We’re in California! Yesterday we flew out to San Francisco for our mission’s meeting. We’ll be here until Friday. Today we just rested and had a chance to hang out. We raced go-carts and played the Wii. We’ll post some pictures of this beautiful place when we get some.
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I just completed a report for YMI about our formal and informal youth ministry training programs that are taking place in Latin America. A part of that report was a quantitative analysis, so here is what we’re doing by the numbers:
Four out of Eight
Youth Ministry International exists to train local church workers globally. We are actively involved in five countries. One of the ways we train local church youth workers is through a seminary program called a “Center for Youth Ministry.” There are 8 Centers for Youth Ministry operating outside of the United States. Four of those are in Latin America.
Here are some numbers on the Centers for Youth Ministry:
Estimated students in Fall 2007 – 147
International Centers for Youth Ministry – 8
Graduates by May 2008 – 30
Students in Latin America – 49
It’s an exciting time for Youth Ministry International and the ministry that is taking place throughout the world. I’m happy to be a part of it.
By the numbers…
I just completed a report for YMI about our formal and informal youth ministry training programs that are taking place in Latin America. A part of that report was a quantitative analysis, so here is what we’re doing by the numbers:
- 2 – number of Colleges, institutes, or seminaries in which you or your trainees are currently teaching our youth course curriculum
- 16 – Students who have completed at least one year of formal training(four or more courses)
- 19 – Students currently enrolled in formal training (6 undergrad program, 13 Master’s Degree program)
- 30 – Students who have completed at least one formal training course
- 35 – Church youth directors that have completed at least a one day training seminar
- 65 – Churches served in Latin America since 2000 until present
- 150 – Church volunteers that have completed at least one multiple-day conference
- 1000 – Estimated number of students who are attending all the churches on a weekly basis which have received any training from YMI since 2000
Postponed
I just got a call from my boss telling me that the trip to Austria has been postponed this year due to illness in the family. We didn’t cancel it, but it has been postponed until further notice. So, the money we have in the account will be saved in a special account and will be used in the future for the summit. Please be praying for Randy and his wife as they go through a difficult time in the coming months.
YMI Austria Summit
Here’s another preview of one of the trips on the list of necessary trips: July 22-28: YMI International Trainers Summit
This trip will be a time for all the YMI trainers to get together and talk about the ministry. We will be staying in a castle in Salzburg, Austria, during this meeting time. This meeting is required for all YMI missionaries, as we will be discussing many important things, including strategy for training trainers,updates from the various fields, and future work. There will also be a very important time of personal renewal and evaluation, which I am personally looking forward to.
The whole family is planning on going, and we are trying to add in a little vacation since we’ll be visiting places we’ve never been before. It’s also our anniversary during that week, so it will be nice to be somewhere cool for that.
We are estimating that the cost of this trip is going to be around $3,000 for travel alone. YMI is covering the in-country expenses, so we need to raise enough money to travel to Austria during high season. If you would like to help support this trip, please email us.
Possible travel this year
So far, here are some tentative ministry travel opportunities this year (Click the date to read a preview of the trip):
- May 5-7: Leadership Workshop in Guadalajara with the National Baptist Youth Union
- June 2-17: Classes in Cuba
- June 19-30: Seminary classes in Columbia, SC
- July 22-29: International YMI Summit in Salzburg, Austria
- August 4-6: Latin American Youth Specialties Youth Workers Convention in Guatemala
- September 15-17: Leadership Workshop in Taumalipas with the National Baptist Youth Union
- September 26-28: Latin Summit in Quito, Ecuador
This is a huge list of opportunities, all of which are extremely important. I’ll explain each one of them and their importance later. The important thing is that you begin praying for these opportunities. We really need to be present at each one of them, but we are waiting on God to tell us which ones are going to no longer be tentative.
The real issues are finances and timing. If we are able to raise enough funds to pay for all of these trips, we will work our schedules around them. That is how important they are to the ministry here in Latin America. If you want to contribute to the trips, please contact me.
I have purposely left off a few other opportunities because I see these as necessary. The others would just be beneficial, but they are not necessary. There is such a need to network and recruit here. Please pray for us as we need wisdom to manage our time given the many opportunities that there are.
