3 Latin America countries. Each also shared the struggles they have. By the end of our time together we signed a covenant of cooperation, which was an exciting end to a very productive Summit. Picture at left is of all the e3 country leaders praying for the implementation of the covenant of cooperation.

Some more highlights:

In Peru they now have 40 "mobilizers" who are leading church planting campaigns of only Peruvians (no North Americans). They now are doing almost twice as many without us as with us! That's an big answer to prayer. God has used Juvenal and Katty Bejar and Alejo and Dorothy Quijada to accomplish this major milestone.

In Venezuela Omar Piña has developed a similar network of Venezuelan e3 trainers, along with excellent training for them. Another great example of taking the ball and running with it.
Omar also offered to send one of regional coordinators to other countries to help them develop their organizational structure and ministry strategies. These "coaches" probably will be going to Bolivia, Costa Rica and Panama in the near future.

Diego Trujillo from Ecuador shared how he has been asked to be the director of evangelism for a a national association of pastors. This is propelling our evangelism and church planting tools and methods to new prominence nationwide.

In addition to our Leaders Summit, we also did a leadership conference. The primary purpose of that conference was to model how to do a nationals’ only First Steps LDC for the 40 people who now are e3 mobilizers in PE. But 340 people showed up!

All our national e3 leaders shared at the leadership conference about how God is working in their country. So the conference turned into a giant pep rally for missions outside Peru. Many people indicated an interest in going to one of the other e3 Latin American countries on short term mission trips.

Thanks for praying for this trip, Pr-Air Force. Our work in Latin America took a huge step forward last week.