Thursday, January 08, 2009

Back in Guatemala City

We arrived safely back in Guatemala City and I´m once again typing an update from a computer in the seminary library here. We had another outstanding leadership training conference with the Guatemalan pastors and leaders. There are such a wonderful bunch of folks to work with and they are always so appreciative and affirming in their comments regarding the ongoing work we´ve been doing in the western region of the country. The crowd was the biggest we´ve had yet. I don´t have the exact number yet but should find that out tomorrow when we meet for breakfast with Carol, our partnership liaison here.

After we wrapped up the final teaching session yesterday morning and did our normal concluding time of giving a set of books to each participant, we shared lunch together before folks headed back to their hometowns. Some travel for several hours to get to Quetzaltenango for the training. I asked a couple of the pastors who lived close by (including the pastor of the FBC of Quetzaltenango and one of the pastors of the churches that a team from our church worked with last February) to stay for just a few minutes in order to interview them about their overall impressions and response to the training. Jennifer Harris of Word & Way recorded the interviews and we hope to use them at the BGCM´s annual missions banquet to encourage our churches to continue to support this valuable ministry. Their comments were very gracious and each mentioned how the concepts and principles that they have learned over the past 2 1/2 years in these sessions have been very helpful to them as pastors in their congregations.

Tonight we´re going to have dinner at the house of the executive director of the convention here. He´s invited us over to watch the national championship game between OU & Florida. Since I didn´t get to watch my Longhorns beat OSU on Monday night, I´m looking forward to this game. I hope that OU wins as a representative of the Big 12 and also so the Horns can have the distinction of being the only team to have defeated the national champ.

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