LATN's "new" conference room

It's great when a church sends a team of committed men and women to help out LATN by remodeling the office. We are now enjoying the fruit of their labor and have had many team meetings in the newly remodeled conference room. Formerly, a living room and dining room occupied the space. Now, the area can accommodate 20 individuals comfortably and is ready to install a screen and projector, something we plan on doing in the next two weeks, prior to the Team Summit, June 2-6. We pray that God will use the meetings in that room for strengthening the churches in the Spanish speaking world.

Recent trip to Minnesota

Judy and I enjoyed our time with other ReachGlobal leaders at a series of meetings in Minnesota earlier this month. We were impacted by what God is doing through ReachGlobal all over the world. Reports of what God is doing in China, Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America were especially encouraging! As an extra bonus, Judy and I were able to visit the Thief River Falls EFC and reconnect with God's people there who are part of our support team. But, it was so good to get back home to San Jose on the 9th (although when we arrived, we were without water for a couple days!)

ProMETA leaders on You Tube

One of the participants at last month's ProMETA Summit 2008, Dr. Glenn Hoyle, edited some of the video and uploaded three short videos to You Tube. These testimonies demonstrate how God is using ProMETA throughout Latin America. (If you click on the link, it should take you to the You Tube site. By the way, you will notice on the You Tube site that "prometa" is also the name of a drug that has received mixed reviews! No connection with ProMETA!)

Esau Bonilla (pastor with a passion for church planting and missions): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ek37EjXNmY

Guido Santamaria (pastor of a growing church explains how ProMETA is accessible): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7npiV3cEFU

Alexander Cabezas (works with an international ministry to kids): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzro9UvH81U

This past week was a great opportunity to interface with ReachGlobal and Latin American leaders from at least 8 countries. Three days were spent in training in the area of "Coaching," a relatively new training concept for Latin Americans. It was great to interact with these leaders and to reconnect with them. We were also able to share ProMETA with the group in one of the morning sessions. Another good point of intersection was with two of the Brazilian leaders who are involved in theological education (one of them is moving to Portugal where he will be involved in leadership at a Bible College). This was encouraging because one of our goals has been to eventually offer courses in Portuguese. We'll see how God leads in this process.

VIDEO

Recently, a kingdom partner produced an excellent video summarizing the ministry of LATN (now called ProMETA - see below). Please click on the "play" button to view it (the video is less than 4 minutes long).

ProMETA Summit Concludes Well

We certainly appreciated your prayers for the ProMETA Summit this past week. 11 invited guests (one was not able to make it due to travel problems) met with ProMETA staff and other on-site guests to participate in two days of intense meetings in which the following issues were presented: ProMETA's context, history, mission, vision, values, program, and needs were shared with the group. Probably the hightlight of the Summit was the dual presentation from Latin Americans: one group of students and another group of Latin American missionaries. Each group gave testimonials of how God has used ProMETA in their lives and the critical need to keep ProMETA equipping leaders for the Church. One of the neat little snippets of information we received was from one of ProMETA's students who works in a global ministry with children at risk. He said that one of the by-products of the courses he’s taken is that not only is he begin shaped in his theology, he has also become a good writer and the magazine in which he publishes for the ministry reaches 55,000 readers. One of readers, a pastor working in Patagonia (the southernmost tip of South America) said that the magazine is the only tool he has for helping him work with these children. The student thanked God for how ProMETA has enabled him to use what he is learning to minister in this way!
We look forward to next year's Summit and are working on the dates for that event.

It was wonderful to have our son and daughter-in-law with the twins visit us from Boston for a week. We accepted this gift from God with grateful hearts and enjoyed our time with them. God is leading Kris and Hanjo into a full-time missions ministry as they look into further schooling and opportunities.