As you continue to wait for Guatemalan pastors and churches to catch the vision of reaching Guatemala, and the world, for Christ, you are praying. Thank you. God is opening doors and the hearts of pastors and churches to launch out into unreached areas for Christ. But continue to pray.
As we find new unreached areas and find pastors who are willing and eager to reach these areas, there are still so many hurdles. Pray for:
1. scheduling. Realizing we are not the only people invovled in a scheduling an event, we must work within several different time lines...the community's, the church's, ours, the team's, airline's, the weather's, transportation's, translator's and the list goes on. For example, a community might be having the yearly fair or the yearly celebration of their patron saint. Those are definite times to not begin an outreach. Or rainy season (at which time we are enjoying) greatly affects the roads into the community, at times making them unreachable. Or even airline prices may have suddenly skyrocketed and a team may not have adequate funds, or even, they may have significantly dropped for one reason or the other, and this is THE time to get it together. At times, we can accommodadte a team in our Lottie Moon vehicle and off we go. But more often, we must engage other transportation. If a larger vehicle is available and is sufficient, still off we go with David as the driver. However, at times, we must engage several vehicles and must we make arrangements with one of several other organizations for a vehicle and/or additional driver. Then we must work within their availability schedules as well. So pray for God's schedule.
2. people in the community to desire to know the truth. Pray for the hearts of the people to be open and ready to respond to the call of the Gospel. Begin praying even now, for the works of satan to be bound and freedom for the Spirit of God to move freely among the community. Pray for seeds of truth to be planted that will grow strong and mighty.
3. Guatemalan and US teams. There needs to be a binding of their hearts and vision for the work. Pray that God will manifest Himself in drawing them together in ministry. Pray for the right translators - ones who know Christ and can effectively communicate the Gospel in clarity and with confidence. Pray communication will be flow freely among the group. Pray their eyes will see the needs of the community and begin to formulate future teams to reach the community. For example, perhaps a VBS can be scheduled to draw the children (and ultimately, the adults). School vacation here is not June/July/August but November, December, and part of January. In some communities, there is a school break in July that may allow for a VBS. This concern factors back into scheduling as well.
4. budget planning. When an area opens and teams are engaged, we must find adequate/safe lodging; safe restaurants for tender gringo stomachs :); menu planning/purchase for lunches while "in the field"; road safety - not washed out/closed for road construction, etc; and miriads of other details relating to budget, money conversion. More often than not, the adequate lodging, restaurants are not in the community and therefore involves travel time to and from the work sight, may be an hour or so.
Those are some of the issues that relate to our work here in Guatemala and the connecting of Guatemalan and US churches to reach unreached areas for Christ. In your particular situation there are other specifics. But the base of it all is summed up in the fact that "it is not all about me." So many other people, factors, events, issues are intertwined and all those things must come together to be "the perfect fit" in God's timing. So when we can not see His hand, we can trust His heart. He is working out details, guiding hearts, developing us to be used by him to bring together His plan, and we are just a portion of that plan.
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