Guatemala Bound Again

This coming week I'll be making my fourth trip to Guatemala in the past two years. The main purpose of the trip will be to conduct the second of a total of 6 projected training sessions with pastors and leaders living in 4 western states near the border with Mexico. We'll be meeting as we did this past January at a hotel on the outskirts of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second largest city. There are a total of 6 of us going on this trip--3 pastors, 2 laymen, and myself. We'll be leading in a series of seminars on themes that this same group identified back in January as areas in which they see the need for additional training. Some of the topics we'll be focusing on include the pastor and his devotional life; stewardship of time, talents, and resources; youth ministry; and the pastor dealing with conflict in the family, the church, and the community. Unlike last time when just two of us went and I shared the teaching load and handled translation duties for our convention's executive director, this time the other guys will be doing all of the teaching and my role will be that of translating their presentations. I've translated the outlines of those already so they could be included in a notebook that each seminar participant will be receiving.

I'm also excited that a layman from our church is going because a further purpose of this trip is to explore the possibilities of some church-to-church partnerships among the BGCM churches and their counterparts in Guatemala. I'm glad that Paul is going with me for that reason to sit down with some of the pastors and explore together some ministries where our church might be able to offer some assistance. We'll be gone from July 16-20 and so my blogging might be slim or even non-existent next week. I appreciate the prayers of any who happen to stumble upon this post and would be willing to pray for our group's efforts.