The
last few months have been full of equipping and empowering dozens of groups
around the world to lead church plant schools and trauma healing groups. After
each opportunity we realize more and more how much we love training the
trainers and offering pastoral guidance and practical resources to pastors and
leaders in communities of poverty.
In the last 5 years we have certified 137 Evangel Deans who have hosted 48 Evangel Schools in 6 countries and 15 cities across the United States. As a result, 381 church plant teams have been equipped to plant new churches around the world!
Just last month I (Chad) was able to lead our first team to Mexico to train a group of key leaders from various Mexican states to be Evangel Deans. Their vision is to plant 500 churches across Latin America. It is always life-giving to see the Holy Spirit in action and be able to stir up the passion that emerging leaders have to win their communities for Christ.
I have also been involved in partnering with the president of Institut Universitaire de Developpement International (IUDI) based in Cameroon (known in English as, Francophone University of International Development) which has a student base of politicians, business leaders and other people of influence from the 27 French speaking nations across Africa. We have been offering trauma healing groups to these leaders. Cameroon has been ravaged by civil war for over four years and many in our training have shared of atrocities and challenges unlike most of us have ever seen. Despite the heart-breaking stories the group has shared there is a contagious faith, a hope that shines from within them and a desire to take what they are learning and share it with their people.
Other international organizations I’ve been working with these last few months are a chaplain organization (training chaplains to take trauma healing into the jails, hospitals and other places of great need), a language organization (focused on non-dominant languages…i.e. the least reached), and a medical ambassador organization (providing medical and mental health services). Most of these organizations are focused on the English and Spanish parts of the world, but there is more potential to expand ever further.
God is on the move! It is great to join with you, through your prayers and financial support, to be able to provide materials, training, communities of practice and a growing relational network of support to these amazing men and women on the front lines, who often are both living in and ministering to the poorest in their communities. Please keep us and them in your prayers this month.
