End of Year Request

This month we finish our apprenticeship with four young men, Jefferson Alayo, Alexis Alayo, Luis Mendoza and Bryand Cruzado. We are very excited to see their progress.

We started with a plan to divide half of their full-time schedule with theological education and the other half with practical ministry. We also spent half a day every week doing maintenance work around the church (sanding and refinishing windows and doors). They have been involved with various ministries such as youth ministry, Sunday school, helping with Geneva School, Christ's Kids and Bethesda Clinic. They participated in teaching daily devotionals and had opportunities to preach in the evening services. Several pastors took turns teaching them Worship, Mission and Theology. We taught them how to study the Bible in preparation for sermons and are working through a free certificate program in Christian Ministries with Birmingham Theological Seminary in connection with Third MillenniumMinistries. We also had a long break from course work dedicated to practical ministry when we provided flood relief to the affected areas during the months of March and April and part of May of 2017.

            We started the apprenticeship just thinking it would equip them as better servants and help them discover God's will for their lives. As we draw near to the end, it appears that all of them are confirmed in their calling to ministry and have grown and learned much. They may all end up becoming pastors. 

The pastor of one of our extension works, Percy Padilla, has requested to the session help to hire one of the apprentices as a pastoral assistant in Christ the Redeemer in Parque Industrial. Our session has agreed that it would be good if the Lord provides the funds and also has considered that it would be helpful to hire two of them to assist with the church in Arévalo, especially since I will be leaving in March for a year of home assignment. 

We have calculated that it will cost $600/month for each of them. We are praying to raise $1,800 per month to be able to hire three of the apprentices in order to continue sustaining the work of the church and providing experience for these young leaders. (One apprentice will be offered a job by our university ministry, SUSA.) These last two years, we used funds from your donations given to us, the Mills family, to finance a major part of the apprenticeship program. As per recommendation of our mission board, we need to raise the money separately from our personal funds.

Will you consider helping us put these men to work in the advancement of the kingdom in Trujillo?  Give here. Select Compassion fund and in the details describe for Arévalo apprenticeship.

Please pray with us as we seek the Lord's will for this and for the Spirit to guide us on who to call and to which specific field of ministry in the church.