Timothy Leadership Training Advances

This October we brought together about 60 leaders from all over Haiti for our biannual Timothy Leadership Training (TLT) Conference.  We had our largest graduating class of 11 (two in level two and nine in level one).  It is not easy to graduate from TLT as graduating from level one requires completing at least one year of training in the local church and completing many practical work-plans that the participants develop to apply what they learn to their ministry context.  We were really excited by the story of Doris Falante, a youth leader in Jacmel.  After completing the material on Christian Stewardship, Doris decided to organize the youth in his church to hold their own “gastronomic and artisanal fair” in Jacmel at time when many tourists visit.  The youth, who are almost all unemployed, discovered gifts they didn’t know they had in cooking and art and many wares and much food was sold.  Also, Doris decided to teach the church leadership about the importance of Christian giving, planning to increase the overall offerings of the church by 15%.  After Doris’ efforts, the offerings increased by 30% and there was money left-over to organize church activities.  Furthermore, Doris developed a plan to encourage young people to visit the sick and home-bound.  Doris got his whole youth group involved in the visitation which was an unbelievable encouragement to the suffering of the congregation who never expected that the young and healthy would take time to visit and pray for them!