Update from Joseph - Gospel Conversations Trainings

HOLA! We are sincerely thankful to all of you who are faithfully supporting us financially and in prayer. We praise the Lord for His faithfulness and for putting Guatemala on your hearts. Without your support we would not have the blessing to be here and to see the Lord’s work in and around us. Thank you very much.

The view of Guatemala City from our neighborhood

When we first said “Yes” to the Lord and began this journey to Guatemala we thought the Lord would have us come here and work only with Good News in Action and Vida Nueva Guatemala on training in evangelism. As we began to move in this direction the Lord introduced us to a network of people who are seeking the fulfilment of the Great Commission, #NoPlaceLeft where the gospel has not been heard by a mouth to ear gospel presentation. You can visit www.noplaceleft.net for more information on trainings, worldwide, and mission statements. In Latin America this best translates to #NingunLugarSinAlcanzar (NLSA). With this network the Lord provided encouragement, training, methods for training trainers, challenged our then tiny vision for His mission and gave us many great resources useful for equipping new and existing believers to carry out His kingdom-building mission. It is a comprehensive biblical approach of training in gospel conversations, equipping believers for discipleship and challenging immediate obedience to the Gospel. It is truly a way to multiply the workers in the harvest to get more Great Commission kingdom-building work accomplished.

Our strategy here in Guatemala is pretty simple: Share the Gospel. Train others to share the gospel. Train Trainers to train others to share the gospel until there is #NingunLugarSinAlcanzar in Guatemala where the gospel has not been heard by a mouth to ear conversation.

(I am including a couple of videos below... one is from a training held at the church and the other is from a training held in our home.)

Pastor Nelson Rivas after the VNG training

Training held at the church (VNG)

We are excited, and we praise the Lord for His great work here. Since our last blog post we have experienced the Lord open doors for trainings and gospel conversations. The Lord has provided great translators, who speak English well and want to be trained and they want to be trainers. So we have seen the Lord do much more in the onset of this adventure than we expected. So far, in the last 8 weeks we have had 12 trainings and trained at least 70 people in gospel conversations. Some trainings were in our home, some in other homes and some in the church at Vida Nueva Guatemala. We are also in the process of training leaders from three churches just outside the city so that they can take the training and cast the #NLSA vision in their church and community. In December we will work with them and do a full day training complete with harvest time in their communities (Santiago, Chimaltenango, Xeno & Nimajuyu). In short, The Lord is opening doors for the people of God to be mobilized with the gospel.

Training in our home

 

With the youth of VNG

Some pics of small group trainings:

We are hearing stories of people from VNG sharing the gospel in the work place, with family members and elsewhere. Last night we met in a large colonia (group of neighborhoods) in the north of Guatemala City called Nimajuyu. Back in August I was in Guatemala for the GNIA campaigns and met a couple named Julio and Ana in the park of this colonia. These two were already following Jesus when we met. We stayed in touch through Facebook. They saw the pictures of NLSA trainings on FB and wanted to know more. We met for coffee and I cast the NLSA Vision for them. Julio and Ana were very excited and saw that this is a great way for them to reach their community and possibly other parts of Guatemala. Since this coffee meeting we have spent a lot of time together looking at scripture, training and praying for more workers in the harvest. Last night, four men from Vida Nueva and I met in their home, prayed and went into the harvest together. In one hour and 15 minutes we engaged 14 people. Some would not receive prayer. Some wanted to hear more and have been invited to discover more through bible study. One young woman surrendered to the Lordship of King Jesus and will be discipled by Ana and Julio.

Last night in Julio and Ana's home

Last night in the harvest

Notes from our sharing time after the harvest

I am sorry for the long post and I do apologize that my words cannot express how much we can see happening in the hearts of the people here. I am humbled to say that I could keep on and on with how the Lord has been working for His name sake.

We had the opportunity to share the gospel after playing a game of soccer with a group of boys in a local neighborhood park.

I will end with this one scripture that has recently come alive to us. “The Kingdom of God is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all he has and buys that field.” (Matt 13:44) Jesus calls us to recognize the value of the Kingdom of God. It is worth everything we have and we cannot outgive God - not with our time, our money or even our lives. In this time our family is learning more about the true and lasting joy that comes from simple obedience and the discovery of the value of the Kingdom of God. The further we go down this road of investing in eternal things the more we discover true joy in in Christ in the midst of the uncertainties we face.

Christy and the girls were so excited to find a leaf at the park that reminded them of fall in NC :)

The girls loved helping with VBS decorations

Again, we cannot thank you enough for your prayers and financial support. We would not be on this journey if many of you did not give of your finances and prayer support. Please continue to pray for more workers in the harvest and please continue to give. If you are looking for a mission to support please prayerfully consider us and view the right side of the blog for more information.

Prayer Points:

Ø  More workers in the harvest.

Ø  More opportunities for training trainers.

Ø  For the training to remain simple and reproducible.

Ø  Those who are trained to produce fruit and to become trainers.

Ø  32,000 trainers who will train at least 50 more people.

Ø  Patience and persistence in pursuing the Kingdom of God.

Ø  Strength and perception when the enemy strikes. We are waging war against him and he is striking, but God is faithful to sustain us.

Ø  Family as we continue to adjust to the culture.

Ø  Family to grow in our understanding and ability to speak Spanish. (The Lord is blessing in this way.)

Ø  Christy and the girls and they continue to valiantly keep up with a full homeschool schedule. With our move they had a little delay in starting. They are 10 weeks into the school year now and are doing a great job of getting caught up.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss sending a mission team to Guatemala:

My cell number is +502 4803 5579 (I can receive texts and I can call you.)

Email: jdsaleeby@gmail.com

Joseph