Students, Secrets and Teams
A torrent of activity with so much more to come!
September was such a crazy month. I can't believe it is already over. God has been so good to us! We had the privilege of hosting teams from the World Race for three weeks, which proved to be a great help to us as we had our very first week of the Discipleship Training School in the Comarca (indian reservation). We had seven students arrive in Tugri from all kinds of different backgrounds.
Here are a couple of testimonies from the students:
Mercides Testimony:
Mercides grew up around Christian family and friends, however, her father was not a Christian. She, as a young girl would often go to church with her friends, but as a result her father would abuse her in an attempt to dissuade her from going. At first she decided she would stand firm in her decision to go to church, but as she got older she fell in with the wrong crowd and the combination of friends of bad influence and pressure from her father, she fell away from The Lord for a few years. It wasn't until Rafael came to Tugri and his influence he had in the area that brought her back to church. Since then she has decided that she wants to be involved in ministry, specifically in singing. She is doing the DTS because she wants to stay strong in her walk with the Lord.
Girl from Boquete (Haven't got her name yet)
Here are a couple of testimonies from the students:
Mercides Testimony:
Mercides grew up around Christian family and friends, however, her father was not a Christian. She, as a young girl would often go to church with her friends, but as a result her father would abuse her in an attempt to dissuade her from going. At first she decided she would stand firm in her decision to go to church, but as she got older she fell in with the wrong crowd and the combination of friends of bad influence and pressure from her father, she fell away from The Lord for a few years. It wasn't until Rafael came to Tugri and his influence he had in the area that brought her back to church. Since then she has decided that she wants to be involved in ministry, specifically in singing. She is doing the DTS because she wants to stay strong in her walk with the Lord.
Girl from Boquete (Haven't got her name yet)
She was born in Boquete and spent a large part of her life there involved in the church. She was part of a group of traveling ministers who would go to different villages and towns and run different church services and campaigns. She really enjoyed this ministry, and wanted to continue in it, however division entered her group of ministers and they began to fight and argue. She did not like this and thought it was wrong.
As this continued she decided to leave her group, and her church as well because she saw that there was fighting there as well. She fell away from The Lord for three years until she tired of the life she was living. She wanted to return to church but didn't want to have to be around the fighting that goes on there. As she thought about this, she thought the following, "I need to decide whether or not I am going to follow God or not. If I decide to follow Him, I am going to do it no matter what anyone else does, whether there is fighting or not."
The result was her rededicating her life to Christ. She has been faithful since then, and when Rafael arrived she decided she wanted to do the DTS because she wants to be involved in ministry again, particularly in singing.
Each of the testimonies we heard we amazing stories of redemption. God calling people back after some issue pulled them away as we see in these stories. In truth, they aren't much different from what we see in the States and other developed nations.
I will be going back to Tugri on October 7th for another five days to teach on How to Study the Bible in the DTS. Karmy will be going with the kids to help run our King's Kids program there.
Each of the testimonies we heard we amazing stories of redemption. God calling people back after some issue pulled them away as we see in these stories. In truth, they aren't much different from what we see in the States and other developed nations.
I will be going back to Tugri on October 7th for another five days to teach on How to Study the Bible in the DTS. Karmy will be going with the kids to help run our King's Kids program there.
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| Esther and Elias showing off their crafts from the Kings Kids Camp in Tugri. |
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| Karmy with two ngobe girls from the Kings Kids Camp. The light bulb crafts represent when God created light! |
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| The Ngobe staff and DTS students of YWAM Tugri. |
As I mentioned before, we were able to host four different World Race teams over this month. It was great having them here. They went through a lot of God infused experiences with us; everything from the week in Tugri to Bible distribution in our area, working at the boy's home and much more. We have a team from Kona, Hawaii coming to work with us for two weeks during the month of October.
First of all, this month I will be teaching for a week in our Tugri DTS on Bible Study Methods, after that I will be going to Nicaragua for several days for a leadership conference in which I will be meeting with the Central American Frontier Missions council about an opportunity I will be bringing up shortly! After that, I return to the base here in Chiriqui and teach another week on Bible Study Methods to the classic DTS running on our base.
As you can see, things are quite busy right now! That is not including an upcoming trip to teach in Costa Rica in December for a week, and an invitation to teach in Africa at a conference which unfortunately I will be unable to attend. However, this brings me to this upcoming opportunity I would like to share with you all.
Secrets
For those of you who know me I have for many years taught on, and been a part of frontier missions. Frontier missions is the most neglected part of missions in the world. It is the mission field where nobody has gone, or less than 2% of the population has been reached, and there are often severe amounts of persecution taking place.
I spent two years in Turkey where there was some persecution, but I feel like God is calling me to become more involved in the persecuted church and frontier missions globally. On top of that, YWAM Central America is currently in a push to unite in a similar effort. As part of the frontier missions council, I have a great opportunity to actually pioneer in this direction. In order to move this region into unreached nations and people groups, we need to get some boots on the ground and start making connections there. Once we have made those connections, we can come together and actually have a long lasting impact on these nations.
For example, there is a group of missionaries in an undisclosed part of the world that currently feed up to 30,000 people a day in a closed nation. Other groups are sending Bibles and other materials in order to help. There are parts of the world right now where the church is growing so fast, they are struggling to train pastors and leaders simply because there aren't enough to disciple so many new believers. We can help with that!
So to start, this coming March I am planning an exploratory trip for three weeks to a closed nation where there is persecution currently taking place. Because of that, I can't openly name this place in this public newsletter. I can talk about it over email however if anyone would like to write me.
I will go for three weeks with the intent to make contacts, and begin this process of making a network of opportunities for those of us here in Central America, as well as our supporters, to have an impact in places that only 1% of all missionaries and church funds ever reach. From there I hope to continue these trips and strengthening our ministry in these places, and that it will grow into other nations as this develops.
This first trip is going to cost about $3,000, about $2,000 of that is the plane ticket itself. I would like to ask that you prayerfully consider participating in helping us to raise funds for this. $3,000 is a very small seed to sow when considering the impact this could have. This is not a simple mission trip, it is serious and risky. It will touch people who have never heard the name of Jesus, and will help believers who are being beaten, tortured, and killed for the faith. It is going to grow from there, and long term partners are a must for this to be successful.
I spent two years in Turkey where there was some persecution, but I feel like God is calling me to become more involved in the persecuted church and frontier missions globally. On top of that, YWAM Central America is currently in a push to unite in a similar effort. As part of the frontier missions council, I have a great opportunity to actually pioneer in this direction. In order to move this region into unreached nations and people groups, we need to get some boots on the ground and start making connections there. Once we have made those connections, we can come together and actually have a long lasting impact on these nations.
For example, there is a group of missionaries in an undisclosed part of the world that currently feed up to 30,000 people a day in a closed nation. Other groups are sending Bibles and other materials in order to help. There are parts of the world right now where the church is growing so fast, they are struggling to train pastors and leaders simply because there aren't enough to disciple so many new believers. We can help with that!
So to start, this coming March I am planning an exploratory trip for three weeks to a closed nation where there is persecution currently taking place. Because of that, I can't openly name this place in this public newsletter. I can talk about it over email however if anyone would like to write me.
I will go for three weeks with the intent to make contacts, and begin this process of making a network of opportunities for those of us here in Central America, as well as our supporters, to have an impact in places that only 1% of all missionaries and church funds ever reach. From there I hope to continue these trips and strengthening our ministry in these places, and that it will grow into other nations as this develops.
This first trip is going to cost about $3,000, about $2,000 of that is the plane ticket itself. I would like to ask that you prayerfully consider participating in helping us to raise funds for this. $3,000 is a very small seed to sow when considering the impact this could have. This is not a simple mission trip, it is serious and risky. It will touch people who have never heard the name of Jesus, and will help believers who are being beaten, tortured, and killed for the faith. It is going to grow from there, and long term partners are a must for this to be successful.
That's all for this month's newsletter. Thank you all so much for your support in prayer and financially as well. You will probably never know the extent of what it accomplishes for the Kingdom of God!
I also have a YouTube channel with a lot of videos.
https://www.youtube.com/user/
And of course I have a Facebook account with a lot of photos you can check out as well.
If you would like to support our ministry, or the trip to this unreached nation the best way to do so is through Mission Enablers International:
You can either donate online through the following link:
https://www.meigiving.com/mei.
Simply fill out the short form, and when asking for the account number, write 9052. Donations through Mission Enablers are tax deductible and you will receive a receipt for them.
If you would rather donate by check, you can also do it through MEI at the following address, just add a note saying the donation is for the account number above.
MEI
P.O. Box 1311
Fayetteville, AR 72702
If you do are donated toward the unreached nation trip, please let me know so I can be sure to designate those funds toward that.
If you have any questions, please feel free to write me either through Facebook or email me at: alan.crookham@gmail.com
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