Serving Ministries and Missions in Latin America
National Leader Vida Joven Nicaragua Testimonial from Chris Walker
Kevin Suywan shares about the ministry of Presence
Another leader from Vida Joven Guatemala explains how learning about the Holy Spirit has helped her minsitry. She’s been receiving Dunamis teaching from PRMI at Vida Joven Nicaragua’s annual training camp
RSS Readers May need to Click through to see the 3 videos.
In January 2010, our team made a 6th visit to the Vida Joven (Young Life) training camp, high up in the mountains of Nicaragua between the cities of Jinotega and Matagalpa.
While it’s always to good to share about
there is an indescribable impact that people kept telling us about this year:
The ministry of presence.
Perhaps more important than the classes are
Our team has made a repeated investment in training these leaders over many years.
On this trip in particular, we were repeatedly told that we are the “safe people” outside the Vida Joven structure where national leaders can talk, pray, and ask questions without worrying about who knows what.
Our team took one of our breaks and offered a prayer time for those who carried special burdens and wanted to deal with them.
We didn’t advertise it, but for a brief lunch time announcement about 90 minutes beforehand. People were given the liberty to skip a class if they wanted specialized prayer.
Our team was surprised by the demand.
We had to split up into 4 prayer teams in our small and chilly space.
The living room in our brick cabin became a waiting room, almost like a medical office.
For some, this time of prayer was life changing and future shaping.
For others, it was a time of emotional healing and finding forgiveness.
Our team lead the large plenary sessions a few nights. Other nights, we were asked to organize the prayer ministry after the teaching of the word.
The leaders we have been training have grown in their ability and skill to do individual prayer ministry. It is a deep joy to watch them pray for their peers, for their clubs, and for their cities.
This year, we ran 2 different level classes, plus had some plenary sessions with the large group (over 300 students from 7 different nations). Some team members continued Dunamis ministry in Matagalpa with Ignite 2, and Chris preached in Managua.
Omar Picado, one of the National Nicaragua Directors for Young Life, had this to say:
“I remember the first year I experienced the Dunamis project and felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. Then every year that the group has come, I’ve learned some ways to pray for the youth with whom we work.”
Team member Susan Finck-Lockhart added:
“People from all levels of leadership were drawn to our cabin and we were able to minister into the lives of leaders. . . We did lots of prayer ministry, including two “clinics” where our house was just open and we prayed in teams for person after person, sometimes bringing other leaders along side us.”
These leaders work in conditions of extreme poverty.
Many have come out of gangs, labor in high-risk very poor areas, and do so without resources or funding. Nearly everyone knows someone in the drug trade and the vicious cycle that traps its victims. Two decades of war have ripped the family structure and fabric of society.
Only Jesus can help people overcome their past, find forgiveness and healing, and discover how to help advance the kingdom of God.
Repeatedly, we were asked to say thanks to PRMI and our donors for continuing to make the investment to come to this training camp every year. Strategic talks were held to continue this investment.
Thank you all for your support to help us invest there in Nicaragua.
In January of 2009, PRMI sent a 5th team to
What a joy to see how this investment is making an impact!
For example, during our evening events with Vida Joven, these leaders helped us in prayer ministry to nearly 250 fellow leaders of Vida Joven, not just from Nicaragua, but from Guatemala and Costa Rica.
After a time of sharing the Word of God, these leaders setup prayer stations where individuals could seek prayer in response to the work of God in their heart.
I watched the leaders we had been training do effective prayer ministry:
We were watching the fruit of our training work in action!
We’ve been invited back January 7-18 of 2010 to continue giving our training.
In addition to continuing to grow leaders by adding to the foundations we’ve already laid, we’ll add a new church in the capital city of Managua. The reach of this work spreads!
This year we will focus on
Since this is our 6th trip, we will intentionally let the local leadership we’ve been training do much of the work of the ministry and prepare them for teaching in the future. We want to transition from teaching to coaching.
We are excited about the Lord’s calling us to this mission!
We would like to give you opportunities to be part of our team to disciple these leaders in how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. Your prayers and financial gifts create the foundation for our team of seven to go.
The host church and Vida Joven will take care of in-country travel as well as room and board at the sites of ministry.
Our target budget as a team is $6,000 to cover our airfares, translation work and some incidentals.
Would you pray about helping?
Financial support is needed by December 31, 2009 for our departure on January 7.
Thank you for praying, considering, and giving as led! We will be happy to pray for you as you pray for us. And we promise to report back after our trip so you can see how you’ve made a difference.
In Christ’s Service,
Sam Hale, Chris Walker, Judy McManus, Susan Finck-Lockhart, Lydia Lockhart, Bill and Marie Ferree
Print out this reponse form <- Click
to find out how to mail in a donation, to pray or give online.
Please note, funds raised for this project are separate from our missionary support.
In 2007, a team from PRMI visited Vida Joven, and did a pre-conference at the Nehemiah Center for my second visit of Ministry to Nicaragua
During the 2009 Ingite Conference at La Fuente Church Matagalpa one of the participants drove up from Managua to give us an update on what she and some friends have done since our last visit. Team member Judy McManus shares this with us:
There is the story Alma told about how our teaching at the Nehemiah Center had an impact on the past year. After we left in December 2007 the group felt led to start a prayer group which has met faithfully every week. They have prayed for everything from acquiring land and building new facilities to healing broken relationships. Alma said prayers have been answered and she has seen God work in a tangible way.
She came to participate in the teaching at La Fuente to tell us this, to thank us, and to bring her sister Vida to help pray others would receive blessings from the teaching.
Her prayer and hope which reflected ours as well was that this Dunamis teaching on healing would be instrumental in the lives of those who came to participate.
After the Ignite conference in Matagalpa, 2 more team members joined us at the Young Life Camp in the mountains between Matagalpa and Jinotega, for the annual leadership camp for workers.
Approximately 200 area directors, club leaders, and organizers gathered for an intense week of training — 4 classes a day, 5 straight days — on subjects in areas of evangelism, Bible, psychology, leadership, prayer, worship, and administration of a club. Our team had responsibility for about 60 leaders (pictured) who have had 6+ years of leadership with Young Life. Most were area directors and club leaders.
“We left a different camp,” said David Cathcart, team member from Sylva NC.
Young Life Nicaragua is in the midst of a leadership transition that affects a multitude of people, their jobs, and their economic support.
The unknowns of the future and the changes coming provided an anxious back story to our teaching time. Our team found ourselves listening and praying with and for Young Life leaders, and their national leadership transition team. Nearly every day during our team meetings and our quiet 1-1 conversations with them. On Wednesday, we simply set aside a teaching period for worship and intercession for the work of Young Life.
That seemed to create a breakthrough that lingered the rest of the week and opened the door for more significant ministry and teaching.
Our team had a sense of calling that though we were teaching on the healing ministry of Jesus, our focus was on empowering local leaders. Several times before our departure, and even during our team meetings we felt led to pray “This is your ministry.”
Our group prayer times, lab times, and large group ministry times were run 100% by our class members. During such ministry times, our team served as the coach — coming along side the class members and helping them lead into ministry. We were not the ministry stars but rather coaches who empowered local leaders to do the ministry themselves.
For example, during Thursday night’s large group on reconciliation, team member Chris Walker preached a message on relational healing and that moved into a time of personal prayer to forgive people and to seek forgiveness. Our class served as prayer teams and with a little coaching from us when needed, the ministry went on for about 90 minutes or so.
Testimonies from that night talked about how powerful it was for them to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit. Some small and quiet deliverances were reported. Debriefing the next morning revealed major growth in applicable knowledge in our class — learn and do.
Friday night, team member Susan Lockhart preached on a ministry in transition, founded by Jesus and turned over to 12 local men. Acts 1.8 served as a preaching verse that pointed out that the ability to change the world is not your own strength, but to go forward in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. That led into our class praying for their Vida Joven clubs and areas. Leaders organized the 200 or so members of the large group into clubs and cities and the leaders from our class prayed for the infilling of the Spirit for their leaders.
This was their ministry! Empowered Leaders.
Of that night, team member Susan Lockhart writes:
The Lord led us beautifully as our team took on different roles at different times, and as we worked together with our class of leaders to empower them to pray for their people. I think a real hallmark of PRMI’s ministry — the team concept that focuses on listening to the Spirit, was a true blessing for them, and provided a great model for them as they have a leadership team in place for each Vida Joven club.
My favorite drawing from the whole week appeared mid week on the classroom wall. It was a drawing of a frog, with the caption: “100% Frog.”
When Susan first introduced “lab time” in our class, she asked what do you do during lab time in school?
The quick answer: dissect a frog!
Lab time is where the class breaks into small groups for prayer ministry to try “the stuff.” For example, after the segment on physical healing, volunteers who had physical pain agreed to be prayed for and other members prayed for them. Some people with aches and pains reported signs of instant healing, and some healings will need medical verification.
After a few “lab time” events, this drawing appeared.
Team member Susan wrote:
One image that stays with me is the last night, after I had preached, I was up on the stage watching the room when my eyes fell upon a young man who was resting in the Spirit on the floor in front of me. His shirt had risen up in back to reveal a several-inches-long huge scar. The peace and joy on his face were such a contrast. Who had inflicted that scar? A parent? A combatant in the civil war waged in his homeland when he was a child?
I had to stop myself from entering into the grief mode that it had been my privilege to carry, and to reflect on the transcendent fact that “By His stripes we are healed.”
God moved mightily in so many ways — a soul-stirring mix of power and love. Answering God’s call to Vida Joven Nicaragua was worth going into debt, airplane turbulence, digestive turbulence, long days of travel and other “inconveniences.”
As the team leader, it was a privilege to be part of this team. Our family’s ministry of evangelism training in the Americas partners so well with PRMI’s calling to teach globally on the person and work of the Holy Spirit that this trip is one of the highlights of a early 2009.
During our worship time on Wednesday, the Lord gave me a word to share with our class. The Lord also took the rest of our team into a deep intercession during the worship time that stretched even our intercessors.
We felt that our work impacted the future of Vida Joven. These are men and women that are rebuilding a society torn by civil war and even class warfare. They are learning about marriage, forgiving others, and growing into God’s dream. They are shaping the generation that will change the country. We know that communities will be changed. They grew up in a generation abused, abandoned, and wounded by war. They grew up in areas of high crime, drug related gang warfare, and broken families. However, they know that Jesus calls them to a greater work: advancing the Kingdom of God and that they are called to invite people to start following Jesus.
What excited us most is that we know that these leaders “Get it.” They will take this teaching, and apply it in their Vida Joven clubs with great enthusiasm. The healing work will continue and should we be invited again for the 2010 camp, I’m sure the training will continue with a year’s work of practice and experience to debrief.
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