Dear Friends,

Earlier this year we marked our twenty-fifth year as missionaries in Latin America. In the countries where we spent the most time, Guatemala and Brazil, we saw such tremendous growth in the Gospel that now these two nations have the highest percentage of believers in the Latin world. I’d like to think that’s because of our ministry, and of course we did play a small part, but thousands of missionaries and church workers worked in both countries for a hundred years without seeing much fruit before this recent extraordinary explosion.

It’s very humbling to know that many wept as they sowed and waited and saw no apparent growth, and that suddenly we of Verbo Ministries arrived and found ourselves in the midst of a rich harvest. I’d like to be content with the work we’ve done, but I just visited Africa and was overwhelmed both by the needs and the potential.
Angola, for example, is emerging from 25 years of civil war.

The national infrastructure is in ruins. The military and police presence is intimidating. Medical and educational help is almost nonexistent outside the major urban centers. But there was an openness to Jesus that was nothing short of spectacular. But if we Christians don’t get there first with the Gospel, the Muslims will work overtime to establish Islam.

In North Africa, which seems to be impervious to Christianity and where preaching and/or being converted are capital crimes, we found there are missionaries quietly sharing their faith through good works, mainly as teachers and medical personnel. We are determined to set up a Muslim World Training Ministry in Ceuta, a small Spanish enclave surrounded by Moroccan territory. And when the time is ripe, which I hope will be soon, we’d like to help set up a school for ministers in Luanda, the capital of Angola.

Meanwhile, we continue to foster new outreaches in Latin America. It took over twenty years from the time God first spoke to us about starting a mission in Puerto Barrios on the Guatemalan Caribbean coast until this October when we sent a couple to start a church. Other outreaches in the Guatemalan interior will follow in the coming year.

However, the bulk of our ministry is working with the main leadership of the Guatemalan Verbo churches. We do make trips on a regular basis to speak or to help ministers in other nations work through problems or establish direction for their flocks.

Lynn is involved with Nueva Mujer (New Woman), a homegrown Verbo Guatemala cell group movement that has helped form Christian values and leadership skills in thousands of Central American women.

She started by helping out with crafts projects, but her creative talents and leadership skills soon opened a place for her on the Nueva Mujer national leadership council. I joke with her that JT and I are project orphans, but really I’m just jealous that a women’s ministry reaching more than three thousand women is bigger than any other Verbo outreach or church! She also gets involved in conferences and events, and once again, her ability to get things organized in pleasing ways keeps opening more space for her to bless others.

Though we live far from our children (except for JT who lives with us), we’re blessed by the fact that all of them have good jobs and are able to visit us on a regular basis. All of them and their spouses visited us this year, and we even managed to get in a short side trip to go surfing in El Salvador. As a former pastor of Brazilian “Surfers for Christ,” I try to keep in good enough shape to maintain my old calling, should it be required—if not in this world, then by the Crystal Sea in the new world to come(?).

As always, our house is open for you to visit Guatemala and see what God is doing in these parts. All the stories about poverty and violence are true, unfortunately, but visitors generally have very few problems if they are well armed and trained in martial arts and have body guards (just kidding). Really, come for a visit. If not, write.