Latin America (MNN)–With Urbana’06, the largest student missions conference in the United States, nearing, there’s a focus on global evangelism. That helps broaden the scope of non-traditional approaches and fields, like the U-S.
World Gospel Mission’s Central America Regional Director Tim Hawk says North America has the finances, but not the manpower. But, the Latin American vision created a missions-sending force to be reckoned with. “In Latin America, you have a missions conference, and the young people are ready to go. I’m talking about very well educated college graduates, some with their masters, saying, ‘I wanna be a part of the mission force.'”
Hawk says it makes sense to send Latin Americans to the United States to reach the Latin American communities. “They bring with them a culture. They bring with them a language. Sometimes, they live in their own communities. We feel a little uncomfortable penetrating those communities, but our missionaries from Latin America, they’re not uncomfortable doing this.”
First came the idea, then came the infrastructure to make it happen. That’s when the Latin American Holiness Missionary Agency (AMSLA) was formed.
AMSLA is a mission agency formed by the churches in Latin America that were planted by World Gospel Mission missionaries. Today, they are self-governing, self-sustaining, and self-propagating.
WGM is partnering with AMSLA as they send missionaries from these churches to plant churches in Latin America, sometimes working side by side with WGM missionaries.
With such a vibrant force comes the need for renewed vision. AMSLA just saw that invigorated at its second international mission conference a month ago. Teams came from Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Honduras, Mexico, and the United States.
