Pastors Conferences in Chiapas and Guatemala

Pastor Marco teaching exegesis with iPad and projector

THE JUMP TO LIGHT-SPEED (or at least the 21st century)

Adapting to new technology

One of the added benefits of being able to live here full-time is the opportunity I have to mentor people. Of course, I have my mentors as well, both in the US and here in Mexico, as I seek input to clarify and correct our work here. This picture here of Marco teaching using an tablet and LCD projector represents a significant milestone in my work here equipping pastors.  For the last 8 years, we have

A registration table!

used overhead projectors and transparencies to help pastors take notes during our teaching, and to graphically illustrate concepts in our teaching. The plus side of an overhead projector is it's simplicity, but with most of our teaching arenas being outside, the visibility of the transparencies were usually very poor. One of my goals this year was to train our team to use tablets connected to projectors to annotate digitally while teaching. As you can see from the pictures, the image is very clear which is really important when the pastors you are teaching are partially illiterate. What I had planned to be a slow roll-out of technology turned into an instant transformation when the overhead projector we were attempting to use was too dim to be readable. During the first lesson, we quickly set up the tablet and projector, which we already used for worship slides, and after a crash course in annotating a PDF on a tablet, we were off and running.  Amazing.

BLESSING AND BEING BLESSED

Despite the fact that we are constantly invited to teach conferences throughout Mexico, we always question our motives: 1) Whether we are reaching out to the right people?, and 2) What kind of longer impact on their on communities will training pastors to more effectively teach and understand the Bible have? These are questions we wrestle with as a team, and so we evaluate each conference based on the responses of the pastors and churches where we are conducting each conference. Previous conferences in Chiapas (southern Mexico) were well-received, and culturally the pastors in Chiapas are some of the most studious pastors I have ever met. There are also other indicators, which both stand out as evidence of sincere need and genuine thankfulness, in the thorough attention to detail that churches put forth in their preparations to host conferences. We request very few items outside of a sound system for music and teaching. The churches provide the food, coffee, and in this case (see picture above) 3 people who set up to register pastors as they arrived for the conference. Being that this used to be my principle task, to register pastors and create name tags, I was both very impressed and relieved at the same time! An even more humbling event at both conferences was a formal presentation of gifts to us from each group of pastors. These were distinct groups, and yet each group expressed their appreciation to us by presenting us with these small gifts, which we understand to be indicators of the value these conferences have for these pastors.

Public transportation

DIFFERENCES

to feed his younger brothers

A boy of 16 earning money on the street by blowing gasoline on his flame

As we intentionally seek out areas of need in Latin America, we are constantly reminded that we are further and further away from the comforts of home, even comforts my Mexican leaders are accustomed to. As we were eating breakfast our first morning in Guatemala, one of our leaders remarked at how terrible the food was. "That's why we're here," said another leader. Indeed. I neglected to snap a picture of the ubiquitous armed guards that stood in front of almost any shop or restaurant, from a fried chicken fast-food (read KFC-ish) to a small cell phone shop, all of them had at least one guard with a shot-gun and bandolier of shells around his chest. It's a disconcerting thought to see  where the balance between peace and violence rests in the hands of an armed guard who makes less than $5/day. Just crossing into Guatemala makes Mexico seem like the US in comparison. The sense of desperation and hopelessness on the faces of the people, and the way in which everything from toothpaste

Traveling to the conference in Guatemala. No kidding its safer this way!

to medicine to computers costs so much more for people who make so much less.

End of the conference in Guatemala.

MENTORING FOR CHANGE

There has been some movement in the last few years towards using technology to teach pastors remotely in developing countries. While there are great benefits in getting tools and resources into the hands of pastors quickly, as a team, we feel called to mentor and disciple great leaders. As in a business, you wouldn't hand a book to an employee and expect them to become a model employee, you have to walk them through the material and verify that not only do they comprehend it, but that they could teach someone else the same material. We're doing that, and trying to take it a step further. As we have conducted over 20 conferences and trained over 900 pastors in Mexico and Guatemala, we have accumulated a short-list of pastors, who have displayed the ability to mentor other pastors. We are working with them to encourage, coach and mentor them so that they can transform their communities.