Ministry Archives - Page 3 of 26 - Mission to the Americas

Are you a Genesis 1 Christian?

September 10, 2013 by ecoach Leave a Comment

I listened to the testimony of an adult woman from Guatemala. While I was in Nicaragua with Vida Joven in August 2013, I found my evangelistic passion renewed as I listened to the story of transformation that the gospel brought in the life of a leader from Guatemala.

Her journey to faith brought me to tears (2nd from left), and once again aroused my desire to help other people share the good news of Jesus Christ and we need your help to do it.

As you read her story, ask yourself this question: [Read more…]

6 Years of Ministry in the Americas

July 17, 2013 by ecoach Leave a Comment

On July 19, the Walker family will celebrate their 6th anniversary of service in Latin America.

That day in 2007, we stepped off our plane late at night and started the adventure of getting to know our neighbors, praying in our connections, and living on faith that God would provide for us to fulfill our sense of call.

Is it worth it?

Over the years, we have served in various capacities in at least 9 different countries. But is it worth it?

Celebrate Baptisms in our new church.
Theological training for missionaries from 6 countries.
Equip pioneer mission workers with skills to reach at risk communities
Train church planters to reach cross culturally.
Personally lead people to Christ.
Providing Gospel centered crafts for VBS and Christmas community outreaches.
Train children’s workers to share the gospel via crafts.

You help us live out the calling God has upon our life.

Our whole mission is dedicated to helping the church and mission organizations be more effective in helping people become fully devoted followers of Jesus. To be able to participate in a person’s faith awakening process, sometimes in large ways, and sometimes in small ways, and sometimes as a fruit of this work, is what makes this effort worth it.

One recent example was helping street missionaries overcome their fear in open air evangelism. Read here as to how that worked.

Here is just a sample quote of the feedback we receive from our work:

Through your solid teaching, the Lord confirmed many things that I had experienced already in prayer. I believe the Lord brought me to you all to help me learn more about the Holy Spirit. I love the emotional and noisy side of our traditions, but I really loved your solid biblical and intellectual teaching. Plus, your methodical labtimes and guiding us to pray one at a time is confirming some other things I’ve been learning. It was worth the quietness to listen and learn deeply! I loved your teaching last fall, and glad that you returned to share more, particularly from leaders who have had experience and can teach.

The provision sustains us.

Gifts from generous supporters have been God’s provision to sustain this work of developing evangelists and churches in developing nations.

We have stories to tell of miraculous provision from God’s people that keep us here and keep sustaining us.

Your gifts will support our ongoing work this fall:

Church planting
Small Group development.
Training church planters to reach their community
Theological training in Jinotega and Matagalpa Nicaragua
Evangelism Conference in Panama.
Vida Joven theological training of leaders from 6 nations.
Discipling teachers within Vida Joven Central America to teach
Training a church planting church planting churches in other countries.
More as the Lord opens to the door

Make your donation via Paypal through PRMI

In honor of this milestone, would you prayerfully consider a special 6th anniversary gift in a multiple of 60?

That could be 60, 120, 180, 240 and so on.

PRMI will receive your anniversary donation via Paypal and forward it to us.

If you want to send a check or read about our connection with PRMI, read here.

Pioneer Leaders Need to Take Responsibility

July 11, 2013 by ecoach 1 Comment

Every pioneer is out on the edge. In our missions work in Latin America, we regularly are involved with pioneer missionaries:

Young Life Missionaries opening new clubs in new communities
Church planters seeking to reach people who need to meet Christ.
Missionaries in training to work cross culturally.

Recently, Young Life Panama invited me to share with their pioneer leaders about maintaining an active prayer life. They are pioneering new clubs in at least two new communities, sending out leaders they have been training for the last few years.

One of these leaders is working in a community where one of our church families lives and will be a great connection for their teen daughter.

Pioneer leaders are often away from their church community during that initial season of plowing new territory. In Young Life’s model, new leaders spend months making initial contact with new teens and young adults, spending time with them, listening for community needs and so one. It can be lonely work for a season, though awesomely fun.

Every leader needs to take responsibility for their own spiritual growth. In the teaching of day, I shared about the responsibility to maintain your own devotional time and allowing the Spirit of God to shape your character through the word and prayer.

These leaders discussed their joys in prayer, as well as their difficulties in prayer. They did an exercise using sticky notes to brainstorm and work together to find ways to break through those challenges.

At then end, they wrapped up reviewing a possible structure for quiet times that I picked up out of a book called Transformative Prayer by Daniel Henderson.

At the end of the meeting, several leaders commented to me on how important this reminder was:

A helpful tool to help me spend time in the word.
A good reminder that I need to care for myself, not just the people I am reaching.
Thanks for sharing this awesome teaching to help me grow in my personal devotions.

A Thank you to Supporters

We get to serve in situations like this because of our faithful supporters.

Thank you for your financial gifts that enable this kind of work.

Most of these teaching moments focus on leaders of ministries that are doing on-the-ground evangelistic work. There is no way we could reach all these people alone. Rather, the Lord has us in networks of evangelism activity to reach more than we can possibly imagine.

Your support of us enable us to multiply that training to reach new networks for Christ. Contribute your support towards the next training events by making your gift online today.

The Celebration of Believer’s Baptism

June 7, 2013 by ecoach 1 Comment

The greatest joy in our ministry in Latin America is to watch believers take baptism. Last Saturday, our church family celebrated three of them. I’ve included a few pictures of the celebration and the folks taking the steps to baptism.

Several family members and guests turn out for the celebration that we thought would be cancelled due to heavy and persistent rains over the last few days.

We firmly believe that the public celebration of baptism can itself be a chance to proclaim the gospel to invited guests and friends who may not know the Lord.

Before the actual baptisms, our pastor and I spent some time praying a blessing over the candidates before they take to the waters of the pool that is in our social area on the roof our apartment buildling.

Just prior to that, he shared a short message about baptism that gives the candidates a chance to affirm their faith in Christ, as well as offer a public explanation of salvation to all who have gathered.

Baptism is a symbol of a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. It is a sign that one has decided to be a follower of Jesus.

The goal of of work

Our whole mission is dedicated to helping the church be more effective in helping people become fully devoted followers of Jesus, and baptism is the most public fruit of our teaching.

Celebrating baptisms is what “Done” looks like.

The journey to faith that each of these three people has taken is unique and different, and our church helped to shape that journey to faith. They are each on their own place in faith in Christ, but this public declaration is a sign of their commitment to follow Jesus.

One of the greatest joys I have in this ministry is participating in a believer’s baptism as a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

To be able to participate in a person’s faith awakening process, sometimes in large ways, and sometimes in small ways, and sometimes as a fruit of this work, is what makes this effort worth it.

Celebrate with us!

You’ve helped me find freedom in prayer

May 3, 2013 by ecoach Leave a Comment

At a recent prayer conference in Nicaragua, some doubt the effectiveness of their prayers because they are uncertain if they are

following the correct format,
obeying all the right rules, and
fulfilling all the necessary requirements for God to hear them and answer their prayer.

Nagging doubts about rules and formulas shape their perceptions of prayer.

But the spiritual thirst and hunger is there.

Pastors with little formal seminary training (practically a requirement for US Pastors) who struggle to lead growing churches.

Church leaders who want to prayerfully increase the impact of their local church to serve their community.

Several in our audience these days lack basic spelling skills, so conferences like we are here to give are effective methods of learning.

But when the teaching is over, many report the freedom of relating to God and His word and enjoying the presence of the Lord in prayer.

A Radio Interview Prepares the Way

The day before the conference, a local pastor interviewed me for his radio station in Jinotega, Nicaragua. We spent time talking about

The work of the Dunamis Institute
How the Dunamis teaching on Prayer can help believers.
The importance of Prayer, and
Why pastors and church leaders should come.

It was a tremendous opportunity to share the ministry of PRMI and the Dunamis Institute and to give a plug for the upcoming prayer conference.

Day 1: Jinotega, Nicaragua

Approximately 9 pastors are among the 40 people who have set apart a workday to attend the PRMI Ignite conference on Prayer in the mountain town of Jinotega, Nicaragua (pop. 40,000).

Several have sacrificed a workday to attend, but their desire to grow in the power of prayer has motivated them to make that choice.

Some had heard the reports of last November’s Ignite and couldn’t wait for this conference to arrive.

They have gathered in the 2 room church of Vida Abundante (Abundant Life).

Expectation is in the air.

Conversation times, breakout, prayer ministry times all accompany the teaching.

Experiential learning gives people a taste of the power of prayer.

The personal devotional breakout session allows many to hear from God about something personal.

The systematic teaching provides a framework for people to both understand and participate in the work of prayer.

That evening, a different group has gathered for the evening worship and ministry time.

They hear about God’s call and vision, and respond to the invitation to receive prayer. People come forth for prayer ministry that lingers for a while, as participants do their business with God. Some weep, some rest in the Spirit, others are refreshed in their personal commitments they’ve been making before the Lord.

One pastor comments:

Thanks to your teaching on prayer, our church will launch a 40 day season of prayer. We are passing through some difficulties, and your conference has renewed my passion to lead this church in expectant prayer. You’ve helped me understand more about leading in prayer as well as praying in agreement. I look forward to sharing with you what God does with us when you return for the next conference.

Another one wrote:

Through your solid teaching, the Lord confirmed many things that I had experienced already in prayer. I believe the Lord brought me to you all to help me learn more about the Holy Spirit. I love the emotional and noisy side of our traditions, but I really loved your solid biblical and intellectual teaching. Plus, your methodical labtimes and guiding us to pray one at a time is confirming some other things I’ve been learning. It was worth the quietness to listen and learn deeply! I loved your teaching last fall, and glad that you returned to share more, particularly from leaders who have had experience and can teach.

Days 2-4: Matagalpa Nicaragua

For the weekend, the team moves to the mountain city of Matagalpa, Nicaragua (pop. 100,000).

Building on the prior teaching events in that beautiful village, the teaching team gives the conference on prayer.

Again, nearly 50 people from 5 churches make the sacrificial effort to attend the Friday through Sunday event.

A few who had been at prior Dunamis events shared personal testimony of how they teach the material in their church and the impact the Dunamis teaching has made in their ministry.

An article like this cannot capture the glow in their eyes, the excitement in their voice, and all the results of ministry they have been doing as a result of Dunamis. This time, they bring more people from their churches.

The host pastor writes:

I’ve come to understand deeply through the truth of the word, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. At times, our church has experienced a deep growth in desiring the Lord and a longing to walk with the Holy Spirit. God brought me to your conference to solidify me in the manifestation of the gifts, and that I can lead the church in not fearing the gifts of the Spirit. If I had to describe this conference to some one, I’d ask them: “Do you know the work of the Holy Spirit? Dunamis is not a superficial class, it is deep and real.” You’ve given me much material to help me with further study. Since your first visit a few months ago, our church has been longing more for the work of the Spirit through prayer and fasting.

The host pastor allowed the team to teach and preach on Sunday morning.

As the evangelistic and renewal invitation was given after the sermon, many people came forward for prayer, seeking out the prayer teams formed by several class members. Putting some of the learned prayer principles into practice, these team members cooperated with the work of Spirit in ministering to those who wanted more of the Lord. Some were reconciled to the Lord, some wanted healing, some surrendered their life to the Lord.

Read this commentary from various participants from the different events:

The workshop was full of wisdom that I don’t have any questions at the moment. I liked this seminar and can’t wait for you all to return.
This seminar moved my heart and I kept desiring to learn more. May you continue to be invited to permit us these great workshops that are of much spiritual help!
I learned more about how I could pray. The structure you shared with us helped me to pray with some order and direction. You’ve provided some great training in this area.
You helped me to know about the ingredients of prayer. I had doubts that I was praying in a wrong manner, or if I even knew how to really pray. Your conference helped revive my desire to pray, as you taught and shared with me ways of prayer, particularly the work of intercession. Your teaching was clear and it was a great blessing for my life. This seminar helped answer my questions!

A special thank you

I want to give a special thank you to the supporters of this ministry.

Your financial gifts enabled this ministry to take place. Some of you were on our prayer team that made this happen.

If you would like to contribute to future events and mission in Latin America, your can make your donation online to this work.

Every gift you make supports the work in Latin America.