Last week’s blog post mentioned some serious prayer concerns. Today’s post is more of a reminder that, even while there are big prayer requests, the ministry is still going on in exciting and sometimes new ways. Occasionally, there’s even a mystery to solve!
About ten days ago, Trish received a message from a staff member, with a link to some photos and a note that said, “Hey, Ms. Trish! God Bless you! Here are the pictures from the field day.” And Trish thought, Oh, wonderful! It’s the pictures from the field day! That was immediately followed by the thought, Wait a minute. Field day? What field day?
The staff was in a period between visiting teams and Trish had been spending most of her waking moments updating children’s bios for the sponsorship program, which is pretty far removed from anything that might be described as a field day.
So, Trish put on her imaginary detective hat, grabbed her invisible magnifying glass, and set off in search of clues. The tracks pointed to the area around the newest Sister Church program in La Mission where a visiting team from New Life Christian Ministries had recently put on a VBS program. From there, the tracks led her to the same general area where a Honduran team from Alejandro and Secia’s previous church had also put on a program for the children and Sunday school teachers. A nearby church had taken notice of those programs and the people there felt inspired to do more to reach the youth in their community. They didn’t need to wait for a team to arrive. They felt confident that they could do some research and put on a humdinger of an event all on their own!
From there, the tracks led Trish back to Sowers4Pastors because members of the churches in La Mision and La Lima had contacted people from the S4P staff and asked if they could get some help in coming up with ideas and planning a youth event. Without hesitation, the staff members stepped in to serve as consultants for the event. They helped with preparation, planning, and logistical issues - and then served as teachers and leaders on the day it happened!
Trish knew what happened at the event, because she had pictorial evidence. The original message had called it a field day but it was much more than that. Part of the event was like a field day, in that there were a lot of games that involved running around in a field. But it also included prayer, worship times, and two separate teaching sessions. It was an all-day thing. One of the teaching sessions was on “Our Identity in Christ,” and the other was on “God’s Plan for the Family.” The pictures showed S4P’s own Alejandro and Melvin at the event. Secia was not seen in photos but that’s only because she was behind the camera. Pictures also indicate that there was food involved. That seems prudent since running youth are approximately twelvity-hundred percent likely to want to eat!
Allen and Trish are so impressed by the fact that all of this happened organically – inspired by one of S4P’s programs into growing something else. And they are especially delighted that they didn’t even know about it until after it had happened because that shows a tremendous amount of initiative on the part of the church and the S4P staff members who helped them pull it off. It has always been their goal to inspire pastors to do more, in a way that didn't required little or no gringo involvement. Empowering Honduran Pastors . . . where have I heard that before? This was an event that was planned and implemented completely independent of foreign missionaries.
The mystery was solved. And in the words of Sherlock Holmes it was, “Elementary, my dear Watson.”
- posted by Christi
No comments:
Post a Comment