Wednesday, June 10, 2009

FamilyLife in Central America!

Global Outreach is the international department of FamilyLife. Their goal isn't just to develop little FamilyLifes around the world but to empower the local population to implement Biblical training and ministry for marriages and families in their countries. One of the great tools they have developed is called Movement Makers. They start with a core of people who want to affect marriages and families for Christ and training uing the Movement Makers manual. Read an example of how this is happening in Ecuador:

Through yesterday we’ve presented three sessions of the basic Movement Maker Training here in Guayaquil, Ecuador. There is a Campus Crusade couple who led the outreach to families in Guayaquil. Here are some highlights:

Several Navy couples are participating in the Movement Maker training. This NCO is giving a presentation to the class. His class group developed a diagram to explain the three phases of developing a spiritual movement with families: launching, developing and maturing.




The couples are participating in a group project. This hands-on learning methodology keeps the students fully engaged in the material and helps them to own the ideas and express their personal involvement to implement the spiritual movement strategies.



This couple has been seeing the gospel of Jesus Christ make a powerful impact in the lives of couples as they have been leading a HomeBuilders group over the past year. They have been married six years and have learned a lot as they have been working through their own marriage difficulties and learning how to apply biblical principles in their own marriage.

They stepped out in faith last year by deciding to lead a HomeBuilders couples study in their home on a military base. They went through their neighborhood, knocking on doors. They offered to pray for couples and asked how they could support and encourage them in their marriage. The couples responded to this warm invitation from a sincere couple—they agreed to join the Morans by going through the HomeBuilders study guide called: “Building Your Marriage”.

Four couples came and also four ladies who attended without their husbands. The husband explained how the couples showed up with all their baggage—some of their marriages were in significant trouble. One wife was contemplating suicide. Through God’s intervention and the love and encouragement of this couple, the wife accepted Christ into her life and began to grow in her faith. This couple learned that much of her personal suffering and mental anguish came from an extraordinarily difficult relationship with her husband. He was frequently drunk and frequently unfaithful. However, the wife began to pray for her husband and their marriage. God intervened and the husband also prayed to receive Christ into his life. His entire life changed from the inside out and now they both attend the HomeBuilders couples study with this couple.

Another couple in the group had a pattern of abuse and heated quarreling. The wife was able to spend some time counseling with this wife and praying with her. However, the marital crisis erupted to the point where the husband threatened to kill his wife. His wife fled to the wife's house in desperation. While she was pouring her heart out, the wife explained there was only one person who could help in this situation—that person was Jesus Christ. The desperate wife prayed to ask Jesus into her life and to seek His help to heal her broken heart and her broken marriage. Eventually her husband joined her at the HomeBuilders study group and he also asked Jesus to come into his life.

God has given FamilyLife an incredible message of hope and salvation to deliver to hurting marriages and hurting families. God has also given us great partners around the world . However, it’s the volunteers that generate the life-on-life ministry to so many couples—that’s what provides real meaning to the idea of “Helping you to help others”.

No comments:

Post a Comment