Dr Lionel Young III, our Executive Vice President, recently piloted our newest World Christianity course in Antigua, Guatemala, a course in applied church history. In this blog post you can read all about this exciting new module and be inspired by stories of individual students - like Herman, Marbely and Jhonatan - who each overcame significant challenges and are now using their experiences to bless others.
We hope that you will see why we are thrilled with this new development in our work of equipping church leaders to the glory of Christ and the building up of his church.
“Once again I was struck with how much our students teach me—and how much we can learn together from our brothers and sisters throughout the history of the church. God is always at work in and through His people, and that is exactly what we want to emphasize to our students through our new course. You can read more about it below. It’s something I’m personally very excited about!”
We thank you for being part of the Global Action family and we hope that you too are encouraged by this month’s updates from Latin America. Your partnership is changing lives forever.
From Jerusalem to Guatemala, to the Ends of the Earth:
New Course Pilot
As part of our pursuit of academic excellence for our students, we have recently rolled out a tenth module of the Foundations Course, “From Jerusalem to the Ends of the Earth,” a global Christianity and applied church history class.
Written by our own Dr. Lionel Young III, this course has been piloted in Kenya, India, and Guatemala. Feedback from students and faculty has helped to sharpen the course material as it is added as a possible capstone course for future graduates.
Scripture itself gives us great encouragement to learn from the past through a beautiful discourse in the “Hall of Faith”:
““Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith””
The stories of other Christians around the world (past and present) can be a source of inspiration and encouragement in our call to follow Christ. Dr. Young enthusiastically declares to students:
“ “These stories are given to you to bless the people of God!” ”
The modern questions and struggles of gospel practitioners can be daunting, but they are not new. The redeemed of God have long grappled with issues of violence, widespread disease, political unrest, division within the church, and false teachers. How did they overcome? What did they believe?
Applied history in this field tasks its learners to hear these testimonies of believers around the world and throughout time and to apply them to life and ministry today. We want our Foundations graduates to analyse this question: what are the unchanging lessons we can draw from believers of the past to apply to our ministry today?
We are thrilled to expand the equipping work of each local leader, believing that as they understand God’s immutable ways, they will each courageously embrace their place in His grand redemptive story.
Deeper Roots to Spreading Fruit
Herman was born into a dysfunctional family in Guatemala City. Losing his mother at an early age, he sought comfort in illicit living. Christ rescued him at age twenty-five, and he married and started his family. Upon the Lord calling him to ministry, he preached inside buses, to gang members, in jails and detention centres for street youths. He juggled work and ministry at the same time for years—and then faced the devastating loss of his first wife and the mother of his four children.
Marbely was born in Nicaragua, where she grew up with a very basic knowledge of God. She always hungered for a deeper relationship with Him, and she found just that when a local church welcomed her in.
Eventually, Herman and Marbely’s paths crossed, and the two married in 2015. Each possessing a fire for the Lord, they believed they could serve Him and their communities better together.
When Marbely went through Global Action’s Foundations programme and graduated in 2018, Herman began to see how this training could be exactly what his congregation and community needed. Together, Herman and Marbely sought out Global Action in Guatemala and started a class in 2023, which will graduate in October of this year. This training has provided the leaders in the class with a deepened knowledge of their own faith and has strengthened them to serve their congregation and community.
““Global Action has been a key element in showing us how communities can be transformed through the active work of the church and the gospel of Jesus Christ””
Redeemed and Feeding His Sheep
Jhonatan Rivera’s earliest memories were marked by violence, a broken family, abandonment by his biological parents, and substance abuse. “But...God was working,” he recalls, “and I didn’t even know him.”
The pain of his circumstances eventually led him to cope with substance abuse. He confesses it was the lowest point of his life and he was in a deep pit. Through his mother’s prayers and the loving welcome of his local church, he heard for the first time, “Before you were formed, I knew you,” (Jeremiah 1:5). Jhonatan testifies, “And in that moment my life with Christ started. I was now loved…He by grace had not abandoned me.” As Jhonatan grew in the Lord, he also began leading worship and children’s ministry.
When he began his Global Action Foundations course, he shares:
““I…never had such teachers that were so committed with the duty of diving deep in the gospel, and the need to be able to associate the urgency to talk about the opportunity that Christ gives us... I love the Lord more now after understanding such amazing plans that he has not only for me, but to reach the whole world.” ”
Now, having been theologically equipped through the Foundations programme, Jhonatan feels God has written His story of redemption over his childhood and commissioned him to share the Word with others. Miraculously, he was able to show his birth mother his Foundations diploma before she passed away.
“The Holy Spirit has made me restless so much since I heard Global Action’s slogan: ‘Go and share what you’ve received.’
Jhonatan graduated last November in Antigua, Guatemala. These days he leads worship at his church and serves at a ministry called “Agua Viva” translated “Living Water”, a local feeding centre for children in his village of San Antonio Dueñas. Global Action exists to train leaders like Jhonatan, and we rejoice that each of these local leaders best knows the needs and context of their communities. Jhonatan is an example of local leaders who change the world for Christ.