Thursday, January 6, 2011

Update on the Kekchi Church Plant in Poptún

A couple days before Christmas the pastor from the new Kekchi church plant in Poptún that we have been trying to help with stopped by our house. He is originally from Cobán (the capital of the department south of us), so that is where he got his basic pastoral training. He brought his wife and daughter (he has more kids at home). The Kekchi seem to be more family oriented than the average person. They always want to come by our house and spend time getting to know us in our home and meet our whole family. I think that's great!
While he was there Jimmy went over some more areas where we could help with the new church. First pastor Mateo mentioned that they needed some chairs. Well that's easy, we had 2 stacks of chairs sitting under our carport that were from our work in New Horizon. Every time I see them there they make me sad. One because of the memory of unfinished business in that place and two because they are not being used.
So Tuesday Jimmy loaded up our 45 chairs and drove them to Poptún (it is about 45 min from our house). Yay! Something positive from a negative!
The other thing he mentioned is that they wanted to advertise on a popular radio station there in Poptún. It will be more than a commercial, it would be a one hour program slot. Mateo even used to work for a radio station, so he knows how to put programing together. Plus we have a lot of material already with the radio work we have been doing with Domingo and José. It will be aired once a week and include preaching, music and an invitation to the new church, all in Kekchi. We thought that was a wonderful idea that will prove to be very effective. The only way so far to get visitors has been to go door to door looking for Kekchi people to invite. You pay by the month, so Jimmy decided to give money for 6 months.

The best part of all of this was the attitude that Mateo had. He said that 45 chairs was perfect because when they fill up those, they will have enough people to be able to buy their own chairs. And 6 months of radio time was perfect because after that time they will have enough people to be able to buy their own air time. Wow! That is an attitude uncommon in most of the world!

Last month the church had 3 families and this month it has grown to 5. We are so thankful for pastor Mateo's passion for the job God has given him!

I love this quote, "Success is when preparation and passion meet opportunity." - who knows who said it first, but we heard it from one of pastor Hoover's messages.

2 comments:

  1. I love this blog. How exciting and encouraging it must be for
    ya'll that another Kekchi pastor is sold out to the Lord and eager to get a church started there in Poptun. Seems like he is already planning ahead, knowing God is going to bless that church. What a blessing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yay!! God is always working in the Peten! I can't wait to be a part of this!

    ReplyDelete

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