Faithful to the Finish: Celebrating the 2025 Pastor Training Graduates

After three years of dedication and study, there’s a new group of graduates from pastor training school! Among them is Gabriel Perdomo, who graciously shared his experience with us.

Many of us remember those words from college orientation: “Look to your right. Now look to your left. Statistically, one of you won’t be here by graduation.” That’s a sobering thought for any student — but even more so for those who attend pastor training school. These students sacrifice time with their families, income from work, and often travel long distances just to attend. Out of the thirty or so students who began this journey together, nine faithfully continued to the end. That makes this accomplishment all the more meaningful.

Gabriel described the graduation ceremony with quiet pride. Because many students must travel several hours to reach the school, not all families can attend. Even so, the intimate celebration was filled with joy. One of the graduates, a gifted singer and guitarist, led worship alongside a teacher from the musical training school. A sermon followed, delivered by one of the directors, and then came the long-awaited moment — each graduate stepping forward to receive a hard-earned diploma. Afterward, the group shared a meal and took photos together, marking the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.

For one graduate, the day was especially sweet. Just a few months ago, he texted the group to say he couldn’t attend that month’s session because he didn’t have enough money for the expenses, including bus fare. But his classmates refused to let him miss out. They quickly took up a collection so he could continue his studies. That act of love and solidarity made his graduation day even more meaningful for everyone.

Pastor training school has given Gabriel tools that will serve him for years to come. As a youth pastor, he now feels more confident creating sermons grounded in Scripture. “I know I’m giving messages that are based on the Bible,” he explained.

Looking ahead, Gabriel plans to continue his work with youth and is open to returning to help future students at the training school. He and his fellow graduates intend to stay connected, supporting one another as they each go on to serve their communities.

Thank you to all who support pastor training school through your prayers and donations. This is your celebration, too!

- posted by Christi

From Nervous Beginnings to Bold Preaching: Gabriel’s Pastor Training Story

It’s been a little while since we’ve given an update on Pastor Training School, but that doesn’t mean things have been quiet. In fact, exciting things are happening — just ask 28-year-old Gabriel Perdomo, who is about to become one of the youngest graduates of the program.

Most of the students at the Pastor Training School are in their forties and fifties, but Gabriel’s path to the school began earlier. His father, a local pastor and former student of the program, encouraged him to enroll. Gabriel trusted his dad’s advice and has found his time there to be, in his words, “a great experience.” He even got married during his first year, and his wife is just as thankful for the opportunities the school has opened for him.

Growing up as a pastor’s son, Gabriel has listened to more sermons than he can count. But just a week and a half ago, he delivered his very first one. “I was so nervous,” he admitted, “but God helped me. And my dad was very happy. He always tells me he is very proud of me.”

The training Gabriel has received has equipped him to study the Bible deeply, structure a sermon clearly, and present it in a way that people can understand. He works with the youth at his father’s church, and some of them were in the congregation to hear his very first sermon. For Gabriel, it was a milestone moment — not just in his education, but in his ministry.

Unlike some students who travel many hours to attend class, Gabriel lives only five minutes away from the institute. That proximity has made it easier for him to invest deeply in his studies — and in October, as a graduate, he’ll carry that training with him into a lifetime of ministry.

Gabriel’s story is a reminder of why Pastor Training School exists: to equip men and women of all ages to serve their communities, their churches, and the Kingdom of God with confidence and clarity. Whether it’s a nervous first sermon or decades of experience, every graduate carries forward the same mission — to faithfully share God’s Word and shepherd His people.

Please keep Gabriel and all of the students and instructors in your prayers. 

 - posted by Christi

ps - Some of you may recognize Gabriel, as he is a member of the Sowers4Pastors staff!

Pastors Training School is an Apple, not a BlackBerry

If you look closely at any successful long-term organization, you will find that it has an ability to adapt to changes. Think about it. BlackBerry devices were all the rage until the company refused to accept that people wanted to have touch screens instead of keypads. Then it was bye-bye BlackBerry and hello Apple iPhone! Or what about the infamous decision of Blockbuster to not buy Netflix - what are the chances that streaming will be the next big thing? Obviously, the need to adapt is as important for missions organizations as it is with Fortune 500 companies. Adaptability is what has kept Pastor Training School up and running.

When training school began, it was led by Dr. Julio for many years, but than he had to move on to other things. Then for several years after that, Clay Powell administrated it. A few years ago he and his family had to move back to the States and then COVID hit, causing the school to have to switch to intermittent sessions. Thankfully, COVID restrictions have eased up a lot, and the school is starting to meet regularly again! Clay is still helping from afar, but the indigenous pastors have taken over the responsibility of running the program. Remember that the ultimate goal of Sowers4Pastors is to empower indigenous pastors. As Allen says, “Empowering indigenous pastors is one of our core beliefs.” 

This year, Pastor Training School is teaching 1st and 2nd year students. The 2nd-year students arrived first. About twenty 2nd-year students are being trained by 3rd and 4th year students. Then, a couple of the 2nd-year students will be staying behind to help the 3rd and 4th year students teach the 1st-year students. This is excellent news! It demonstrates a new level of sustainability for the program. If anything happens and gringo missionaries leave the country, the program can still continue. The pastors are being trained in the Bible and they are being trained in how to train other pastors. Pastors training school can be an Apple instead of a BlackBerry. 

Allen uses the term “indigenous pastors” very deliberately. Most of the pastors are primarily of Native American descent. They speak Spanish, but their ancestry is from various tribes. Most of these pastors will be in Honduras for the rest of their lives. They live in the communities and often have extended family within those communities. Indigenous pastors don’t have the cultural inadequacies of gringos. They don’t have to raise funds in order to stay in the country. It is their country! 

Pastor Training School and helping pastors get Bibles are at the top of the Sower4Pastors priority list. Working with teams, distributing backpacks, and even feeding children ultimately goes back to a desire to empower pastors. Allen places training school at a higher priority than the motorcycle ministry or putting on new church roofs. Having a church building is great, but it is not everything. As long as there are people trained and eager to spread the Gospel, the Gospel will spread. 

When Clay was serving as the school’s director, he started the system of having monthly gatherings, where someone goes out into the villages to meet with the pastors and have a mentoring session. That has continued, but it is also being run by indigenous pastors. The school’s current director and co-director are both Honduran, as are the administrator and each of the teachers. There are more than 2000 villages without a Bible-based church in the area. The most effective way to reach them is through evangelism done within the culture.

Sowers4Pastors asks for your prayer for the financial support of Pastors Training School. As it currently stands, North Americans are largely funding Pastor Training School. The students are giving up 3-5 days of work, covering the cost of their transportation, and giving a small amount toward part of the schooling. As costs continue to rise, Sowers4Pastors share in this worthwhile endeavor has increased. Pray that God will continue to provide the resources necessary to keep this program up and running!

-posted by Christi.

School is in Session!!

Can you believe the final visiting team for the summer of ‘21 has come and gone? Neither can I! It’s like they always say, “Time flies when you’re not the one in charge of preparing for visiting teams.” What??? Surely, someone says that. Anyway, the last team was small, yet mighty. 

This small but mighty team consisted of Clay Powell, the former teacher and administrator of Pastor Training School, Dr Rick Brodie and Randy Bennett from Kingsland First Baptist Church.

During the early days of COVID, Clay and his family moved back to the U.S. for various reasons. Besides the obstacle presented by Clay leaving, the school was also forced to close its doors due to COVID restrictions. It has been a year and a half since Pastor Training School was last in session. While regulations haven’t lifted to the point of reopening the school on a more permanent basis, the three-man team held a Pastor Training Conference a few weeks ago. Super exciting!

The invitees include about sixty people who were enrolled in classes when the school closed for COVID. They are each allowed to bring a “plus-one” with them. The only problem with that is communications aren’t the most reliable and RSVPs are virtually unknown in Honduras. So, the conference started not knowing how many people would be present. Anything from 120 attendees and down was possible. That makes things like meal planning a bit of a challenge!

Guests were set to arrive around lunchtime on Wednesday, so eating was one of the first things on the agenda. Fortunately, this wasn't quite a loaves and fishes situation. There were people on standby to make a quick emergency food run into Gracias just in case. Kim and Jonathon helped out during this time, running errands and moving team members and students to and from the campground where the conference was held. Of course, the hope was the more the merrier, but at meal time they only ended up feeding 50 people.

The students in attendance stayed over for a couple of nights and left Friday at noon, and they didn't pay to attend. The event was free for the pastors and their guests. Fundraising was a joint effort between the team's church, and Sowers4Pastors. Thanks to Kingsland First Baptist to helping make this first conference after COVID a reality!!

This was at least partially meant to be a time for students to reconnect. Remember that the pastors were right in the middle of their several-year training when it was halted abruptly. No one knows how long it will be before Pastor Training School can reconvene on a more permanent basis, so this is an opportunity for students to ask questions they may have come across in their studies, and to refresh the materials in their minds, besides learning new stuff.

The need for a Pastor Training School has been evident to Allen since he and his family first arrived to the Lempira area. Rural areas of Honduras have particularly undereducated pastors, and even now new pastors are continuing to feel called to the ministry, but they come equipped only by their desire to serve. This means that a program to train these servants is still desperately needed. This is an important part of Sowers4Pastors goal of empowering pastors. 

While the immediate future is unknown, Sowers4Pastors asks that you add Pastor Training School to your prayer list.  As Allen said, “We’re in a period of waiting for God to bring just the right person.” And of course the ongoing pandemic still presents an issue.

Please pray with us that God will provide a way to reopen the school. We also thank Him that a session was held recently despite the obstacles. It is very exciting to see Pastors' Training School up and running, even if it's just for one conference at the moment! If it is His will, God will provide a way towards doing more. In the meantime, a special shoutout to Clay Powell, Dr. Rick Brodie, Randy Bennett, and Kingsland First Baptist Church, for making this happen!! Clay also wanted to say a special "thank you" to the Hall family for helping support the team during the conference.

- posted by Christi

Pastor Training School: Part of this Complete Mission Statement

(This post is part of a series on S4P's mission statement. Here's a link to introduce you to the series.)

When you were growing up, how many times did you beg your mother to purchase the latest sugary cereal? She may have ignored your cries of, “But, Mom, it’s part of a complete breakfast! It said so on TV!” Sowers4Pastors is a lot like a “complete breakfast.” Some parts are a little flashier than others, but it all works together to support their mission statement.

Pastor training school is a key component in the Sowers4Pastors mission to empower pastors. It doesn’t have the “wow factor” of delivering backpacks. The pictures probably don’t spark the same warm fuzzy feeling you get when you see pictures of kids in feeding centers. But it is “nutrient rich” and absolutely essential. Before settling on a ministry “menu,” Allen and Trish spent plenty of time seeking advice from other missionaries. The big question was, “What’s the most needed thing?” They didn’t want to move into town and offer the missionary equivalent of a big bowl of Crunchy Sugar Loops since the area undoubtedly needed something more substantial. One of the answers they received was, “training for pastors.”

Allen saw that the pastors in the area had a love of Jesus, but they didn’t have a lot of training. Sending the pastors off to seminaries would have been cost prohibitive and it would have meant the pastors would be abandoning their flocks. Plus, few of the pastors in the area have enough education to waltz right into a seminary. But they don’t need seminary degrees to establish a stronger foundation of biblical knowledge. A local training school seemed like the answer, but Allen’s gifts aren’t in teaching.

As it turned out, one of the indigenous missionaries the family spoke to before deciding to settle in Gracias was Dr. Julio. Dr. Julio, a Honduran-born medical doctor, was preparing to go to Peru to begin a pastor training school there. When that opportunity didn’t come to fruition, Dr. Julio was available to take on the teaching role of a training school while Allen handled the administrative side of things.

The students would arrive for three days of training, once a month, so they would not be kept from their livelihoods or their flocks for too long. They received 16-20 hours of classroom training in eight sessions per year. Training school operates from March-October, allowing the pastors to work the coffee harvest.  

To date, 125 pastors have graduated for the three-year program. Fifteen pastors have gone on to complete a fourth year. Over time, the school developed a mentoring system, with the second-year students assist in teaching the first-year students, and the third-year students assist in teaching the second-year students.

The results of this program, according to Allen, have been remarkable. Many of pastors have gone on to become district supervisors for their denomination. The congregations are benefiting from improved teaching, as well. Pastors were sticking to very basic teaching before - mostly the Gospel message and some passages of the New Testament. The teaching the pastors have received at the training school have enabled them to expand their preaching to include more difficult topics in the New Testament, and the relationship between the Old Testament and the New.

For several reasons, the school has been closed down for most of 2020. Obviously, COVID-19 was one reason. The school has not been able to reopen due to the ongoing lock-down in Honduras (which is slowly starting to ease), but, thanks to the trickle-down method of educating, local pastors who have completed more training are able to share their knowledge with pastors who aren’t as far along in their training.

In the meantime, Clay Powell, the head teacher of the program, had to return to the States with his family. He will not be able to return for several years. This leaves the school without a seminary trained teacher.

Allen has requested that people add this to their prayer list, that once the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted a teacher with the right training and temperament might hear the calling to join the ministry. Please join the crew at Sowers4Pastors in praying that this need might be filled.

- posted by Christi.