Walking By Faith

Southwood Bible Church of Tulsa
Guatemalan Mission Opportunity

Purpose: To train new believers to evangelize and teach the Bible to children.

Where: Patzun, Guatemala

When: July 17-28, 2008 (Phase 1)

Who: Steve, Joy & Josh Arnold, Sharon Slinger

Background: Central American Missions (CAM) has successfully evangelized the people of Guatemala over a period of many years. These new believers are scattered throughout remote villages, attending small CAM churches whose pastors and leaders are themselves new believers. In order to meet this critical need for trained pastors and leaders, CAM is training men in seminary, preparing them to teach in these churches, and in other areas of the world. Our good friends, John and Gail Conner, have recently joined CAM for the important purpose of teaching in this seminary.

In the meantime, there is an immediate need for basic Bible teaching for these new believers. There are also many children attending private Christian schools associated with these CAM churches, but whose leaders are not yet equipped to teach children the Bible.

Ken Spaugh with CAM has approached us with the opportunity to come to Patzun in order to teach and train these new believers. Since this is a rather large project, we are dividing the objectives into 2 Phases, and plan to make at least 2 trips into Guatemala in order to accomplish the following goals:

Mission Trip Objectives:

1. Teaching Bible lessons to children in a private school, and training school teachers how to use Child Evangelism (CEF) materials and curriculum.
2. Evangelizing children in a public school and surrounding community.
3. Teaching adults Biblical principles that are foundational to the Gospel.
4. Training others in child evangelism, using the Wordless Book.
   

Team members for Phase 1 in July:

1. Steve Arnold~ Bible teacher of foundational principles
2. Joy Arnold~ Evangelism at a public school, teach and train others in evangelism and in the use of CEF materials.
3. Josh Arnold~ help w/ children’s classes
4. Sharon Slinger~ teach children’s Bible classes at private school, assist with the teacher training in the use of CEF curriculum

Here are our needs and some prayer requests:

1. Pray that the Lord will raise up someone in Patzun with the gift of teaching who wants to be trained to teach these children.
2. Pray for us as we prepare basic Bible lessons for both children and adults.
3. Pray for our language skills in Spanish!
   
4. We are trying to connect w/ the CEF missionary in Guatemala. Pray that we'll be able to find him, and that he'll be able to join us in Patzun.
   
5. Funds for Phase 1 trip in July: $3000 total for the Arnold’s costs.
6. Funds for Phase 2 (date early fall TBA): $2000
7. Funds for CEF materials and evangelism tracts: approx. $300

Please pray for us as we begin this exciting new ministry. We are also involved in other teaching and evangelism ministries so need your prayers for that as well.

If the Lord leads you to help with our expenses, you can contribute in two ways:

• "Donate Now” using the button in the sidebar. Note: We are using our Coffee News business paypal account, so you will see our business name at the top of the PayPal page. Your contribution should still be tax deductible, with your email notification as your tax receipt. Or, you can...
  
• Send your designated contribution to:

Southwood Bible Church
7655 S. Sheridan Rd.
Tulsa, Ok. 74133

( Designate check to: Guatemalan Mission Trip )

(Check back later for pictures of Patzun, Guatemala!)