Growing Pains

“No pain, no gain.” I’m not sure that’s a universal truth, but it is a phrase that sort of applies to the growing pains Sowers4Pastors and the pastors involved with the feeding centers and sponsorship centers are experiencing. As Trish said, “We’ve created a good problem for ourselves.”

You may have read the recent list of prayer requests and praises. This particular need is so great that it merited its own post. When a child registers with a feeding or sponsorship program, it doesn’t affect only the child. Often, it pulls the rest of the child’s family - parents, siblings, and more extended family -  into the sphere of the local church.

In rural Honduras, Sunday school for children has long meant that all young people are in one room. As Allen described it, it’s really more like the communal time some churches have before breaking into separate Sunday school classes--except the break never comes. In my mind, I’m picturing the time before we broke into classes for Vacation Bible School. We’d all get together and sing such classics as “Deep and Wide” or “Down In My Heart”. Right after we sang my favorite part about, “and if the devil doesn’t like it, he can sit on a tack,” we’d march off to our separate classes like good little Christian soldiers.

In most of the rural churches in Honduras, there are no separate classes toward which to march. So, instead of marching onward, the young Christian soldiers stay in a room holding everyone from toddlers to 18-yr-olds. Obviously, this presents a set of problems. If you tailor a program for the 6-8-yr-old crowd, for example, you’ve lost the interest of the little ones and the older kids.

The thing is, the kids are in one room because that was the only space most churches have. A typical rural Honduran Sunday school program isn’t just in one room; it’s in the room. Churches are having to build extra rooms to accommodate the growth!

There’s also the issue of finding people trained to teach multiple classes. Finding volunteers is difficult enough in the U.S, but there are a few more challenges in Honduras. For starters, none of the adults have ever seen this type of program in action. Then there is the unfortunate fact that many of the adults are unable to read.

Pastors are diligently trying to find ways to maintain the interest and serve the needs of all these young people. That’s no small task when you consider that most of the pastors are also working all day on a farm, caring for their families, ministering to the elderly, and still trying to reach the unreached within their communities. Pastors are trying to figure out how to raise up leaders within their congregations. Even the go-getter pastors are finding it difficult to overcome the challenges.

If you're viewing this post in an email, here is the link to see the video. 

Sowers4Pastors is facing a similar problem within their sponsorship programs. As a program succeeds, more and more kids are able to continue their educations into upper grades. Some of the older children are having to leave home during the week, in order to attend high school. They often travel home to see their families and attend church on the weekends. It is important to meet them where they’re at. Sowers4Pastors wants to be able to encourage their growth!

Please pray for God to grant wisdom to the pastors and Sowers4Pastors as they seek to train up new people. And we praise Him for the unprecedented growth these churches are experiencing.

 - posted by Christi