Downline Ministry training in the D R

We are excited about our next adventure to the Dominican Republic. Eugene Chang and Bill Stephenson are leaving on Monday Aug 16 for one week. We will be making final preparations for the arrival of the team from Downline Ministries from Tennessee. The Downline team will be arriving on Wed Aug 18 and will begin a 2 1/2 day Discipleship training conference. We are so thankful for their willingness to give of their time and resources to bring this incredibly valuable training to the Haitian Pastors in the D R. Rosvelt Petit ( our "main man" on the ground in the D R ) has been working hard on translating the Downline Student Guide workbook into Creole. This is currently in the hands of the printers. I am super excited to be having Eugene join me on this trip. He is an absolute answer to prayer. He will be responsible for video taping the entire training sessions. The result of this will be that Downline Ministry will now have a workbook and training DVD's for future use in the Creole language for the Haitian people.

We are anticipating a large attendance for the upcoming training. Rosvelt has told us to expect well over 100 Haitians to be arriving. There will be about 30-40 Haitian Pastors , each bringing 3-5 of their key people. Some will be coming from Haiti, but most will be local Haitian Pastors on the North Shore, Puerto Plata/Sosua areas.

Please be in prayer for this conference and for those leading and all attending. Our prayer is that God will be glorified and that His name would be great among the nations as a result of the training conference next week. Once again....I am so thankful for the Downline team (see picture below ) that is coming to train our Haitian brothers.

http://www.downlineinternational.blogspot.com/

Update on Conference

Hard to believe that a month has passed since our last training Project. We had an amazing time with 35 of our Haitian brothers at the Back To The Cross conference in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. We had the privilege of hearing John Piper speak on 5 occasions. Many of the men have since reported back to us that they learned more at this conference than any they have ever attended. God was so faithful in providing all that was needed and above and beyond what we had expected. I want to thank all the helpers that traveled from far and wide to help make this a success. Larry, my friend from AIM, traveled from Calgary on the "red eye" and then another full day to arrive, Steve and Walt came from Virginia and helped out with driving the vans across the island. What a blessing it was to have these men helping in so many ways. A special thank you goes out to John McArthur's ministry for donating 40 of his French Study Bibles for the men. It was amazing to watch them dig into the word. These men live in extreme poverty and really have so little in their language as resources. The French Bible was as good as Creole to them. Also a big thank you to John Pipers ministry for donating the Creole book and the many French books. Each man was able to go home with a mini library. Thank you, Thank you.

Praise God for all that He is doing. This conference opened many doors for The Project. Many bridges were built and new relationships and friendships were formed. The men are all eagerly anticipating the next project of "The Project".

I look forward to be able to announce very shortly the next training project that we will be sponsoring. We continue to see the great need for providing resources and training for the Haitian Pastors. Please join with us in praying for Gods leading in all of the planning.

Over the next few days I will be giving short reviews on special things that happened on our last trip.

God continues to provide (are we surprised ?)

2 weeks to go. We are so thankful for the friends (and one Church so far) that have made donations to sponsor some of our Haitian brothers attending the conference in Santo Domingo. We have 35 men booked and ready to go. As of today we have sponsors for 17. We are almost 1/2 way there. God will, and always does, provide. All that we "need" will be there "when" it is needed.

This may be your opportunity to connect with, and have an impact on, one man in a foreign mission field. Please consider the privilege of providing support to train, encourage and equip a Haitian Pastor. $100 will provide all that is needed for the 3 day conference. This is so do-able for almost anyone living in the wealth of North America. Please pray about this !

God does provide. Our plans continue to be shaped by God. Our original plan was to rent 15 passenger vans to drive across the island. Yesterday I received an email from Jana of Crossroads D R Ministry. She has located a 45 passenger bus. We can get this bus cheaper than the vans and we now can all travel together. Thank you Jana for being so willing to help. Praise God for this provision.

God does provide. A Dominican Church, within a 5 minute walk of the conference center, has graciously offered to allow us to sleep on the floor of their Church. We also have a Haitian Church that will cook our meals. We will give back to the local Haitian community by purchasing the food from them and employing several of their women to prepare the meals. Haitians...Dominicans... and North Americans working hand in hand. Our prayer is that God is pleased with this.

God does provide. We are awaiting shipment of 40 study Bibles. John MacArthur has graciously donated 40 of his French Study Bibles. We are able to bless each man with a study Bible that would have only been a dream before. If you only knew how little these men have to work with. Thank you so much John MacArthur. Our "chance" meeting in the Louisville Kentucky Airport was part of a Sovereign plan.

God does provide. Thank you John Piper and the Desiring God Ministry. Our Haitian brothers will be blessed with french books and resources as well as copies of one Pastor John's books which has recently been translated into Creole. Thank you. Thank you.

We will keep you "posted" with updates on Gods provisions as the days go by. Thank you to the many friends that are praying for all involved in this conference.

Update on the conference.

We are now almost 3 weeks away from the conference. This is getting very exciting. The plans are coming together. There are 35 men registered . The 35 are made up of 16 Haitian Pastors from the Puerto Plata area on the north shore of the Dominican Republic. Each Pastor has chosen at least one man from their Church family to attend the conference with them. On my last trip to Santo Domingo, I had the privilege of meeting Pastor Wilfred, also a Haitian Pastor. I had recently shared with him that we were still in the process of securing a housing and feeding plan for the men during our conference time. We will be in Santo Domingo, on the south shore of the D R, for 3 days and nights. Pastor Wilfred has graciously offered for us to sleep at his Church. He is also arranging for some women from his congregation to prepare our meals. This is another example of the hospitality of the Haitian community. With these plans now in place we feel that we will be able to cover the cost of each man for only $100. This includes transportation across the island and back, housing, food and a 3 day conference. John MacArthurs ministry has also generously donated French Study Bibles for each man. We had been asking for $200 sponsorship per man but now you will be able to send 2 men to the conference for the same price. This is a great opportunity to invest in to kingdom work and be a part of encouraging our Haitian brothers. We are still looking for help with this support. One other need which is yet to be met is for a volunteer to join us on this trip to help drive one of the vans to the conference. Please prayerfully consider donating to help a Pastor get to this incredible conference, and why not join us and help drive the men and make some new friends at the same time. This will be a life changing trip for all involved !!

Liberty Baptist Church in Crewe, Virginia sponsors TWO Pastors!

A small fellowship of believers in Crewe VA has sponsored two pastors for the upcoming John Piper Conference in Santo Domingo. When presented with the opportunity, this small country church stepped up and has provided all the funding necessary for two pastors to receive return transportation, food, and lodging for the 3-day training conference that takes place June 3-5, 2010. We believe that this same $200 per pastor, will allow each pastor to also receive a French MacArthur Study Bible that is being provided by John MacArthur's ministry in California.

Thanks to Liberty Baptist Church in Crewe, VA for your gracious support. As the conference gets closer, we will connect Liberty with their two pastors by email. Through the blessing of Google Translator, a small Baptist church in Virginia will be able to connect and communicate with their Haitian brothers! In addition to their monetary support, we challenge each person or church to commit to praying for "their" Haitian brothers and the Haitian congregations in the Puerto Plata area of the Dominican Republic. Through these prayers we look for God to mighty things to reveal His glory, through the teaching and preaching of His shepherds.

Support a Haitian Pastor

It is now less than 2 months until we will bringing about 30 Haitian men to the John Piper conference in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. There will be at least 12 Haitian Pastors from the Puerto Plata area. Each Pastor will be selecting one man from his congregation. Several other men have heard about The Project and have requested to be included in any Bible training available so they have been invited to the conference as well. We are thrilled to be involved in this opportunity and would like to invite you to get involved as well. If you are unable to take the time to join us in The D R .....the next best thing would be to get behind one of our Haitian brothers by supporting them. My prayer is that we will find 30 Churches or individuals to support one man each. The total cost for this conference including transportation, housing, feeding and providing a small Pastors library of books in French will be $200. This is an incredible opportunity for you to be involved in making a difference in the life of these men. Please consider sponsoring one man and spreading the word about this important need to your friends and Churches. The main scripture behind The Project is Malachi 1:11. As we say it, " God's desire IS our purpose. That His name would be great among the Nations ". By sponsoring and prayerfully standing by one Haitian man and giving him the opportunity for training and encouragement, I believe that you will be fulfilling this purpose. Please pray about helping us to "Hold the Rope " for these dear brothers.

If you would like more information about sponsoring a pastor for the upcoming John Piper training conference June 3-5 in Santo Domingo DR, please click on the "Sponsor a Pastor" button on the top navigation bar

Prayer request for missing boy

Please join us in praying for 10 year old Elbi who has been missing for 10 days. We have known Elbi for about 6 years . We first met his mother and the 5 children on our very first family mission trip. His mother Jinette had aids and died after returning to Haiti hoping to find a cure. Her youngest son also died of aids and Jinetta, her youngest daughter was left in the care of an excellent orphange called Danita's Children in Haiti. My son Dave and I found Jinetta 2 years ago on one of our Haiti trips.

The Project has been supporting Elbi and his older brother Jason for about a year now. They live in a "shack" and barely are getting by. Elbi is a very "energetic" young boy and would be deserving of a nick name similiar to James and John in the New Testament, "Son of Thunder". We care deeply for Elbi and believe that God does even more. He has not been seen for 10 days. We are greatly concerned for his well being. We do take great comfort in the fact that "God Knows". Rosvelt is going to the hospitals and police stations to look for him. Yes, you would even look for a 10 year old boy in the police station in the Dominican Republic. He has previously spent a day in jail because of his "energetic nature".

Elbi is also the "student" mentioned in an earlier blog at Omar's "school". After being kicked out of the Dominican school for being to much trouble, The Project employed Omar to patiently teach Elbi to read and write. It was only a little more than 2 weeks ago that Debbie and I sat in the classroom with great joy as Elbi went up to the black board and showed off his math and reading skills. We were so proud of him and thankful for Omar's patient teaching skills.

So now I will ask again that you please pray for Elbi. God knows. It is a very dangerous world for a 10 year old orphan boy to be wandering in. I will keep the blog followers up to date with any word I get from Rosvelt.
Thank you for joining us in prayer.

John Piper Conference

As we move ahead with our plans to bring 30 (or more) Haitian Pastors to an amazing 3 day conference featuring John Piper, we would ask for your prayers. In the following days we will post a list of men who are hoping to attend this conference. This will be a life changing event for all involved. I am convinced that our Haitian brothers have never experienced anything quite like this before. We are working out the costs of travel, housing and meals for the 3 days. It is anticipated that it may be in the range of $200 per Pastor. Remember that these are men who are faithfully serving in extreme poverty and very difficult situations. Financially these men would never even consider such an event. John Piper and the Desiring God ministry has probably had more of an influence on me and my family than any other ministry I can think of (Young Life would be the other one). This is the reason that I will not be ashamed in the coming days to be asking you to support a Pastor. Churches and individuals are already expressing interest in teaming up for this project. Details will come shortly. Please pray.

Another project of...The Project

Beautiful orphan family. 5 brothers and sisters whose mother recently died and have never known their father. They sleep on a concrete floor on sheets. They will be added to the list of families to recieve food on our feeding program. We have ordered beds and have arranged for Rosvelt to oversee the care for these children in the near term. How could anyone just walk away ? The Project is not just a Missionary/Pastor training school. The Gospel is to be our "life". Not just a classroom of theory. We must learn to "walk as Jesus walked".

Project ....projects

Omar opening "the school" for the day.

"Teacher Omar" helps a young orphan boy learn to read and write after being kicked out of the Dominican school for being to much trouble.

School room consists of a chair for teacher Omar, a pail for student Elbi to sit on and a black board.

Bill and Rosvelt explaining The Project and the upcoming John Piper conference to a group of Haitian Pastors.

Some of the Haitian Pastors who will join us for the John Piper conference in Santo Domingo in early June. Each Pastor will choose one man from their congregation to also join the conference team.

Update from Dominican Republic

Returned home yesterday after another awesome week in the D R with my Haitian brothers. God always seems to have surprises for me on each trip and this was no different. I even experienced my first earthquake. Very freaky, but it has given me a greater appreciation of what it was like for the Haitians (on a smaller scale). The goal for this trip was to strengthen our relationship with the Haitian Pastors and explain more of the vision of The Project. I met 8 new Pastors in the Puerto Plata area and one in Santo Domingo. The men are very excited about the project. We have asked them all to be praying that God would help them to select one man each from their congregation to join them at the John Piper conference in June. We will be taking at least 30 Haitian men to this conference in early June. On Sunday, my wife Debbie and I, as well as Rosvelt and Pastor Joseph, travelled to the south side of the island to attend the International Baptist Church. This is probably the largest evangelical church on the island. They are hosting the conference and had invited us to come visit and explain more about The Project. We had a great time worshiping together and were taken to lunch by Filipe, head of missions for the Church. He also invited a Haitian Pastor, Wilfred, to join us. The Church is going to ensure that our Haitian brothers will have Creole translation available for the conference and are investigating ideas on housing and feeding our Haitian brothers. God is so awesome. His plans are above ours. Where else would you rather be. We do understand that the enemy will be hard at work to disrupt these plans. We are in a battle and must be earnestly praying. Please pray with us.

Missions or Dog Food?

I recently received the following information that I can't seem to understand, nor explain. I will let the statistic speak for itself. How will we explain this when we stand before our Saviour who commanded us to, "Go and make disciples of all nations...."

from John Rowell’s “To Give or Not to Give” (Authenic, 2006:101-102) that only 6% of evangelicals tithe and that only 5.4% of tithes go to missions. Of that 5.4%, most is spent on administrative accounts and only .02% of a $270 billion income for evangelical churches actually is used on the totally unreached (that is about 54 million dollars). Break this down to a $1,000 bill and that means 2 cents went to reach the unreached! Compare that with what was spent on pets in 2005 in the U.S - 35.9 billion was spent on pets in 2005. A decade ago it was just 17 Billion (TIME, Feb 4, 2008:18). Does it bother us that 60% more money spent on pets than on missions?

It might be time for the North American church to start trying to figure out how to explain this...

Some suggestions:

"Oh, I didn't hear you...I thought you said to "Go and make big fancy churches with high-paid staffs..."

"Oh, I thought you said..." Go and build successful careers so you can spend your money on nice houses, fancy vacations and the latest electronic toys..."

"Oh, I thought you meant that just the disciples were supposed to do this...that I was free to do exactly as I wanted with my life."

I think that unless things change quickly we are going to have some major explaining to do.

What is THE PROJECT?

Consider the cost of supporting a Haitian pastor and his family who will graduate from The Project training and plant a church in a needy location. In Haiti, a pastor and his family can live comfortably on about $2500.00 per YEAR.

Ideally, we desire to see a Haitian church plant be self-supporting in four or five years. The Project pastors will be challenged to be fully self-supporting within a five-year period. Since they will be connected with a local sending church in the DR and (we pray) a sister church in North America, they should have access to the necessary training and support to "hit the ground running."

Our Haitian brothers already know the language and the culture of their mission field and already have relationships with their countrymen? These men need only a couple simple tools to be equipped as ambassadors of Christ in their homeland or beyond: basic doctrinal training and a modest level of support to get them started. This is what The Project is all about.

For the same price as what it will cost to fully support a Haitian pastor and his family for a full year, you can buy:

One big screen TV
2 health club memberships
2 years worth of cable or satellite TV
1 Tim Horton's coffee and one donut per day for two years.
One week-long vacation for two

I think you can do the math....

"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also..." Matt.6:21

The Church in the Woods

In the days when The Project was being birthed, Providence brought Bill and Steve to a rocky path running up into the woods, just outside the village of Los Algodones. Thinking that this was the way to the "Church in the Woods" that they sought, the men walked a short distance and found the most unusual "church" they had ever seen.

Haitian believers sat on mats on the forest floor, while a pastor stood in the middle with an open Bible proclaiming the Word of God. The congregation numbered about 30 men, women and children. Since the service was in Creole, Bill and Steve must have appeared lost and confused. Thankfully, members of the family of God need not worry, as two young men stepped out of the group and became our interpreters for the morning service. The Church in the Woods meets every Friday rain or shine. They trek from the surrounding villages at 6:30 a.m. and spend the morning in fasting, prayer, praise and the study of God's Word. At noon, the service disbands and the members return to their daily lives. In that first meeting at the Church in the Woods, Bill's translator was Rosvelt Petit, a man who would soon come to play a key role in The Project. Rosvelt is a Haitian immigrant who is now married and the father of a baby girl. Rosvelt has become the brother "on the ground" who carries out the day-to-day responsibilities of The Project. He is a faithful brother in the Lord who inspires his North American brothers with a simple faith that simply says, "Just trust God."