Continuing the Movement in Haiti

Julio was part of the Houston team off and on the past 4 years, and he lived with Jacob for most of that time. But last year God really laid a burden on his heart to launch a movement of disciples making disciples in his own country, Haiti. So back in August he moved back home, and a couple team members helped him to lead a discipleship training there to help spark the movement.

Because almost any form of communication is so hard to come by there, we heard very little from him since he moved. Just yesterday, however, he had an opportunity to call and give an update (though it was pretty brief since his phone kept disconnecting the call).

As far as ministry goes, we had hoped he could disciple some of the key leaders from the August training. But according to him, most of the leaders we had identified have proven to be too committed to their church system. After working through a couple generations with some of them, they became less committed and distracted by their programs and services.

But some of the other guys from the training, ones we didn't see a lot of hunger from at the time, have given their lives to getting the job done. So there's a group of committed disciples that he meets with regularly.

Additionally, Julio has identified an area of town where the believers are much more prone to put their faith into action, rather than intellectualize things. So he's excited to start working more with them.

He finally got accepted at a job he was trying to get into. Not sure what it is exactly, but something ministry-related. So I think he'll start that this week. We were surprised to find he hadn't already gotten a job, since he's been there around 6 months, but apparently it's very difficult to find work there right now, even for the educated.

Also, his health has been really manageable lately, so he hasn't had to worry too much about it. For the past 3 years or so he's really struggled with pain and stomach problems resulting from his MS, so ministry was difficult, at times. It probably also helps now that he's surrounded by family members who can help him out and hold him accountable to resist isolating himself.

Anyway, those are most of the thing he was able to communicate yesterday. His assignment now is to find a more consistent way to communicate with us, and then we can have some deeper conversations about what's presently going on, as well as next steps.

Please be praying that God would continue to guide him in ministry, and that more and more believers there would come alongside him to become co-laborers. If we see that there are many leaders there committed to making disciples, we will probably have to consider holding a second (or I guess third at this point) training. Thanks guys!