LAM Missionaries- Baptisms and Funerals

With my position in the Ministries Department and LAM I have the priviledge to corespond with our Latin partner ministries as well as all of our missionaries, which means I get to here the "Good News" (AKA the Gospel) at work. Here's another example of what LAM missionaries are doing:

From: Mirna Sotomayor y Diana Garrett

I´m racking my brain in the midst of all the noise to write down the words of the Costa Rican national anthem. Beside me is an 11 year old boy who is looking at me with nervous intensity. "Are you sure you want to do this?", I ask. "Yes. For my mother´s sake," he answers, and controls a sob.It was his mother´s funeral. Carlos is the only child of a single mother who just died of cancer the day before. His mother was Costa Rican by birth, and he wanted to honour her. So that is how his aunt, Mirna, Carlos and I sang the Costa Rican national anthem at a Mexican funeral yesterday. I was the only one who really knew it, and I was thanking the Lord for my Costa Rican upbringing.

It seemed hard to believe that just one week ago, on Sunday, Mirna and I baptised another of Carlos´s aunts in the beautiful Tuxpan ocean. Lupe received Jesus, along with her two sisters as a result of the team from Costa Rica that came during Holy Week. One of the team members from Costa Rica is a cousin of theirs and the Lord used the relationship to bring Jesus into their lives. Lupe asked to be baptised last Sunday because she was going to be operated on, also because of cancer, on Friday. She had the surgery on Friday and on Saturday her sister passed away, leaving their third sister, Marta, holding the fort.

Just before we stood up to sing the anthem, Mirna took advantage to share the Gospel to the extended family, many of whom were hearing the Good News for the first time. We were a handful of evangelical Christians that surrounded this family in their distress, and helped them set their hope in their newly found faith. We beg your prayers for the Mora family during this very difficult time, as Lupe is recuperating from surgery and metastasis of cancer to other organs in her body, as the grandmother is ill in a home, and as young Carlos hits his teenage years without his mother. And please don´t forget to pray for Marta, her husband and two children who have been buffetted on all sides, and seek to follow the Lord.

Thank you for your prayers and support for me as I provide support for others!

Partnerships, LAM and Missions to the World

A few weeks ago LAM president Steve Johnson and I had the opportunity to attend a Cross Global Link Conference in Chicago which proved to be very encouraging and challenging at the same time. The conference was entitled “Becoming Globally Friendly” and focused on the changing face of world missions including how a traditional North American missions approach much change to remain relevant and continue impacting the world with the Gospel.

On a personal note, I was very encouraged to see that I am not alone in what I have been wrestling with over the past few years concerning the role of church & parachurch organizations (such as LAM) in world evangelism and missions. There was a general understanding that parachurch organizations have unintentionally damaged the N. American missions by removing much of the care of missionaries from the hands of the sending church and we must now encourage, and in some cases show the church how to re-engage in their own missions calling beyond simply being a financial engine for the missions movement. The local church MUST be both the foundation as well as the goal of missions (evangelism must lead to long term discipleship in a local body), and parachurch organizations must assist in this role, not take it over completely. (For more thoughts on this see my other poorly maintained blog: MISsionUNDERSTANDINGS).

On another level Steve and I came away very encouraged that the Lord has prepared Latin America Mission for an already underway historical change in world missions movements. For over a century North American missions has consisted of the sending of missionaries FROM North America TO the rest of the world, but now countries that were traditionally seen as the mission field have a strong enough church to not only evangelize their own country, but send their own missionaries to other countries as well. In the ‘70s LAM was lead to make the difficult decision of turning over all of their individual ministries, projects and even property that had been managed from North America to Latin ministries. This was unthinkable at the time, but exemplified LAM's vision of partnership WITH and not OVER ministries in Latin America. Since that time our practice has been to place missionaries under Latin leadership and to provide assistance to Latin ministries as they request it. It’s not as clean, simple and concise as simply having one focus be that children at risk or seminary education, but it’s empowered the church in these countries to take ownership of their individual call to proclaim the gospel, care for the needy and strengthen the church.

In the first session of the conference, Steve and I were blessed to hear the speaker name LAM as a ministry that has been doing for decades what many other ministries are now trying to figure out how to do, partnering with the international, indigenous church. As I survey the ministries department and consider the many, long term partnerships we currently have, I’m excited to consider the possibilities for the future. We have been able to walk along side many of these ministries for over 40 years and now we have the opportunity to assist them as they continue ministering to those within arms reach, but also lift their eyes up beyond their boarders and consider where the Lord would lead them next.

Please pray for LAM, the Miami Service Office where I am assigned and specifically the Ministries Department I oversee. Because of all of you who pray for us and assist us financially, I am able to serve many, many others throughout Central and South America, the Caribbean and parts of North America as they further the Gospel. Your prayers and gifts are literally touching and encouraging hundreds of ministries in the Spanish & Portugese speaking countries, and now, little by little from there to the rest of the world.

Thank you for your love, prayers and support!

Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." Luke 10:2

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Help on the way

STOP!

That’s what I had to tell myself as I got into the office this AM and dove right into e-mails, phone messages and ministry agreements. I’m saying this because I’ve wanted to provide some updates for the past three weeks as to what’s going on at Latin America Mission and with the Abegg family, but simply haven’t had the chance. So, my goal is to take a few minutes every AM and post at least one update… so for today lets start easy, I’ve got help on the way!!!

Since I stepped in to coordinate the ministries department at Latin America Mission, it’s been obvious that one person cannot manage everything. LAM has just under 100 missionary “units” (families or individuals) on the field, nearly as many active "ministry partners" (Latin ministries we work with through our missionaries or in various projects) and over 250 partner ministries that are awaiting missionaries, projects or assistance in some form. What this means is that my previous assignment in assisting associate ministries to Cuba has expanded to all of Latin America, Spain and even a few ministries in the US. It’s felt like swimming against the current since in order to move forward (develop new partnerships, match new missionaries to their assignments and weigh in on possible projects) I first have to make sure that the daily needs of missionaries and ministries are covered. At one point last week my e-mail in box toped 250 and that doesn't include any spam!


So where does the help come in? Ms. Heather Braden is a missionary “appointee” (accepted as a missionary and preparing to deploy once all her support is raised) headed for El Salvador. She will be joining the ministries department starting Thursday and has committed to helping for the next 6 months as she works on her Spanish, completes her support raising and prepares for “deployment”. Heather is an answer to many prayers and given all the work involved in my current position, will help keep me sane (although some say it’s too late). Please keep Heather in your prayers as well as the whole minisries department as we seek to help the hundreds of partner ministries we partner with throughout Latin America.

Click the link to follow Heather’s blog which includes my letter to some of her supporting churches.

God bless!

Update on NGO Worker arrested in Cuba

I forget who I was talking to reciently, but they mentioned that they had not heard about the NGO worker in Cuba arrested under spy charges many months ago. Anyway, here's an update:

US has visited man nabbed by Cuba as a 'spy' (AFP)

DATELINE: Washington, June 2 2010

US authorities have been able to visit on five occasions the American contractor arrested in Cuba in December whom Havana claims is a spy, despite a US denial, a State Department spokesman said Wednesday.

"We have been granted access to Alan Gross in Cuba five times, the most recent consular access being on May 25th," spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. "And we continue to ask that Mr Gross be released immediately, on humanitarian grounds, and be al-lowed to return to his family," the US spokesman said.

Gross worked for an NGO contracted by the State Department to supply computer and communications material to civil society groups on the island, according to the United States. Cuba insists however he is a spy who had sophisticated communications equipment for dissidents in the Americas' only one-party Communist regime.

The US company that employed the contractor, Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI), also denied the es-pionage charges. Gross was arrested December 5, reportedly while distributing cell phones, laptops and other communications equipment.

For more updates click this link.