2013 Annual Report - The Foursquare Church

2013 Foursquare Cabinet Foursquare Missions International
Points of Challenge:
• The family of Pastor Guy Thomas, national leader of Haiti, is living in the Boston area (his
wife and 2 kids). They have been there since the earthquake (3 years), with no plans to
return to Haiti. Even though he visits them periodically, this is not a healthy situation
for his family, or the church. A major decision/change is needed.
• There is a need to begin focusing more on national church development in Haiti, and
less on teams and projects. This could necessitate the appointment of a lead missionary
to help walk through this process. In the meantime, there is still the need for base camp
staff.
• Jamaica is still recovering from the damage done by hurricane Sandy. While progress
has been made, there is still a lot of work to do, and $1000's of dollars to be raised.
They are also facing economic challenges at the national office, as well as the need for
leadership development.
• The Dominican Republic could be losing two missionary units in the near future that will
leave some big gaps. Pray for nationals to be trained to step into those gaps.
CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA – Paul Otremba
Opportunities:
• El Salvador has only 11 Foursquare churches. The former national leader of El Salvador
has sent out a call to all the Latin American countries asking for church planters. Several
countries have expressed their interest in sending workers to this harvest field.
• The theme of the last convention of the Panamanian Foursquare Church was on
Missions. The Panamanian Foursquare Church is planning on sending out more
missionaries to the nations, to the region and also reach out to communities in their
own country that have not been reached.
• This year 2013 we are planning to introduce the material of DOING WHAT JESUS DID to
countries like CHILE, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY and BELICE. We are also planning to
videotape the seminar of DWJD with the idea to not only have the books available, but
also use the internet to take this seminar to the most remote areas of the region and
train pastors and leaders how to use this material to train the church to do the work of
the ministry. More follow up seminars will be held in 2013 in Central and South America.
• With over 2,500 churches and meeting places in Colombia, The Foursquare Church is
well established and has good leadership. It is divided into eight districts that work
autonomously. New churches are planted all the time and in general the churches are
growing. Colombia has the capacity to send missionaries to other countries – and some
are already serving in Spain, Dominican Republic, U.S., etc. Leaders are starting to talk
about the responsibility to reach out to other nations. Specific decisions to be more
intentional in sending out missionaries have not been made.
• There is a bigger awareness among the national leaders of the region of the necessity to
develop leadership-­‐training seminars that strengthen the present leaders and also raise
a new generation of leaders. There is a need to provide higher theological Education for
pastors and leaders in the region.
• We continue to see healthy church planting initiatives in several countries, namely
Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras.
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