Saturday Post -- 07/02/15

Daniel, Yonatán and Craig enjoyed a Bible study over breakfast (for one
week only, lads!) as they began their discipleship sessions on Friday.

Last week, we signed off by asking for prayer for me (Craig) as I looked into launching some new initiatives which I feel could be of real help to the church here in Trinidad. Well, one of these began to take shape this week.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, my year at Cornhill Scotland, with its particular focus on expository preaching, was a tremendous help in preparing me for this new stage of our time in Bolivia. As the year progressed, I became increasingly convinced of the need to teach the Bible responsibly, holistically, and clearly. And as my thoughts turned ever more to Bolivia in the latter stages of last year, I knew all too well that Bible teachers here in the Beni region would benefit greatly from such insights.

A few factors here limit good Bible teaching. Firstly, there is very little high-quality in-service training and equipping available for Bible teachers. The Beni region of Bolivia is considered something of a backwater, and so there is not much here in the way of courses and conferences; the best people tend to focus on the cities. Secondly, some pastors do not have formal training of any description; indeed, it is remarkably easy here to start a new church (which can mean that congregations don't tend to persevere through difficult times). And thirdly, education here discourages critical engagement with information, meaning that people can pretty much say what they like. In my own ministry, for example, it is a rare day indeed when I receive any feedback, simply because people are conditioned to accepting that what the Bible teacher says is right -- no need for criticism there, whether good or bad.

As I thought about this state of affairs, I decided to at least look into possible approaches to addressing it. Last year, some friends of ours had passed on contact information for Langham Partnership workers in Bolivia. Langham began in the late 1960s in a move by founder John Stott to fund scholarships for young evangelical leaders in the developing world. In the decades since, it has developed into an international ministry, and one of the strands of its work is Langham Preaching, which seeks to equip Bible teachers in the developing world to better preach from God's word. Normally, the course is taught over three annual four-day conferences. In the year following each conference, the delegates are divided into smaller groups, who meet once a month, taking turns to preach to each other and receive constructive feedback on their efforts (not at all unlike Cornhill, in that sense).

Anticipating our return to Trinidad, I made some enquiries towards the end of 2014 about the possibility of starting such a programme here. It turned out, in fact, that Langham had run a course here some years ago. The annual conferences were a smash -- but few people made the effort to meet in their small groups during the year! Regardless, my contact from Langham (based in Cochabamba) said he would still be interested in starting a new course, and I expressed my own desire to help ensure that the small groups meet regularly as required, if such assistance was required on the ground.

Now that things have settled down for us here, and we are back into something of a routine, Elías (our pastor) and I drove around town this week to gauge what kind of interest there might be in having Langham again, particularly targeting those people who haven't done the course before, and Bible teachers who are in full-time non-church work. The response was fairly positive, though people still had a few queries that I wasn't really equipped to answer as a non-Langham representative. So my contact in Cochabamba has kindly offered to come through to Trinidad towards the end of this month to meet interested parties and look into a possible launch date. As you can imagine, I'm excited to see where this is going.

Things have definitely been getting busier, as I've also made renewed inroads into ministry among the younger generation. Late last year, the youth team asked a group of older teenagers with potential to come into ministry alongside them. One of the prerequisites for participation was that they sought out weekly discipleship opportunities. Three of them approached me over the last couple of weeks, and this week I sat down with them to begin these weekly sessions. Daniel has played guitar in the church music ministry with me for a few years now and comes from a Christian home. Yonatán's family are a little more 'mixed', with both evangelical and Mormon tendencies. While the third boy, Yordy, has no Christian influence at home whatsoever. Due to restrictions on their availability, I'm meeting Yordy on Wednesday afternoons and the other two on Friday mornings. We'll be working through  a Spanish translation of 'God's Big Picture' by Vaughan Roberts, to help them get a better grasp of the Bible's overall message -- so important now in their position -- and using the rest of the time at each session to pray together.

Amanda, too, has been approached by one of the team to the same end, a girl called Adriana; we've worked with Adriana for years and have seen an amazing transformation in her since our return. However, the old Trinidad-commitment-baggage (see the fifth paragraph) lingers and Amanda has twice arranged dates to meet with her, only for Adriana not to turn up. We really want to continue to encourage Adriana, while reminding her of her new responsibilities -- a difficult balancing act! Pray for wisdom there.

Otherwise, Amanda has continued this week to plough on with her new administrative responsibilities in the Foundation. The board had their monthly meeting on Friday, and simply by dint of her new HR role, she felt much more engaged and in touch with what is going on in the wider Foundation, than she had pre-furlough when her focus was Audiology. 

Later that same day, we had our first dinner guests since coming back, in Daniel & Romina, whom we'd mentioned last week. It was fascinating to learn more about life as a Christian in Cuba. He was telling us that he has only recently come to terms with the fact that his salvation is secure -- because the possibility of losing one's salvation is taught in most denominations in Cuba, including the Baptist church of which he was a member. Daniel was particularly complimentary about our Cuban musical selection for the evening (thanks Spotify!) and the steak we picked up from a local restaurant -- we also learned that meat is still prohibited for Cuban natives under the rationing system. And we thought we appreciated the steak here!

The house was also made available, as per usual, to the young women's Bible study, who met last Sunday. Encouragingly, this wasn't a case of waiting for Amanda to come back -- they'd simply continued to meet every two weeks, taking responsibility for chairing the studies themselves. We're enjoying becoming newly acquainted with our new house (which was only finished eight months before home assignment year), and particularly aware of what a great resource it is for ministry; we pray that the Lord will look upon us wise stewards of this small example of his goodness to us.

Prayer

• For Amanda as she seeks to disciple Adriana; and for Adriana herself, that she would re-dedicate herself to the vital task of being discipled.
• For Daniel, Yonatán and Yordy, and for Craig as he disciples them.
• We're hoping to begin looking into adoption this week. These will probably be some very tentative first steps -- it's a long process -- but please pray for Lord's blessing upon the whole process.

Praise

• For progress in establishing a Langham Preaching course here in Trinidad.
• For the opportunity to get to know Daniel & Romina a little better, and open up our house to a range of people throughout the week.

¡Que Dios les bendiga!

Craig & Amanda