El Salvador Mission Trip 2021
LifePoint Family,
Thank you for your prayers and missions giving that made our trip to El Salvador possible. We flew out of Indy at 7:00 am on Saturday, September 11th, and arrived early afternoon in San Salvador.
The Salvadorian ministry leaders warmly greeted and took us to the van and truck that would take us to their Saturday afternoon church service. When we climbed into the vehicles we were surprised and thankful to find Subway sandwiches waiting for us. After getting up very early that morning and traveling to Miami and then San Salvador the Lord graciously gave me the strength to preach a sermon on God’s sovereignty and goodness and how to apply who God is to our lives. The sermon was very well received by the church.
The Salvadorians were very loving and relational. Most of the people at the service were a mixture of deportees from the United States, ex-gang members, and a few who had just very recently or were in the process of getting out of gangs. The church meets at a building that has a car shop on the first level and a woodworking shop upstairs. The building is used to train people in car mechanics and woodworking to give them ways to earn a living. We spent much time at this building during our stay for prayer, devotionals, training, fellowship, meals, and old man Pastor Tony outdoing the young men in a dip competition.
Sunday was a laid-back day of hiking to a volcano, lunch halfway up the mountain, a quick stop for shopping, and going to an American football game.
Monday –Friday was devoted to street and door-to-door evangelism, training the local church people in evangelism, biblical counseling training, and construction projects that included restoring a soccer court, hanging a door, and some electrical work. As always, the evangelism was wonderful with people walking along the streets that we engaged in conversations with and talking with people right outside their homes. Many people we talked to already professed to be evangelical Christians. Others heard the gospel, some professed faith in Jesus, and a few were not interested in hearing. Please pray for all who heard the gospel and those who did not.
It was very exciting to observe the people from the church share the gospel after we trained them in using the EvangeCube. In the mornings, we would share our testimonies and the gospel. In the afternoons, we would share our testimonies, and then they would share the gospel. Please pray they will continue to evangelize and follow up with discipleship.
The people from the church ate up the two sessions of biblical counseling training that I taught. They asked questions and asked how they can receive further training. Biblical counseling training is very much needed for their church. Please pray for them to seek further training through ACBC’s On-Line Training.
There were five of us from LifePoint on this trip and two from OMS and one other person. Pastor Dave Oakley thankfully joined us on this trip. Dave did a great job sharing the gospel and training a young man named David on how to share the gospel. Dave also did a great job with a morning devotional. Gary Bopp and Greg Meadows were our skilled construction guys. They did a wonderful job restoring the soccer court. They worked extremely hard and for many hours. The people who lived in the neighborhood were very grateful for the work done on the soccer court and several joined in to help. Both Gary and Greg did a really good job with a morning devotional and also in talking with the people from the church. I am very thankful for both of them. Carlos Garcia who was attending LifePoint but recently moved to Tennessee joined us on this trip. His parents are from El Salvador. He helped with translation, led a devotional, and was also a part of the evangelism team. This trip has served to build excitement and passion for Carlos and his wife for missions in the future.
Our time in El Salvador was a great week in so many ways as mentioned above and many more.
As we have recently come out of our Missions Emphasis at LifePoint you can easily see how important your prayers and financial giving are to LifePoint Missions. Many people heard the gospel. Some professed faith in Jesus. The church was fed through preaching, biblical counseling training, and daily morning devotionals. In addition, the community was served in ways such as restoring the soccer court, which led to our sharing the gospel with people in that community.
May every one of us be faithful to the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), which includes both evangelism and discipleship.
Pastor Tony
