Praise from Cuba

Abner Gonzalez, the Awana missionary in Cuba, shares an update of praise for their latest successful leadership event: 

We had a successful SP event!! The leaders returned to their churches equipped, motivated and joyful.  

Thank you so much for you and your prayers. We felt supported all the time. Mainly because the SP event was a big challenge. 

It rained all day, each of the event days. Can you imagine? We had floods in the area and lots of mud. Only 14 churches (of the 17 that we expected) arrived to the event. Because of the torrential rain, we had to use the car (read about the new car Awana Canada bought for Abner!) to carry the leaders to the dining area (600 meters of the conferences area) 7 leaders in every travel. 

The last day we took a couple of leaders to their town, the roads were inundated, but thanks to God the car went through the water without problems. Praise the Lord! 

We saw the God hand over us, all the time. 

We placed the follow up event to the first week of April. The leaders are anxious to return. 

Tomorrow we will begin the SP event of Havana area, thanks to God, today in the morning we got the mattresses. We were concerned because we did not have conditions in order that leaders stay overnight.  Now we solved this matter. 

Please continue to pray for Abner and the Awana leaders in Cuba as they seek to spread God's Word to the country! 

Missionaries in Montreal

From Jon Imbeau, Director of Awana Canada: 

Every two years the staff from Awana Canada meets somewhere in Canada, in order to enjoy some good teaching and fellowship together. This year our staff met in Montréal. Our goal was to spend time getting to know the new members of our team. We have five new couples on the team since our staff met two years ago in Vancouver! We are excited about this growth and the work God is doing through us. In Montréal our team learned more about developing partners in the ministry from an expert by the name of George Loring. George taught us about why it is so important to communicate the good things that are happening to those who are invested in our ministry.

As we toured Montréal we experienced the culture and learned about the significant need for Awana in this province.  Less than 1% of 6.2 million French speaking Canadians believe in Jesus. The need to reach the young generation is so evident. All of us feel that the work being done in Québec is exciting. We are praying for Lise Lalonde as she reaches this people group.

Our team enjoyed wonderful meals and fellowship together. We had a tour of an authentic sugar shack where we heard live Francophone music and some of us even played the spoons.

Jeremy Petty came from Chicago to teach us more about youth ministry. This was a powerful workshop and very informative. Jeremy has devised a new strategy for training youth workers. We are praying for a greater development of youth work here in Canada.

Dave Kinsey and Art Quest taught us about the new training method called hitting the mark. Both men experienced this training firsthand in the US this year. Our team learned a lot and will incorporate some of these methods in our basic training. Finally, we heard more about the Truth Seekers Ministry from Stephen Somers, Len Friesen, and Victor Somers.

Dave Kinsey (Missionary in Northern and Eastern Ontario) writes:

As the former Awana missionary in Quebec (before Lise), it was good to be back in Montreal and environs. My French hasn't improved any, but I think I heard more English in the hotel than French!

Joyce and I will certainly remember many of the events of the week. We felt so sorry for Lynne Heron when her wallet was stolen Thursday morning while she was having breakfast at Tim Hortons, and then her elation on getting a call that it had been found in the garbage at a second Tim Hortons. We made sure she was able to pick it up after the hockey game that night. It made for a rather late night! 

All in all, it was a good week - one of the best, if not THE best missionary conference of my thirty-one years an an Awana Missionary. 

To learn more about the missionaries serving Awana Canada around the country visit our missionary page! 

Praise Update from Cuba

Last year Awana Canada raised enough funds to buy Abner Gonzales (an Awana missionary in Cuba) a new vehicle for his ministry work in Cuba. It is serving him well and aiding in the growth of the Kingdom! He recently wrote to us and we wanted to share with you all! 

Abner writes: 

Last week I made a large ministry travel, I visited two regional leaders, one of them Pastor Luis from "Hermanos en Cristo" (Brothers in Jesus). Now he is very interested in the Awana program, he offers his temple to have our Seed Planter’s event in this area next week. In addition, He seems a good contact and promoter in this denomination.

I also visited a town named "Zasa del Medio" in the Sacti Spiritus province. I met with the Kids Ministry Leader of the New Pines Convention. We had an excellent ministry presentation. She is very interested and she would like to make a big promotion of AWANA in the New Pines Convention. Therefore, we are expecting to have a good group of New Pines churches using the Awana program very soon!

We can have those large travels thanks to the new car! Brother I can't describe how happy I am with this. I could travel and return comfortably, in time and without the worry of frequent breakdowns. This is good!!!

A hug!!

Abner

Please join us in praising God for all he is doing in Cuba especially through Awana! Continue to pray for Abner and his ministry there. This year we are raising money to send children to Awana clubs in Guatemala. Learn all about it here!