Gary shares what they were up to in the Dominican Republic

In early May, Diane and I participated in the Latin American National Coordinators Conference held in Pico Escondido, Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic.  The conference, which was held at a Young Life camp in the mountains in the Dominican Republic was attended by people involved in the church leadership from seven different nations. Some of these leaders have responsibilities and influence in the churches of an additional five or six nations.  So as you can see, we had a pretty broad representation of people from South America, Central America, North America and the Caribbean.

In addition to encouragement and  reinforcement of the basics of the Train and Multiply program we were discussing how to overcome what appears to be a "barrier" to expansion into the third generation of church group expansion.  

Our model, when it is properly implemented should and does lead from an initial church group establishment (First Generation) into those people in that church establishing several satellite groups which develop into churches in their own right (Second Generation) who in turn help train and develop several other satellite groups that organize a cell or house church group (Third Generation.)  And the process goes on.  In some of these countries, there are Seventh and Eighth Generation groups gathering and worshiping together every Sunday.  Many of these house or cell church groups are small consisting of only two or three families or perhaps only 8-10 people, but others have grown to the point where their attendance on a given Sunday might be 80-100 people or more.  This is why the program is called Train and Multiply and why you can develop many churches and many believers in a short time. 

In some locations, each established group that becomes a church is given the expectation that they will develop at least two new groups within a short period of time in order to keep growing and multiplying.  That obligation does not stop with the development of one or two groups, but is part of their commission, i.e. to "Go forth making disciples......"  Matthew 28:19.

The work and the results emanating from these Latin American nations is so very encouraging.  Colombian leaders have developed materials separately and independently of OMS and they are printing out this material for their use and are offering it to be shared with the other Spanish speaking nations.  The material is first class and was enthusiastically embraced by the others at the meeting.

Hearing the first hand stories of successes in such places as Haiti where they are constantly working against Voodoo and other dark forces and the miraculous things that have occurred to bring the light even into those dark areas is just amazing.

Along with everyone else at the seminar, we felt recharged, motivated and determined to keeping the process expanding and multiplying.  We are looking forward to our next visit to Honduras to see what God's work is achieving there in the areas of the prisons of that nation.