Sunday, October 19, 2008

El Salvador

JB writes... Hey downline family, hope all is well in the good ole USA. We are doing well in El Salvador. As I write this, it is Sunday afternoon and the team has just finished preaching in several different churches. Steve preached at the main church in Santa Ana. Quinton preached in Sonsonate, Dustin and Matt preached in Antquizaya, and I preached in Chalchuapa. Our official conference is finished and the Lord really stirred everyone’s hearts as we taught the discipleship training. This is now the third year we have come here, so some of the brothers and sisters here are beginning to understand the life on life transference that is actually takes to make disciples. They have caught the vision and strategy of Christ and now they are beginning to disciple others. They have many practical questions about how and what to do. This means that they are actually putting into practice Christ’s strategy, or they have at least thought long and hard about it. The head pastor is such a Godly Christ Focused man and he has twelve men that he is discipling. Praise God. I think he is realizing that twelve was too many to take at one time, so when he has trained them to the point of reproduction, he will probably go smaller next time.

Quinton is a master with their teachers. He and Steve have spoken over six hours to their Christian teachers. They had so many practical questions for them. Because of Steve’s experience with youth and Quinton’s experience in education, these sessions were so valuable. We hadn’t even planned on doing these sessions, but obviously God was. I was able to sit in on these sessions and could not believe how God used them.

Last night a door was opened for us from a contact we made four months ago. Tito was our translator last year for the main discipleship sessions. He heard the word last year, and we spoke at his church last night. They have a young couple in their church who speak English and who are very hungry for the word. Listen to this, right before I gave the vision and strategy and Steve spoke on the Great Commission, William (the local) told me that he was really interested in the relationship between Paul and Timothy. He wanted to know more about them! Isn’t God good. We spent the next several hours with them over a meal building a relationship. They are going to come to our training conference next march. It was really and blessed night.

The brothers from Nicaragua left yesterday because of flooding in their hometown. It rains here for 6 months straight. We were discouraged they had to leave early, but we know God is in control. They drove 10 hours in the rain on bad roads and missed the entire first night of the conference. Steve and I were able to spend some good one on one time with them going over the strategy. It actually was a very sweet time and because the settings we taught them in were more intimate, probably more effective. I think we will see them again. I love how God opens and shuts doors on His timing to allow these meetings with new people that we can continue to build on year after year.

We have more services tonight and then more training with pastors on Monday and Tuesday. Continue to pray for the words to take root in their lives and for God’s anointing with our brothers.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

More from El Salvador

Greetings from El Salvador! The Lord is truly blessing what is happening here! On Friday the team trained more teachers and students from the Christian school that is connected with the Oasis Church. Also, while the teachers were being trained, JB taught four brothers from Nicaragua who drove over 8 hours to hear the teaching on discipleship! Last night Q shared with the main group and then we broke into smaller groups for more teaching. The people we are teaching are very attentive and have lots of insightful questions. Please continue to pray for our team – God is doing some amazing things here!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

El Salvador

JB Selecman writes... What's up from El Salvador. You all will be happy to know that it is still raining, Hotel Toleteka is still here, and the Christmas decorations are already out everywhere. Who would have thought, they are early for Christmas. We are having a great time. Last night Steve taught on Jesus vision for his disciples from Mark 1 and Luke 4, where Jesus tells the disciples the only thing he plans to make them into - fishers of men and how the strategy for that is played out in Jesus lifestyle of discipleship! Today was the first day of our teaching. We had four hours with their teachers and administrators today and two hours with their high school students. The teachers are all trying so hard to love their students and give them an education with a Biblical worldview. They had many questions and Steve and Quentin did an awesome job with them today. By the way, Quinton Lytle is a father of eight children (that is not a typo) who has homeschooled all his children. He has been a pastor and the principle for a school for inner city school kids who have been kicked out of public schools. He is now working with Downline full time and has worked in ministry in Memphis for 20 years. He worked for five years for JIFF (Juvenile Intervention Faith Based Followup). So you can imagine how helpful he is with the teachers.

Tonight begins the conference. It runs until Sat night. We will be teaching Discipleship as always and do 3 breakout small group sessions. They are really starting to understand discipleship. They have had some growing pains as the seek to live a lifestyle of discipleship and have many questions which is a great thing. It means they are trying and struggling with it and they are eager to learn more. Please pray for the perseverance and patience. On Sunday, we will preach 8 to 10 different sermons. Pastor M. asked us to preach on discipleship even from the pulpit to encourage the lay people in the churches to get involved with one on one relational ministries in their spheres of influence. Discipleship is really on his heart.

Pastor M. is doing great. He was so excited to see us and sends his love to all of you. He is already talking about next March when we come back. I am going to find out more about the elections and let you guys know. Right now he said, it looks like the communist party is leading in the poles. They are really worried about the election, because the govt could shut their school down. Please continue to pray for this.