Results of February/March Pastor Training

It’s Sunday morning March 3, 2024 and I just arrived back in Charlotte yesterday evening from our trip to the Savannah in Guyana for a pastor training conference. This was the fourth pastor training conference and the first in Region 9 (Savannah). Our staff have been working in this Region for the past year.

We flew from Georgetown (the Capital of Guyana) from Ogle Airport to Lethem the major town in the area. There is a bridge over the Takatu river that serves as the border between Guyana and Brazil and there is a “trail” from Lethem to Georgetown which is a major route for Brazil to access the deepwater port in Georgetown to supply world markets from Northern Brazil. It’s 263 miles from Lethem to Georgetown and depending on conditions and the vehicle on the “trail” it takes between 16-23 hours to traverse.

The airport in Lethem is a paved strip that is surrounded by a chained link fence. You exit the turboprop plane and walk across the street to enter the “terminal” which is smaller than our house. The population of Lethem in 2012 was 1,702 people and this is the largest town in the region.

We grabbed a taxi and went to Pastor James’ house where we park our big truck that serves as our supply depot. There we picked up Pastor James and drove to Wowetta where we held the conference in a Benab which is a traditional Amerindian community center. Think open air circular structure with a thatched roof that is beautiful. It can seat 300 around the circle on wooden benches similar to our high school football bleachers all covered by the massive roof.

The dust from the “trail” is red because of the clay soil used to build the trail so red dust is everywhere.

We had eight pastors and numerous church leaders from Region 9 in attendance including  worship leaders, assistant pastors, Sunday school leaders and childrens leaders. There were several denominations present such as Christian Brotherhood, Pentecostal, Assembly of God, Baptist, etc. Everyone had great fellowship and communication flowed freely. There was excitement about cooperation to reach their people for Christ. The population is majority Amerindian from two major tribes and several smaller tribes in the area.

Dr. Carl Martin led the three days of pastor training. Everyone took copious notes from his lectures. Carl used a whiteboard to outline his talks and after each session, the folks would come up and take photos of his notes as well. They are so hungry for teaching and training it is fantastic.

Because of Carl’s leadership, the people became very transparent about their issues in their churches and themselves which lead to breakthroughs in communication. Carl is talented.

During the three days I interviewed each person attending, took their photograph with a sign with their name, church and town so we can have a directory of pastors. I asked them to name three things they needed for us to pray about, concerning them, their church and their community. From these needs, our team is developing a specific strategy of outreach to Region 9. We will be refining this plan which is unique and tailored for this region and will be communicating this with you as it is finalized by our team. Another example of how we use these interviews is that one of the people wants to be a worship leader so the next day we set up our keyboard, generator and speakers from the truck and let him lead worship. He passed the test with flying colors so now we have a musical resource in Region 9 in addition to Alex and Michael both extremely talented musicians.

We had two pastors that had been captains for their regions. This is like a mayor in the US. They gave me a history lesson for Region 9. In the 1960’s this region housed a 2 million cattle herd and massive cashew groves. I saw maybe 100 cows and the cashew groves are decimated though lack of care.

When Guyana gained independence in 1968 a communist government came into power and the two main families that had the massive cattle heard left Guyana and the herds collapsed due to disease and lack of management with the same story with the cashews. Now there is subsistence farming and poor land management.

They are hungry for help other than from their government. Carl and I are going to meet with the Dean of Agriculture and Dean of Animal Husbandry at Clemson to see if we can get a linkage going between this school and these local leaders. Carl is a big deal at Clemson since he was on the Clemson National Champion Football team in 1981 (defensive back). I requested he wear his ring to the meeting. He agreed! If for some reason Clemson is not interested I will swallow my pride and approach Auburn.

I am so excited about Region 9 and the potential to spread the Gospel of Christ and to help them spiritually and culturally over time. We can have a major impact. Thanks for your prayers it really showed this past week.