Grays in Mexico

Current Prayer Requests:

• Pray for the "50/50" vision, that the Lord of the Harvest would send workers to his harvest field in Mexico and El Salvador (50 new pastors and 50 existing pastors to complete their training).
• Pray for the NINE new students in Puebla this fall: Laura, Luz, Llunay, Asael, Denise, Ada, Isai, Eliel and Ruth.  Also pray for returning students: Gabriel, Rosalia, Abigail, Abel, and Domingo. 
• Pray for Bob as he prepares the next intensive course in Puebla for Jan 5-9, Intro to the New Testament, and then a course on Acts & the Primitive Church in February. 
• Pray for Susie and the ladies (including our pastor in Puebla, Graciela Ramirez) as they prepare for the Iberoamerican Wesleyan Women's Congress to be held in Puebla, Mexico on Feb. 18-21.  Wesleyan Women from all over Latin America and the U.S. will be coming to participate, and Susie will be doing a lot of translating.

Bob meets with Noe Arabia and his wife, Kenny, church planters in El Salvador.

The trip to El Salvador Dec. 4-11 went exceptionally well.  We had a great retreat with the El Salvador pastors, our Area Director Jarvis Ferguson, our partner Shenandoah District Superintendent Greg Reynolds and his wife Becky, and our guest speaker Joel Quintero from Colombia,one of Bob's former students (pictured on right).  We also finalized plans to receive a missionary team from Colombia starting February 2010.  Pastor Joel oversees this program from Colombia called "Let's go over and help", based on the Macedonian Call.  We will be receiving a married couple and two singles who will be doing full-time evangelism and church planting under the direction of Pastor Rene Melendez in El Salvador and myself as regional director.  

Bob also met with Noe Arabia and his wife, Kenny, who are planting a church in Paraiso, a small town near the Honduran border to the north.  Noe and Kenny actually served as lay pastors in one of our early Wesleyan churches in El Salvador.  Because of moral problems with the senior pastor, the church and pastor left the Wesleyans, and Noe and Kenny went out on their own.  They have been in contact with us since planting their new church two years ago and are now seeking affilitation with us.  The process will likely be completed within the next six months.  We welcome them HOME! 

Update on IBWWW.ORG

During the meetings in Panama this October 2009, Bob met with fellow missionary Jim Eckhardt and Jose Quintero (Iberoamerican Director of Theological Education) to continue development of the online Bible School launched in January 2008. 

Bob has been working on site development and getting ready to upload new courses, as well as how to use the site as a teacher and as a distance learning option for Mexico. They also uploaded articles to the IBWWW's community web site, where teachers, students, and anyone interested in Theological Education can "meet" together to share resources and discussions about latest developments.  (Follow the links from IBWWW.org to the Community site, also available in English.)

Another exciting development from that meeting was exploring the possibilities and technical aspects of using video and/or audio streaming along with graphic presentations (such as PowerPoint).  These mini-lectures should become available soon online as parts of the offered courses.

Bob continues to work on his assignment to write two new mini-text books (or manuals) in Spanish for use in the online school and all over Latin America.  One will be a general course in Systematic Theology and the other will be a course on Wesleyan Theological Distinctives.  The Wesleyan Theology course is nearly finished, and Jim is getting it ready for online work even while Bob finishes up the text book.

Students from all over Latin America and beyond (the site is bilingual) are able to go online and take courses in ministerial training towards ordination requirements.  The format is similar to correspondence, but is much more interactive and rapid. 

This new education option will help greatly in our 50/50 vision to raise up 100 newly ordained pastors by the year 2012 in Mexico.  The online Bible School will become a "virtual extension" of the Mexico Bible School (and others) to help train pastors and potential students who cannot come and study in our resident campus program.

Nov. 13-16 Bob and the Puebla students travel to Xilitla and Coxcatlan for district Youth Conferences and Bible School promotion.

Nine youth respond to the call in Coxcatlan during youth conference. 

Nov. 18-19 Bob travels with Natl. Supt. Martin Torres to Sonora state for an area Pastors' Retreat, and to set up a District Center for ministerial training.

Dec. 2-4  Major Evangelistic Outreach event in San Salvador.

Dec. 4-11 Bob travels to El Salvador for a Pastors' Retreat with guest speaker from Colombia and U.S. partner districts of Indiana North and Shenandoah.

Dec. 20  Campus church outreach event in Puebla.

Jan. 4-8  Bob teaches N.T. Intro in the Puebla Bible School.

Feb. 18-21 Latin American Women's Conference in Puebla, Mexico.  Susie will be doing some translating.

Feb. 22-26 Bob teaches Acts/Primitive Church in the Puebla Bible School.