Nationals receive evangelism training as foreign missionaries’ permits are halted.

By September 2, 2005

Venezuela (MNN) — Tensions between the US and Venezuela are running high and the future of outside missionary work is potentially in question, as Venezuela’s government has temporarily suspended permits for foreign missionaries after comments made by a US televangelist.

In early August, a team with Evangecube International, a partner to Global Missions Fellowship, held training seminars in Venezuela to train national believers in evangelism. Evangecube is continuing with their plan to train nationals to do the work. Nathan Sheets says the training seminars continue to be a great success, “Over that one week period that we were there, about 400 Venezuelans were trained with Evangecubes and went out and shared the Gospel. And just, actually, during the training seminar, we had about 400-500 people accept Christ, but over the course of that week, we saw over 2000 people come to faith in Christ and saw about 15 news churches established.”

Sheets says that the nationals take their training seriously and have an incredible heart for reaching others for Christ, “When they go through the training, at the very end, every person who receives an Evangecube is challenged to share the Gospel twice a week over the course of a year, a hundred times total. And if they don’t commit to it, the Venezuelans take the Cubes back and they say, ‘We’ll give it to somebody who does.'”

As for the success of the program, says Sheets, “…ultimately it’s up to God, to see if God continues to work through people who make that commitment, but I believe that (as) they walk in obedience and really desire to see God move in their lives like that, that we will see that happen.”

Evangcube’s desire is to raise up financial partners who can continue providing evangelism resources and training for the Venezuelan nationals, in order to plant new churches. Sheets says, “Their goal is to equip a thousand Venezuelans this year with Evangecubes and training to evangelize probably about a million people.”

Pray for the spirit of God to continue to move around the world. Pray for God to continue to empower believers and give them the boldness to share the love of Jesus with their friends and families and neighbors.

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