On The Brink
It has been a few weeks since a new blog article, and that is because we have been busy busy busy. First of all thanks for all the prayers for the traveling that I mentioned last time. Randy and I went to Dallas and had a great time at the conference there. Neil Cole's teaching was a highlight for us and we really are benefiting from his materials. Then I took Randy home to Alabama and came home to Kentucky. I was in Acayucan, Mexico last week and was able to share cpm principles with some leaders there and there may be some very interested people there. A follow up training may happen in February or March. I will be traveling to Kenya in October to teach some leaders some very basic intro material about cpm. Please remember that in prayer.
But now to the most important update. It really feels like we are "on the brink" of something tremendous in Honduras. Richard Crowder and Keith Travis drove from South Mexico to Honduras the first week of September, and Randy and Linda Travis flew into Honduras on the 9th. By that evening, our team was all assembled at our base in Western Honduras. After being out of Honduras for exactly 10 weeks since the political crisis began, they did not know what all that they would find. We knew that most of our Honduran team had been "stuck" in Eastern Honduras and had remained there. They had begun to work in that area, and most of our studies in Western Honduras had run out of lesson material and none of our team had been able to get to those villages.
Randy, Linda, Keith, and Richard had brought in enough materials to move our studies forward for 3 to 6 months. They immediately began to work feverishly at our base, making copies of our inductive studies. When that was finished they traveled across the country to the Eastern side of Honduras and conducted a 3 day mini-conference on cpm principles with the leaders that had been working in the East. While there, the political crisis ramped up big time. The former President of Honduras snuck back into the country, moved into the Brazilian Embassy and protests, riots, and violence broke out, especially in Tegucigalpa, the capital. A curfew was instituted for 2 days and all airports were shut down. Our team conducted our mini-conference in the East during those days and when the curfew was lifted, travelled back across the country to our base in the West. So in the East (some 10 plus hours away from our main project) we now have some trained leaders and have left them materials for almost 6 months worth of inductive studies. We left them with enough for 63 first generation studies and told them we would be back to see what they were doing with it. This 3 day training trained 23 leaders!
Now our American missionaries are back in the West, and will be moving among our original village studies all next week, giving out study materials, encouraging, and assessing what is happening. The next week, Randy and Linda will fly back to the US and Keith and Richard will drive back to south Mexico, from where Richard will fly home. The month of October will then be a final supply preparation month and then Randy and Linda, Keith and Juanita Travis will drive back down to finish the year. This brief trip in was really an emergency trip to get our study materials into the villages and help the progress that has happened since July.
Let me give a kind of personal perspective summary of what is happening. Our main project is in Western Honduras. I am estimating that we probably have inductive studies in around 100 locations here, many of them 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation studies, and some even 4th generation. Many of these studies will soon be getting close to the key moment of receiving Christ and obeying Him in baptism.
In Eastern Honduras, we really have a new movement, that started by accident (from our human perspective) because some of our team was stuck there for several weeks and kept working. We now have 23 people trained in beginning principles there and probably somewhere around that many studies having just begun.
So reader, I am asking for prayer. Pray for the Western Movement which is getting close to the key moment of obeying Christ in baptism and birthing as churches. Pray for the Eastern Movement which is just beginning initial 1st gen studies. Pray for our full time Honduran team. Pray for all the trained leaders. Pray for Randy, Linda, Keith and Juanita Travis and Richard and Pat Crowder, our American Missionary team. Pray that Luke 10:2b will be so in both the East and the West, and eventually that the 2 movements will meet in the center and that a church planting movement will sweep the whole country of Honduras. Pray for peace in the nation and a quick resolution of their political crisis that keeps doors for the gospel open.
Thank you for your prayer and support.
But now to the most important update. It really feels like we are "on the brink" of something tremendous in Honduras. Richard Crowder and Keith Travis drove from South Mexico to Honduras the first week of September, and Randy and Linda Travis flew into Honduras on the 9th. By that evening, our team was all assembled at our base in Western Honduras. After being out of Honduras for exactly 10 weeks since the political crisis began, they did not know what all that they would find. We knew that most of our Honduran team had been "stuck" in Eastern Honduras and had remained there. They had begun to work in that area, and most of our studies in Western Honduras had run out of lesson material and none of our team had been able to get to those villages.
Randy, Linda, Keith, and Richard had brought in enough materials to move our studies forward for 3 to 6 months. They immediately began to work feverishly at our base, making copies of our inductive studies. When that was finished they traveled across the country to the Eastern side of Honduras and conducted a 3 day mini-conference on cpm principles with the leaders that had been working in the East. While there, the political crisis ramped up big time. The former President of Honduras snuck back into the country, moved into the Brazilian Embassy and protests, riots, and violence broke out, especially in Tegucigalpa, the capital. A curfew was instituted for 2 days and all airports were shut down. Our team conducted our mini-conference in the East during those days and when the curfew was lifted, travelled back across the country to our base in the West. So in the East (some 10 plus hours away from our main project) we now have some trained leaders and have left them materials for almost 6 months worth of inductive studies. We left them with enough for 63 first generation studies and told them we would be back to see what they were doing with it. This 3 day training trained 23 leaders!
Now our American missionaries are back in the West, and will be moving among our original village studies all next week, giving out study materials, encouraging, and assessing what is happening. The next week, Randy and Linda will fly back to the US and Keith and Richard will drive back to south Mexico, from where Richard will fly home. The month of October will then be a final supply preparation month and then Randy and Linda, Keith and Juanita Travis will drive back down to finish the year. This brief trip in was really an emergency trip to get our study materials into the villages and help the progress that has happened since July.
Let me give a kind of personal perspective summary of what is happening. Our main project is in Western Honduras. I am estimating that we probably have inductive studies in around 100 locations here, many of them 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation studies, and some even 4th generation. Many of these studies will soon be getting close to the key moment of receiving Christ and obeying Him in baptism.
In Eastern Honduras, we really have a new movement, that started by accident (from our human perspective) because some of our team was stuck there for several weeks and kept working. We now have 23 people trained in beginning principles there and probably somewhere around that many studies having just begun.
So reader, I am asking for prayer. Pray for the Western Movement which is getting close to the key moment of obeying Christ in baptism and birthing as churches. Pray for the Eastern Movement which is just beginning initial 1st gen studies. Pray for our full time Honduran team. Pray for all the trained leaders. Pray for Randy, Linda, Keith and Juanita Travis and Richard and Pat Crowder, our American Missionary team. Pray that Luke 10:2b will be so in both the East and the West, and eventually that the 2 movements will meet in the center and that a church planting movement will sweep the whole country of Honduras. Pray for peace in the nation and a quick resolution of their political crisis that keeps doors for the gospel open.
Thank you for your prayer and support.
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