Global Outreach Website

May 15

Blog for Thursday, May 13

Yesterday was another great day. We were blessed in many ways. First we saw the MMM team continuing to prepare the Mission Centre, washing glasses, arranging tables and chairs, etc. We've never seen a physician washing windows before ("We do Windows!" is not a slogan you see in many doctor's offices). The real blessing, though is they are all working together willingly and joyfully - it's a great example of what God has in mind for the Body of Christ.

We also went and visited Mario Guerrero, a student from two years ago, who started a shoe manufacturing company after years of working for someone else. He now has 5 employees and they make about 250 pairs of shoes a day - by hand!

Here are some picture of Mario's latest sales people displaying some shoes, Roberto making shoes and the team praying. When we asked Mario if we could pray for him, he immediately asked if he could include all his employees. That says a lot about the man and his team.

The we got another God story from Luis, our interpreter. He is an agronomist and was General Manager for a Guatemalan company that grows ornamental shrubs, etc. on five farms throughout the country and exports them to the US, Canada, Europe and other countries. Last year, his wife (who is also an agronomist) was a student in our training and she told him that he should attend the seminar. When we came down for Phase 2 (where we need lots of interpreters so that we can work with groups of 3 or 4 on their individual businesses) Luis took part as an interpreter.

Although he hadn't attended the Phase 1 training, he picked up enough from the conversations to understand how you can surrender to God's will in business and that you can use God's design for business successfully. At that time, you may remember that Guatemala went through a major volcanic eruption, followed by major storms. On one of the farms the volcanic ash built up on the roofs of the greenhouses and when the rains came, the combined weight caused all the roofs to collapse. After evaluating the situation, they decided to take the insurance money and shut down the farm - leaving a lot of people without work.

A buyer from Miami depended on the type of shrub that was only grown on that farm and asked if they could buy it and hire Luis to bring it back to production. They said that they would sell the farm but they had plans for Luis. So, when Luis worked with us on Phase 2, he was wrestling with a very weighty decision; stay with a secure career or leave his long-term employer and take a risk - and save the farm and the jobs. Through his involvement with us, he decided to talk to our leader, David Pritchard, and he talked to his pastor.

He decided to leave and take up the challenge. They invested a lot of time and a lot of money in getting the farm back on track. Their projections showed that, if things went well, they would be cash-flow positive by March, 2011. God blessed their efforts and they went cash-flow positive by October, 2010!.

It almost seems anticlimactic to talk about this years seminar but the teaching is going well. We are seeing the same light in the eyes of the students that we have seen every year and the adjustments to the curriculum are working very well. We are truly blessed to be doing this and we thank our supporters for the opportunity and the prayers, which are being answered, big time! You are an integral part of the work that God is doing through this ministry.