A worldwide health crisis is no match for the power of God. The mission of making his name known and building his church continues in Vietnam and Thailand.
God is using the pandemic to strengthen the ties of the global Alliance family. Twenty-three national Alliance churches are working together to help vulnerable communities affected by COVID-19 through long-term development projects. Twenty-one national Alliance churches are partnering in different missionary projects.
The Alliance in Latin America is building its missionary vision as it finds new ways to fulfill the Great Commission in urban areas and in cross-cultural projects. The emphasis of the Alliance Ministerial Update in Latin America in November 2020 will be missions.
Mission leaders of the Alliance national churches will meet in October to discern together God’s direction for our movement. Disciple-making, businessmen in missions, compassion ministry, and diaspora missions are some of the topics that will be discussed.
Losing a baby could be a powerful and understandable reason to give up a mission. Not for Nathan’s parents. The one-year-old son of Lagyi Sin Nang and Sarawut Sikrinpacdekun, a Burmese missionary couple in Thailand, died recently. He was seriously injured when an audio speaker fell on him during a worship service. Despite the deep sadness, his parents have decided to keep holding onto God and trusting Him, working among Burmese migrants in Bangkok.
Earlier this year, we witnessed the first steps of the Sudanese Alliance Fellowships in North Africa. They are translating the Word of God into the believers’ mother tongue, training new leaders and deacons, and much more. They continue to grow wonderfully despite this difficult time.
“Cecilia Albornoz: her convictions, words, joy and desire to reach the lost will be engraved in our hearts as a constant sound that will last forever.” These are the words of Pastor Jorge Barra, Director of the National Department of Missions (NDM) of Chile, when remembering Cecilia, who died on May 11, 2020 in the city of Temuco, Chile.
The meeting of the International Commission on Theological Education (ICTE) echoed the theme of the next AWF Quadrennial Convocation: the intersection between Deeper Life and Missions. The draft of the Guayaquil Declaration was concluded and the two winners of the AWF Theology Award were selected.
The miracle of salvation that happened when a missionary met a man on the road to Magar, Nepal.
The Alliance in Africa is willing to expand its missionary effort, especially targeting unreached people groups inside their countries, in North Africa and among the diaspora population. This is the conclusion of the discernment process that took place during the AWF Africa Missions Consultation in Cotonou, Benin, January 23-25.
Latin America takes strength and prepares for a great wave of missionaries, with focus on the Sixth Region and the unreached people groups. As Latinos we are ceasing to be a mission field to become a missionary force, where men and women dispose their lives, their resources and their professions to respond to the need to reach the unreached. With this emphasis and with the presence of 135 brothers and sisters from different Latin American countries, the Latin American Missionary Training Week was held in Colombia, from January 28 to February 2, 2020.