Date: May 19, 2004

Prayer Update from Waldeckers

Thank you very much for your prayers about my trip to Chile. I spoke at the graduation of the first graduate of our pastoral training program--Pancho. Last Saturday he passed his licensure exam at a meeting of presbytery. I also preached on Sunday morning at Cristo Rey. It was nice to renew contact with so many people, and also to see Mark and Anne Auffarth and their family.

I stopped in B o g o t a on the way home for a meeting with the MTW Latin America Leadership Team. The meeting went very well, and we were able to spend time with the presbytery in the city.

I have been asked to be part of the new MTW University Learning Resource Team. The task of the MTW University is to deal with the training needs of MTW. This is a good fit with my doctoral studies and I'm looking forward to being part of this group. Please pray for this group.

I am still the director of what has been called the Latin America Resource Team (we are looking for a new name because it could sound like we help with material resources, which is not the case). Dave Strumbeck is on my team. Mark Auffarth was going to be until he decided to accept a call to the Cristo Rey church in Santiago. Now I have asked Rodney Davila to join this team. One of the primary tasks before us is to help our church planting teams and national leaders think through the issues involved in training pastors and church planters in view of our desire as a mission to think in terms of church planting movements. Last August I went to Monterrey, Mexico, to present some basic ideas. Since then there has been a lot of interest developing throughout the country, and I have received invitations to present a workshop/seminar on training.

I will be speaking at the MTW summer conference at Ridge Haven in July, and also at the MTW Global Conference in the fall. Please pray these opportunities.

Micah and Seth finished their semester at Covenant College. They both are planning to go to Chile this summer to help with the work there.

Thank you very much for your prayers.

Gary