Caribbean Mother and Daughter

Back in September 2007, I had went to the Caribbean with another OMS missionary to give a training on evangelism and church planting.  Our focus was to transition church planters from planting churches, to being trainers of people who plant churches.  Each one could have 6-8 people in on-the-job training for planting churches and training the leaders of the groups.

I had written about a mother and daughter, Estela and Eunice, that had attended and had received a vision to saturate their province with churches.

When I visited the Caribbean in January 2009, I had asked to visit Estela and Eunice to see first hand what they were doing.  They live in a beautiful city on a bay of the Atlantic Ocean.  It is one of my favorite places to visit.

I was extremely happy when they told me that they were training leaders of 10 new groups in the year following the training!  Members from one of the new churches started four new groups.  This is an example of churches planting churches.

In the photo below is the owner of a house where a church meets.  He was willing to add a room along the side of the house so that about 50 people can attend every Sunday morning.  The owner also has a horse and carriage and picks up 43 people for church every Sunday.

Caribbean Youth Ministry

I had the opportunity to visit the Caribbean in January 2009.  It was a wonderful time of meeting with various ministry leaders.  I came away from my time there very happy with young leaders that I have had the privilege to support, encourage and work with to expand their ministries.

The family in the photo has started 3 house churches in the past 7 years.  They have a passion for the Lord and creating caring communities of faith.

I was in their home two and a half years ago when Jairy, the son-in-law in the black shirt, told me of a vision the Lord had given for a new ministry.  It was a ministry to high school age kids, which are 14-17 years old.  The kids go to boarding school during the week, and go home on the weekend.  The setting is much like a wild university frat house, with condoms being given out and drugs are prevalent.  This is during a very difficult time in the life of a youth.

Jairy and staff members go onto a school campus and speak with the kids.  Jairy would seek out a local church close to the school so that they could invite the kids to a safe place and use alocal church as a base.

This ministry has gone from a vision from the Lord to 60 full time staff in just 2.5 years!  WOW!  The ministry is in many schools and staff are being added on a weekly basis.

It has been a privilege to be part of this and I look forward to attending a staff leadership training event when I visit in May.  Please pray for protection over the ministry and for the staff training event at the end of May.