Village Church - More on the Conference

We wanted to share a couple of photos from the church planting conference that I wrote about in our last blog entry. What has impressed me so much is how the program being administered from OMS South Africa is in 19 countries where there are no missionaries. They work through a definitive 'chain of command' to country supervisors in each country who administer the program through established churches in those countries. The work is growing rapidly and it just makes sense to engage National leaders in each country to do the work independently. They know the culture, they know the people, they know the language, they know the governmental 'hoops,' and they know when to push and when not to.

Here in Mozambique, we function somewhat as the country supervisors for the village church planting program, relying on Juka, Xavier, and Abel to administer the program. The conference has given us alot of ideas on how we might do a better job in the future and possibly a better direction to go relative to administering the work. So, the conference was inspiring yet extremely challenging as it did show us how very far we have to go to implement the program here as it is designed. It seems that the more we learn, the more we understand how much more we need to learn! (but isn't that always the case?).

The stories we heard were so sobering. Two young men started each presentation with "hello, I'm from Rwanda and we've had a genocide in our country; another man spoke of how he was dodging bullets to get to the airport; another spoke of the intense suffering / starvation in his country; another spoke of rebel uprisings resulting in killings near his home. Yet, each testified with great joy about the great things the "Lord of the Harvest" was accomplishing in their country.

I have re-read the book of Acts in the Bible since returning from the conference and what we see happening here in Africa is so much like what we see in that book. And the recipe has not changed after all these years....train others to train others; God will bring the increase.

The one photo of Ann and I is with Jeremias, the country supervisor for Angola, also a Portuguese-speaking country. We had some joint friends from the OMS Extreme Walk program that spent time with Jeremias in Angola. Jeremias has much experience with the ECC program and was able to provide very good counsel to us. He was quite gifted language-wise, being fluent in French, English, Portuguese, plus a whole host of dialects.

So, a few photos to share this morning as I thank God for how you are standing so faithfully with us. Thank you.

"For this is what the Lord has commanded us: 'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.' When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.'" Acts 13:47,48