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This summer we have been able to send 2 new candidates for the summer on extended vision trips. Because we are in so many churches in Latin America, we are constantly recruiting new candidates, but also finding men and woman that God has already been working in their lives. I would like to tell you about 2 young professionals from Mexico that we sent to different areas to work with Latin American partners.

From Guadalajara to the Middle East

M.G’s parents are Mexican Baptist missionaries in one of the least reached areas of Mexico. When at a Global Celebration of one of our Global Focus churches in Mexico, they found out that there was a family from Mexico serving in a particular country they immediately engaged me about their 25 yr. old son. M.G. is an electronic engineer, and has been praying for a specific country in the Middle East for over 10 yrs. but he never knew that there was a family from Mexico serving there. We were able to send M.G. to work with E.H. and his family in this country, he was able to learn some of the language, culture, and participate in the projects they are developing.

He was able to participate weekly in the house church that E.H. has started. He also helped to organize a youth camp for the local teens from the house church, this was the first youth camp organized for this teens from this particular people group! While he was there he was also able to meet other Latin American units we helped to send to that same area, from El Salvador, and Peru. M.G. just returned back to Mexico, we are working with him so that in the next year, to year and a half he can return full time to work with E.H. and his family.

From Mexico City to Serving Syrian Refugee’s

Another young professional from Mexico is Dr. N.M. from Mexico City, who we were able to help to send to another country to work with another one of our teams. This team is focused on Syrian refugee’s. Dr. N.M. was able to work this summer with our Argentine team there, and when they reported on how she was doing, they said; “It’s like we have known her for years, we do not want her to leave”.

She was able to treat several of the refugee woman, and use her medical profession as an outreach into the refugee community. She was also able to participate in what the team was already doing, in teaching of micro business, first aide, and discipling some of the ladies. We are working with  Dr. N.M. also to send her back to field full time, she is in her last year at Rio Grade Bible College, and when she finished she will be able to go long term.

Josue Villanueva is mentoring several churches in El Salvador, and they are making great progress. Grace of God Church in San Miguel, is not only involved locally in missions, but now they for the first time are involved globally. Last year Josue was able to take the pastor to Central Asia on an exploratory trip, and now they are actively praying and supporting financially missionaries in this same region. They have developed their Global Teams, and each one is very active serving in their different areas. Now they are being mentored on how to conduct their first Global Celebration later this year.

Josue also started the GF process with a new church start up. Christian Action Church in Santa Ana, is a new church, but they want to start with missions in the DNA from the very beginning.   Josue was able to teach the leaders the Global Focus seminar last week.

During my time in Peru, I have also been able to start our missional process in a new church in Lima; Ingenerias Bible Baptist Church. Last Saturday I spent 7 hours with 70 leaders from the church helping them go through our Global Focus seminar. As pastor Jorge Canales and I ate breakfast before the event he said; “Pastor Rafael, I want our church to do more than just financially support a few missionaries, and take a few short term trips, I want our church to make a greater impact on the nations and be more strategically involved in missions.” I wish you could have been with us as we taught the 70 leaders all day on Saturday felt the parable enthusiasm, and seen how engaged they all were during the entire seminar.

During last week in I was also able to continue mentoring Vida Nueva in La Molina, our host church for the training event. This is a church that is implement Global Focus into the life of the church. They are developing local missional projects and also establishing missions mobilizers (missional champions) for each one of their missionaries. They are integrating missions into each and every one of their ministries. God is using this church to make a huge financial impact in the nations.

I was also able to help Pablo Caruachin who is mentoring Pro Bible Baptist Church in another area of Lima. He has been mentoring this church for almost a year, and helped them develop their Purpose Statement, and align the church around the single mission for which the church was created.

The passion in this church, the young people, the pastor to make an impact on the nations was felt in the atmosphere of the church. Pablo Caruachin is doing a great job leading our efforts in Peru and is mentoring 30 churches in our process!

Responding to the overwhelming demand for Global Focus in Latin America, we have been having different training events to help prepare new Global Focus facilitators in Latin America. This past week we had our second such event in Lima, Peru at Vida Nueva Church in La Molina. We had 30 pastors and leaders from Peru, Chile, Venezuela, and Bolivia come together for 4 days of training to learn more about  our missional process, how it is helping pastors mobilize their own churches all over Latin America.

They were also able to see first hand how members from these churches are engaging in missions locally and how they are engaging in missions globally. Our training schedule was very intense, from 9:00 am until 10:00 pm every day. I had help from our Central American director Luis Marti, also from our Venezuelan  directo Yovanny Alvarez, and our Peruvian director, Pablo Caruachin. Also pastors Carlos Diaz from Venezuela, and Pastors Paul Vargas, Mauricio Tejada (the director of Pioneers in Peru) and Oscar Loyola from Peru where able to help with the teaching load. 

But most importantly each pastor gave personal testimony about how Global Focus had impacted the life of their own church, and how it had helped them to mobilize their own people and engage them locally and send them to the nations.

Many of the pastors were overwhelmed as they heard these testimonies of how pastors of churches just like theirs are making such an impact in the Kingdom of God. Each one of the pastors left very challenged, but at the same time very hopeful that they too can mobilize their church to become a missions force for the Kingdom of God.

Pablo Carhuachin is mentoring 30 churches in Peru in our Global Focus missional process. He has begun with a group of independent baptist churches in the northern part of the country. He  has grouped them together and is mentoring all their leaders tougher. He is teaching them the exact same lessons  and principals that are mobilizing hundreds of churches in Latin America, and they leaders are very excited about their churches personally participating in missions. Next week I will lead another intensive week of training for new facilitators, our ministry in Peru has grown that we need to develop new facilitators. We have 30 coming from different parts of Peru, also from Bolivia and Chile. Remember our equation: More mobilization = More missionaries.

God has blessed Colombia and the Gospel has grown exponentially in this South American country that was once known for other reasons, but is know known for the large evangelical churches throughout. David Cardenas, who is the president of of COMIBAM ( a large missional network in Latin America) attended the Global Celebration last year in El Salvador at Miramonte, and saw how Global Focus had mobilized their entire church, not just a group within the church. Because of that, he invited me to begin the same process in his church and other churches in Colombia.

So this past week I was able to start the Global Focus process Vida in Accion Church (Life Action Church). Saturday I taught nearly 100 of their top leaders and took them through our initial seminar (which takes 6 hours), then on Sunday I was able to preach in both Sunday AM services, in which their where nearly 4,000 in attendance. God greatly challenged the leaders, and blessed in the services in which several came to faith in Christ, and hundreds decided to “be and plant the seed of the Gospel to the nations”. From there I went to Zipaquira, Colombia, where I was able to begin our missional process with another church of the same denomination, and 4 other area churches, and teach their 100 leaders all day on Monday. We are very excited to see what God is doing and will do in these new churches.

Also in Colombia, we have been able to mentor several churches of the Pan-American Mission. This past week I was able to continue with our process with the Centro de Fe y Esperanza of Bogota, mentoring about 50 leaders of the church. We helped them to develop local and global missional projects; one of the global projects is to send a doctor to serve with Syrian refugee’s this fall, which will be their first cross cultural project in the history of the church.

Coca Cola was founded 170 years ago and is accessible to 97% of the world’s population. The reason that this secular company has been so successful is because they never lost their focus as to what the objective was; a product easily accesible to the entire world. Jesus Christ commissioned the church to what  it’s objective was and is, to make the Gospel; the Kingdom of God, accesible to every nation, every ethnic group on the earth. But many times, our biggest success has also been our main obstacle; many churches have lost their focus as to our main objective. The purpose of the church of Jesus Christ is to much more about making disciples of every nation (people group), and not nearly as much about our elaborate programs, or buildings, but the nations.

Our Global Focus missional process challenges a lot of the church philosophy of today, and helps to return churches back to the basics, the reason the church was founded; His Mission; His Kingdom. Because of these paradigm shifts in chuches in Latin America, they are not longer seeing themselves as the mission field that need wealthier churches in the U.S. to come and build their building and hold their VBS. These same churches are now not only engaging their people people in hundreds of missional projects locally, but they are sacrificially sending their own church members to the nations to extend the Kingdom of God unto the unreached. Partnership with the churches no longer looks the same, it’s no longer about their buildings, or their local churches, but it is more about the mission, and the unreached. Read the rest of this report and see the correlation between intentional local church mobilization and the sending of new families to the mission field.

The Central American Mission was one of the first Evangelical denominations in El Salvador. The Central Church is the mother church to most of the Central American denomination churches in El Salvador, and is over 120 years old. Last year, the pastor and 4 of the elders where able to participate in our Global Focus intensive at Miramonte at their Global Celebration. They have decided that they want their church to become a Globally Focused church, and pastor Luis Marti has started to mentor them. This past week he met with over 120 leaders and taught them the Global Focus initial seminar. They feel that Global Focus is going to breath new life into this historical church. 

We are also mentoring the Church of God denomination in El Salvador. This is a denomination of thousands of churches. Our Global Focus team (Luis Marti; Josue Villanueva, and Fransisco Caceres) have been going through the modules with about 40 different missions leaders of their denomination. They started the process last year, and continue to mobilize this denomination for global missions. We are very excited about all the advancements Global Focus is making in El Salvador, and in Central America.

God is building a team in Latin America to help mobilize even more churches and thus missionaries to the field. We have been very intentional about new facilitator training this year. We believe that if we can mobilize more churches, we can send more missionaries! This past week I finished up teaching and preaching the Missions Conference at SETECA Seminary in Guatemala. I was not only able to teach and preach nearly 5 times daily  in and in the evenings mentor the Amigos denomination, but also meet with the Guatemalan Baptist Convention and talk about beginning the Global Focus Missional Process with them later in Aug.

We are very excited about this new partnership, as they have already several missionary candidates they would like for us to help send.  Luis Marti was able to join me on Friday and Saturday of the conference, and teach, and share his own experience with Global Focus. Luis is becoming a louder voice in our missional movement in Latin America!

On Saturday after teaching all morning until almost noon, I flew back to Atlanta, and then on to Dallas, TX. I was able to preach the Mission Sunday at Lavon Drive Baptist Church in Garland. This church has a great legacy with    their founding pastor, Dr. Gary Coleman, and has passed that legacy on to new and visionary leadership to to Robby Green. I was able to teach and preach 3 times last Sunday, and challenge the church more in the direction of what a missional church really is. Their desire is to reach all the nations that God is sovereignly brining into the DFW metroplex area and also the nations on the other side of the world. 

I was able to spend about 2 of the evenings here in Guatemala mentoring the Amigos churches I have been mentoring. We are helping them develop their first every Global Celebration. We are teaching them how to engage their own lay people to develop, organize, and lead their Global Celebration. They have developed several very innovative local missional projects, and will also be bringing in missionaries from the unreached. Please pray as these pastors continue to impact, not only their local churches, but their entire denomination here in Guatemala.