Past-Present-Future-Praise
Happy January! We are so thankful to all of you who continue to support our ministry in prayer, in fasting, and financially. Simply put, we could not serve without you. We love you and are so grateful.
Since returning stateside, we have had so many personal conversations surrounding our transition in ministry. We continue as missionaries, but our new role has really shaped up and I am excited to share what God is doing.
Past
About 10 months ago, we decided to leave Peru and base our ministry out of the States as we knew God was moving us on to serve in a broader equipping capacity within our giftedness. Our new role in ministry would be to serve in encouraging the launch of new church planting works. Our focus is that each work be led by nationals, with a national team, and by God’s grace, largely funded by nationals. And this would require travel on my part. Our family would need a home base with great support. Unfortunately, Lima could not be that place.
As with many things, transitions are hard. We are no exception. As we began to make this transition, sin took a foothold in our home between Debbie and me, resulting in God forcing me to take a step back to deal with my sin, causing transition delays. Sinful anger had consumed me and the way I was leading my family. God was gracious to us. We reached out for counsel, walked in repentance, sought intense and ongoing care with both our home church and ABWE, as we served in the background during our furlough. Instead of focusing on speaking with all of you publicly, we focused on humble repentance and restoration. And God was faithful to us. He has been so kind to humble us publicly and bring wise counsel from other believers. In gentleness He has restored us to serve. And we are grateful.
Present
As we continue forward, we have reengaged with our Spanish speaking Latin American Partners and on field missionaries. Our work is simply to help Launch Gospel centered, national led, church planting works in Latin America. As missionaries of ABWE, we have found great partnership as we connect every week with nationals in supporting the work of church planting.
So how does this all work?
Step one is assessments.
Upon introduction, we pray that nationals request that we come alongside them in the work of church planting. They must first have a desire to start the process of learning what gospel centered church planting is all about. We assess the potential church planter, the area of consideration, current ministry that they are involved in, church health, local support, and ability to gain local partnerships. These assessments help us understand where to start in their national context.
From there we prayerfully move to an equipping phase.
This is where we tailor the process and planning entirely to the context. The start may be a defined residency, focus on church health, local church support, team building, financial counsel and support, doctrine and best practices, etc. This takes weekly meetings with the national planters, teams, and churches over a long period of time with several short term, high impact, boots on the ground trips in and out of the different regions to encourage and equip the national teams.
In so doing, we seek to connect the Latin American church directly with the North American Church. This is something God has already allowed us to experience with Jorge Quintana, Steve Frerichs, and the team in Lima. And we continue with the equipping and encouraging of that team.
By God’s grace, we intend to be boots on the ground for 8 weeks in Lima for the final phase. LAUNCH!. We are praying and fasting that all will be in order for a healthy launch in the summer of 2026.
Pray for me this week, as I prep to leave for 2 regions of Peru. I have 3 days in Lima for equipping and encouraging with Jorge, Steve, and the team. From there I head off to Arequipa, in the Andes Mountain range, to meet with a few missionaries and a team of 3 nationals for a boots-on-the ground assessment with the desire to bring health to an existing work in order to launch a new work into a heavily unreached area. May God do great things!
Future
As we have taken these steps, we see God’s hand at work as He continues to open doors. Just this week I met a young man from Nicaragua with a desire to return to his home country and help plant a work. God is opening a door, and we are trusting Him to see if an assessment trip to Nicaragua is in the near future. We have connections with 2 other regions in Spanish-speaking South America and are praying that God opens similar doors this year.
Praise!
You have seen the name Ethan on my prayer list for a while. Just last week, after 5 months of ongoing study, Jesus saved Ethan! And what a joy it is to see fruit in his life already! Pray for my journey to Peru this next week. Ethan asked if he could come and of course I said yes! A week of discipleship and seeing God at work in the world will be an amazing thing for both of us! Pray that God grow Ethan into the man He wants Ethan to be.
Blessings