When Sowers4Pastors sets up a sponsorship program in a new location, they consider a whole checklist of facts. One of the items at the top of the list is, “Is there a pastor at that location who is willing and able to do the hard work involved in overseeing a sponsorship program?”
Over the past few years of running sister church sponsorship programs, numerous challenges have gotten in the way of having things operate the way S4P intended. Now that the Covid situation has mostly normalized, it is possible to work on rebuilding these programs - and that work has begun!
Between school closures because of COVID and recent school closures as a result of months of rain and flooding, students in Honduras have only had about 3.5 months of in-person school since the beginning of the pandemic. Yes, that’s 3.5 months of school since March 12, 2020! Obviously, this has greatly affected the sponsorship programs that are operated through schools.
Then there have been leadership issues. Some pastors have experienced burnout. Some have moved to other areas in Honduras. Some pastors have immigrated to the States. During the time since March 2020, some pastors have reached retirement age. Others have been promoted to supervisory positions. Each of these factors has made it more difficult for Sowers4Pastors to have good, committed pastors working in each designated sister church location.
By bringing on indigenous missionaries (Alejandro, Cesia, and Esdras) who will be working specifically with the sister churches, things are looking up! The staff members are looking closely at some of the things Kim and Jonathon Hall have implemented within the Manna program and are looking to replicate some of them. The missionaries have come up with a very extensive and well thought out plan that is individualized by location. One size does not fit all! As you may recall, each sister church program may consist of many different sites. The Crucitas program alone (sister church of Lighthouse Church in Maryland) works with children in ten different schools, spread out in different villages.
The staff has spent time carefully considering different Sunday school and training materials. They have come up with three different sets of materials, based on their analysis of each location. The materials to be used in each location will be chosen based on several factors, including who will be teaching at any given location. In some places, the local pastor is in place and continuing his role in teaching at the school. In other places, the pastor has the capacity to do the job but needs some encouragement, training, and good materials. In still other locations, the missionaries have recognized that they will need to go in and do the teaching themselves, until a local pastor can be found with the skills and vision to take over there. The bottom line is that the missionaries have committed that all twenty-five sister church locations will get a Bible lesson each and every week, Lord willing.
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| Here's Cesia, clearly doing a great job of keeping the children involved and enthusiastic, as she teaches a Bible lesson at one of the sister church locations. |
Everyone with S4P is excited to see the indigenous missionaries exceed expectations of what they had originally envisioned them doing. Allen said, “The new missionaries have the heart, desire, past experience, and fresh ideas to accomplish this."
Looking forward, in spite of all the difficulties of the past few years, the expectation is that the sister churches will be able to serve the children of each community better than ever! As always, Sowers4Pastors requests your prayers, as they work to reach whole communities with the message of God's redeeming Love!
- posted by Christi
As a reward, to those who read all the way to the end, here's a "blooper" photo, from when we were trying to get a picture of staff members looking at Sunday school curriculum. LOL
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