Friday, December 17, 2010

The Rest of Their Trip pt.2

Saturday night Mike and I got to go with Domingo to a village where he started a mission 2.5 years ago. Nuevo Canaán has a population of 60 families. Domingo arrived when Manuel (80 years old) and his son called the radio station asking for a missionary to come and show them how to be saved. Right away Manuel became involved and he and his son built the church building.
Now, 15 families have accepted Christ, Manuel is the pastor, and his son goes to a another unreached village every two weeks holding services. Their only training has been Domingo's visits every 2 weeks and the last two modules of our Pastors Institute.
{Manuel & his son}
Domingo now only visits every 6 weeks. They planned a special service for him (not the gringos as we only knew we would be going the day before.) Several singing groups in the church stood up to lead everybody in song. I couldn't hear what we were singing because the speakers were so loud, but before each song they made a point to welcome Domingo and express their love for him. You could really see how much he and his investment in their lives meant to them.
That night they also commissioned three groups of young people. These are musical groups that the church is sending off into three new areas where there are no churches to start holding concerts. The church asked us to lay our hands on them and pray and afterwards presented each group with a set of guitar strings.
Mike and I each gave testimonies although I tried to read my Bible verse in Kekchi, but since I can't read Kekchi and got my reference mixed up, I didn't figure out I was reading the wrong verse until I was halfway through and read something about a Jew. Not my usual testimony verse but when I looked it up later I realized it was not too bad... it could have been a lot worse.

At the end of the service a couple brought their baby forward to Domingo for a baby dedication. Again we were asked to pray for this couple.
It reinforced the need for a full-time Pastors Institute here. This church is so far along, even holding services 5 times a week, but I can't help but wonder how a 2.5 yr. old Christian who can barely read finds the material he needs to preach 5 times a week. Right now there is no other option, but how much better if there was a trained pastor already in place or a place where Manuel could go to get the training he needs more frequently than 4 times a year.
CRAZY ITEM OF THE DAY:
I told Mike and Rick about the phenomenon that is cell phone usage in these villages where there is no electricity. I told them that I never have a free outlet on the generator when we show movies because everybody wants to charge their cell phone. They assumed I was exaggerating until Mike saw for himself a surge protector wholly devoted to cell phone chargers and the only other socket in the church similarly occupied.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...