Leadership Development Conference in Tanzania

FBCE Singles Minister, John Harris and I joined a team from North America and traveled to Tanzania in October to conduct five leadership development conferences (LDC) in partnership with e3 Partners. These conferences were conducted in five cities throughout Tanzania. Attendees of the conferences were pastors and lay leaders of local congregations who desire to plant churches in their area. The two-day conferences concentrated on teaching the leaders to use the Evangecube to share the Gospel in their community. At the end of each conference the newly-trained leaders would go out into the community and share the Gospel using the Evangecube. A total of 680 people made professions of faith in the five areas. Not only were the leaders grateful to God for what He did in Tanzania, but also they caught the vision of Matthew 28 "to go and make disciples..." after such a encouraging number of believers were added to the kingdom. Their mission now is to go back to their respective churches to train their teams to coordinate with First Baptist Euless teams in church planting campaigns in the Summer of 2008.



My first conference stop was Shinyanga. I visited Shinyanga in April of 2007 on an e3 church planting campaign so this was a return trip for me. We stayed in the same hotel on this trip. The employees remembered us and came out to welcome us with embraces. During our first trip we had made friends with a local carpenter. In the picture above I am standing in front of his shop. The shirt that I am wearing was custom made for me in one day by a local tailor.



On Sunday morning in Shinyanga, Israel and Rachel were the worship leaders at a service where I preached. Their style of worship was lively and antiphonal. A performance style in which an ensemble is divided into two groups, performing alternately.



Below the leaders are working together in small group, coming up with a strategy for evangelizing their area. They are also practicing with the Evangecube. There were 20-30 leaders at each conference. I lead this group in Bariadi. They are a very open and warm village.



From Bariadi we went to a mountain where divination of every kind was practiced many years ago. One of the pastors, Marco, has started a church in that village. He is building on these former high places for the Lord Jesus now. We had a prayer meeting on the place where the actual church building will go. Marco and his congregation have been praying for a "man of peace" who God can use to open the community to receiving the Gospel. Emmanuel, a man of influence in the village, came forward and accepted Jesus as his Savior. He expressed a desire to help Marco spread the Good News to the village. God is always working and it is always wonderful when we get to see Him work.



Downtown Bariadi doesn't have paved streets or sidewalks. It doesn't have stop signs or street lights. But it does have people that are hungry to learn about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. FBCE will be going to Tanzania twice in 2008. On this trip six people came to lead the churches to witness for Christ and 680 people were saved. Imagine if we had 60 people go to Tanzania. Think of what God could do! Think of what God could do through you!

FBCE Trip to Ecuador

My dear wife and I went on a mission trip to Ecuador in July. We were part of a team from First Baptist Church Euless. We went to our international missionaries annual conference and did a VBS for the kids. We went down there a day early so we could get acclimated. Quito is about 9500 feet above sea level so the air is thinner! This is the view from our hotel. It was beautiful. This was taken in the morning from the top floor of Hotel Quito.

The Annual General Meeting consisted of 150 missionaries from Venezuela, Columbia and Ecuador. Our job was to teach the missionaries' kids while they were meeting, planning and experiencing corporate worship. The worship was lead by Dr. Al Meredith and a team from Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth.

There were eight members of FBCE on our team. We had children from ages 1 1/2 to 12 years old. The children in my class were five and six year olds. Three accepted Christ as their Savior. The theme of our VBS curriculum was a sports theme which really worked nicely in South America. They are very sports-minded and especially partial to soccer. The picture below was taken in the lobby of our hotel.


On several afternoons we were able to go sightseeing with the missionaries. We chose to go to Mitad del Mundo. This is a monument on the Equator. Lat/Long 0 degrees. The monument is actually a museum that showcases the many different people of Ecuador.



The traffic is wild here. Taxis are reasonable and everywhere it seems. Don't try to find one at rush hour though. The drivers are very nice, in fact, the people are very nice and have wonderful manners.


These are the wonderful kids we got to teach at our VBS. The kids were all really sweet and had a really great bond between them all like a close family. We were nervous the first day of how things would go and by the last day we were disappointed we had to leave them.


If you have a chance to go on a mission trip that you feel like God has called you to go on - DO IT! It is hard to leave your family for even a week but it will be worth it to be part of reaching the world.