Preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ! Merry Christmas from Guyana! As I sit here on a hot, rainy, December morning writing this newsletter, I am thankful for the amazing partners that stand behind this ministry.  Through the prayers and sacrificial giving on your part, we get a front row seat to see what God is doing with your investments.  I know that most of you will only see pictures, but one day you will meet the people who have benefitted from your compassion and love.   One example of what generosity looks like, as you can see in the pictures you see below, is our Bible distribution.  Each year we give away hundreds of Bibles.  We rest on the promise that God's Word is a living seed that never dies.  Only eternity will reveal the full impact of these Bibles put into the hands of people all over our Region. School Ministry One of the wonderful opportunities we enjoy here in Guyana is the freedom of religion.  Our freedom here gives us the open door to do ministry in the public schools.  Pastor Romel and his family have taken a lead in this area.  Each week the Word of God is being sown in the schools here in our Region.  This may be our single biggest opportunity in the upcoming year to evangelize.  Pray for more open doors and wisdom to use our time and efforts wisely. Reaping in the Harvest Field Each week there are dozens of men and women who preach and teach in the many village churches we have scattered throughout Region 1 in Guyana.  These are the men and women that deserve the thanks for faithfully sharing the Word of God to the hundreds who attend our churches.  One day you will have the opportunity to meet these fine people and shake their hand.  We are privileged to serve by their side.  Since our last newsletter, our ministry reports 16 souls who have trusted Christ and 9 have followed in believer's baptism! Christmas Wedding Bells Pastor Paul and his wife Gladys were blessed to see one of their daughter's marry just days before Christmas.  It has been our privilege over 20 plus years to watch Judith grow from birth, to salvation, to teaching Sunday School, into the woman of God she is today.  Her new husband, Bawi, is a former student of mine from Trinity Baptist College.  He came 2 years ago to help with our Youth Camps and a VBS where he and Judith met.  Notice the picture below, to the right, showing Pastor Paul, his wife Gladys, and their beautiful family gathered for the wedding!  We wish Bawi and Judith all the best in their new life together. Celebrating God's Blessing! Our wedding anniversary always falls during our Youth Camp and VBS time.  This year was no exception.  In August, we celebrated our 30th anniversary during our Youth Camp in Whitewater Village, but we determined to do something special at a later date.  When we were asked to speak at a supporting church in the Fall. That was our opportunity to carve out a few days for just us.  30 years ago, we honeymooned in Oregon, and late this Fall we retraced some of our steps from that same trip.  God has surely been good to us.  We pray for 30 more years together!

Preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ! 50 baptisms in 30 days! Last month we reported reaching the milestone of more than 1000 professions of faith since January of 2021.  This month we follow that by reporting 50 baptisms in just the past 30 days!  For the year, we celebrate 244 professions of faith and 87 people who have followed the Lord in believer's baptism. We recognize that with these numbers, we have a great responsibility.  We are accountable for every person the Lord gives us to disciple.  Maybe the greatest challenge is the great distance that our ministry covers.  We have people who travel one way as much as 3 1/2 hours to come to church.  Our churches, from one end of our ministry to the other, are as much as 3-4 hours apart, even with a fast boat.   Below you can see some of those who have followed the Lord in baptism over the past 30 days. Spanish Language Ministry Over the past few years, we have made it known of our need for a Spanish speaking person to reach and disciple the ever-growing Spanish speaking population coming from Venezuela.  Through a contact from one of our supporting churches we were able to get access to some English/Spanish discipleship materials.  Two of our pastors have taken these materials and are using them to work with the migrant community near them. In addition to this breakthrough, one of our supporting pastors, Pastor Daniel Rogers, met with a group of migrant believers from our Yarakita church through WhatsApp.  Pastor Alvin has done a wonderful job of reaching the migrant people in his community and now bringing them to us for training.  The meeting lasted nearly an hour and out of it has come a plan to meet weekly.  These two young women and two men will meet with Pastor Rogers over a Zoom connection at our Training Center to receive Biblical discipleship.  Please pray for our ability to meet the logistical challenges of this new outreach.  This group will catch a bus from their village before sunup.  The weekly meetings should take about 3 hours.  After their training they will catch a bus back to their village.  The transportation and food will cost our ministry about $250-$300/month.  Maybe your church or Sunday School class would like to help meet this need?  Below you can see Pastor Alvin (top center) and the 4 that will meet each week for training.

Preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ! More than 1000 professions of faith!   1,016 Professions of Faith - 2021-2024 God has uniquely blessed Achieve Guyana over the past 3 years and 8 months.  During this time, we have recorded 1016 souls that have professed Christ as Savior!   This new milestone is reason to praise God for blessing Achieve Guyana.  We are thankful for the simplicity of the gospel and the hearts that God has opened.  We are thankful for the dozens of faithful men and women that work with us each week in our more than 15 villages.  We are thankful for every bus driver and boat driver that brings people to church.  We are thankful for the churches and individuals that pray and give faithfully each month to make this all possible.  We have so much to be thankful for! Vacation Bible Schools and Youth Camp This summer we were joined by three supporting churches – Fellowship Baptist in Thonotosassa, Fl; Liberty Baptist in Clermont, FL; and All Nations Baptist in New York City.  In all we had 37 short-term, US based, missionaries joining our local staff over a 4 week period to make these outreach events work.  More than 300 were ministered to, with 76 publicly making a profession of faith in Christ.   We concluded our Youth Camp by baptizing 23 young people!  These efforts were no small task for our team.  We brought in children and youth from at least 12 villages, often from very remote areas.  We celebrate the staff and volunteers that planned and organized, drove boats, drove buses, made snacks, cooked meals, washed dishes, translated messages into Spanish and Warao, washed clothes and bedding, cleaned buildings, delivered fuel for the boats, kept the grounds clean, provided security, taught lessons, led games, purchased food and supplies, led worship, assisted with crafts, preached in the churches, and led in small groups.  Once again, we know that there were faithful supporters who stood with us financially and in prayer to make this happen.  We are especially encouraged by those who took a moment to send a quick text or email to express their prayers and encouragement during this very busy season of ministry. The Enemy Is Always Near We knew in advance that these major outreach events would stir up the enemy, and we were not wrong.  One of our pastors told us that children were threatened by their parents if they came to VBS.  Many of them came anyway.  Another told me of the horrible lies that were spread in his village, keeping some from attending.  It was said that we were going to poison the children with the snacks.  (We have never thought it was funny when people joke about Jim Jones.  We see how the devil uses that to keep people in darkness).  One of our pastors was told that someone said that if the village leadership did not stop our pastor from going door-to-door, that he had a bow and arrow that would stop him.  These lies and threats are the reality we live in.  When people are in spiritual darkness, we should expect nothing less.  Prayerfully one day they will be free from the lies that keep them from Christ.

Preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ! VBS, Youth Rallys, and Youth Camp A time for harvest! Our summer schedule is typically the most fruitful time of the year in terms of people giving their life to Christ.  Pray for the churches who are coming to serve with us this year; Fellowship Baptist Church from Thonotosassa, FL, Liberty Baptist Church from Clermont, FL, and All Nations Baptist Church from New York, NY.  Here are the dates to pray for: July 14-18 - Faith Vacation Bible School July 15-17 - Faith Youth Rally July 21 - New Life Baptist Church special service July 22-26 - Riverside Community Vacation Bible School July 22-24 - Amazing Grace Youth Rally August 4 - New Life Baptist Church special service August 5-9 - Achieve Youth Camp Farm Project As a ministry, we want to make a deep impact upon the lives of people living in the communities where we serve. The ministry of the Word and making disciples is the center piece of all that we do. Providentially, the land that we occupy is some of the best farmland in our area. We are capitalizing on that now through a significant investment in farming. We are employing members of our churches to do farming work which helps many families. Additionally, we are utilizing farming techniques that the Ministry of Agriculture is trying to promote. This has positioned us in a favorable position to showcase a farm that models good farming principles, providing jobs for local people, and a testimony for Christ in the community. We hope that these efforts will one day help self-fund many of our village churches and pastors. Looking Back On 25 Years God Is Faithful In July of 1999, Wendy and I visited this remote spot in the world for the first time.  Little did we know what God was going to do.  As we celebrate our 25th anniversary of ministry, we give God all the glory and honor.  He is the one that has made it all happen! On a typical Sunday we draw people from more than 15 villages , and we will have 400-500 people in our churches .  On special occasions we might see as high as 1,200.  So far in 2024 God has given us 115 people who have trusted Christ as Savior .  Some people travel as much as 4 hours one way to attend church.  Most of these are small communities, ranging in size from 200 to as high as 1,500 people.  The people are indigenous to this land.  Our Region is home to the Warao, Carib, and Arawak tribes.  We also have a large migrant community from Venezuela.  Ancient beliefs and superstitions often hold the people in spiritual bondage, even in the Christian community.  Deeply held generational beliefs are often hard to die.  High rates of illiteracy among the adult population creates challenges to making disciples and training leaders. Access to cell phones and the internet has had a devastating, chilling effect upon the lives of the younger generation.  The older people largely do not understand the dangers of the internet, leaving the youth to explore with no boundaries.   Other challenges include extremely high rates of suicide among the youth, (3 in our area in just the last week), teen pregnancies and children born outside of marriage, (the institution of marriage is often seen as optional and many families are established without a marriage covenant), deeply divided communities often caused by "church" leaders, and the easy access to alcohol and drugs.  There are so many days that we feel like we have taken two steps forward and three steps back.  If it were not for the power of the gospel to transform lives, we would be in a hopeless cause. We are asking for you to pray.  These challenges can only be overcome through the power of prayer. Pray for the VBS's, Youth Rallies, and Youth Camp. Pray for the dozens of men and women who faithfully serve in our ministry every week. Pray for reinforcement.  We need both local people to step up, and we could use a co-worker to come help. Pray for our personal health and well-being; physical, emotional, and spiritual.

Preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ! Achieve Guyana Cause for Giving Thanks! Typically, at the beginning of each year we like to share the numerical results we have recorded from the previous year.  So much of what takes place in any ministry is the unseen work God is doing in people's hearts, but he is also doing so much we can see and report as a way of giving him the glory he deserves.  Here are some highlights we want to share: 261 souls made a profession of faith in Christ in 2023. 58 followed the Lord in believer’s baptism in 2023. 808 have given their life to Christ in the past 3 years. We now have 20 preachers and 21 teachers in our ministry who minister to people from more than 15 villages. Achieve has 22 buildings (churches, education buildings, multi-purpose buildings, and pastoral homes), 5 vehicles, and 11 boats we use for ministry. Achieve Guyana has 8 full time paid staff and several part time. Our churches have over 1200 in attendance on special days. Hundreds of children and teens are ministered to through VBS’s, youth rallies, and youth camps. As God provides, we regularly help the poor among us with food rations, emergency medical flights, weddings, and funerals. Faithful men teaching others also... 2nd Timothy 2:2 describes the core activity of our ministry.  The things that we have learned we commit to faithful men (and women) who are able to teach others also.  Pastor Romel has been with us for over 20 years.  In February, we held a special service to install him as the first pastor of New Life Baptist Church in the village of Tobago (see picture on the above left).  Pastor Paul faithfully leads the Antioch Baptist Church near Port Kaituma (see picture on the above right).  Emily continues to go each week to teach the Word in two of the local public schools, Saint Dominics and Sacred Heart, (see below left).  In one of our most remote villages, Blackwater, (below right), we recently had 5 ladies come to give their lives to Christ at the close of the service! Interested in Missions? Is God speaking to you to take the next step?  We want to put some opportunities before you to pray about.  The following are just some of the areas where we need help - both long and short term: LONG TERM 1.  Associate Director of Achieve. 2.  Spanish Ministry Director. 3.  Youth and Sports Director. 4.  Worship and Music Ministry Director. 5.  Media and Communications (from anywhere - no need to relocate). SHORT TERM Music and worship ministry training, leadership training, ministry and theological training, youth and children’s ministries (camps, VBS, rallies), literacy training, construction, humanitarian projects, medical, dental, optical, business consulting and training, agriculture. Please let us know if you have an interest in any of these areas of ministry.

New year! New webpage! New name!