This post is a follow-up to the post "A Glimpse at the History of Nueva Vida and its Church Plants". If you not read that post, you may wish to before reading this one. There are so many opportunities to minister. We could easily fill up our time with many good activities. But what is it that God has called us here to do? We wrote a post on this, titled "Why are we here?", dated October 25, 2007. In that post, we spoke of three areas of focus. This posting, looks at one of those areas - Church Planting.
Church Planting: In October we wrote "We are here to equip the people of Iglesia Nueva Vida Jarabacoa and the people in the Nueva Vida daughter churches with the purpose of developing strong leaders for their church plants."
Two days each week, Nueva Vida in Jarabacoa has been sending out men who act as pastors to each of the daughter churches. Typically the men go to the villages and a service starts. The music is provided by the local people. Sometimes the young children will lead the singing (we love this). And the pastor sent from Jarabacoa gives the message. Once the service is done, everyone goes home. Over the years, they have tried assigning churches to a specific man and recently they were rotating the men weekly to the different church plants. Currently, they are assigning men to churches so that relationships can deepen.
It isn't easy to go to all the churches. Montana, Salto and Los Calabazos are all about 20 minutes away. Buenos Aires is closer, at 10 minutes and Boma is the furthest at 35 minutes and hardest to get to. All have good paved or dirt roads right to the building, with the exception of Boma.To get to Boma, you follow a windy, up and down, paved road. Shortly after the pavement turns to gravel, you come to a opening with a little store. Here it seems the main road breaks up into two smaller roads. Take the road to the right and it dead ends into a river. In the past, when the water was low, you could drive threw the river and continue on. Tropical storm Noel, in November, washed out the road on the other side of the river. Presently, only motorcycles and people on foot can continue. After crossing the river, follow a path across some beautiful country. Finally you will come to a steep hill and after climbing the hill, you will arrive in the village of Boma. If it rains, the river may not be passable.
We are impressed that Nueva Vida is doing this and has been doing this for about 20 years. Yes, more needs to be done, but for these men that go, this takes quite a bit of commitment.
The feeling among everyone is that we need to build leaders within the communities. Each of the church plants needs a local leader who is able to pastor the people. Nueva Vida in Jarabacoa would continue in a supporting role, but the local leadership would have more ownership in the small churches.
The question then is, how do we create leaders? Many of the church plants are very small and have some big struggles (as noted in "A Glimpse at the History of Nueva Vida and its Church Plants"). Presently our strategy is to work with the Dominicans to start Bible studies for men and women at each of the church plants. As men and women grow in their knowledge of Scripture, it will strengthen the church. We are praying that leaders will come out of these Bible studies. Of course, our Bible studies study the Bible, but we are also using them to help the people how to study the Bible, how to lead a Bible study, and how to care for one another.
Right now, we are focusing in Montana.
Montana is largely a church of women and children. Two women's Bible studies existed in October. Becky has been working with those studies and helping Ramona equip the other women to lead the studies. In November, Becky and Ramona started a new study as a response to the November outreach. And now, they are looking at starting another. Last week, a lady came to the group and asked why she and her friends hadn't been invited to a Bible study. It seems, going to Bible study is the "in" thing in this small community. So Becky is preparing to help Josefina start one more study for ladies!
Rick and Damaso have started a men's Bible study. It took some time to get this started. Now, every Wednesday, they go out to Montana. While we have had many men come, two men in particular are there every week. One, though not yet a believer, is soaking up every word and reading the Bible between our meetings. Each week Damaso and I remark on the way home, how fun it is to study God's word with people who are discovering it for, what seems to be, the first time. Bible studies aren't the "in" thing for the men of the community. But then, if two men get excited about who God is and start sharing with the other men in the community...what might happen? We have learned a lot from our time in Montana. We have seen, once again, the value of small group Bible studies. As the men and women interact with God's Word, it is obvious that they are learning. As I said, we pray that leaders will rise up out of the Bible studies. Because of the lack of Biblical knowledge, this may take some time. But we are confident that we are heading the right direction.
In addition, Rick has traveled spent some time with the leaders of Buenos Aires and Los Calabasos. We shared with them about what we are doing in Montana and offered to help them start similar Bible studies in their communities.
Please be in pray for us, for these communities and for these Bible studies.
