Last week, my wife and I visited the beautiful country of Guatemala to visit Saq B’e, one of our LoveServes partners. Our purpose was to hear what God was doing through their churches, survey their resources and challenges, and assess their readiness to grow their reach to more communities.

Saq B’e was founded in 2005 to help respond to the devastation caused by hurricane Stan. After helping communities recover from the hurricane, they continued to serve Guatemalan communities with leadership training, agriculture coaching and development, and microfinance. 

In 2017, a mutual partner in the United States introduced them to the LoveServes strategy, and we began to look for ways to help. In 2019, with the generous sponsorship of a Florida family, our Dominican team began traveling back and forth, hosting workshops for churches and training the Saq B’e team to coach local pastors. Since then, LoveServes coaches from the Dominican Republic have trained nearly 100 Guatemalan pastors to identify local resources and serve their communities. 

Our trip was a long-overdue visit from the American board to see the results first-hand and to encourage the team. We found that what started as a small work in Quetzaltenango, has spread by referral to a large part of the country. Some pastors are even driving as far as 12 hours to attend the training sessions. 

We visited pastors from the mountains to the coast to the capital. In every case we saw God mobilizing the church to reach the needs of the community. The new projects range from schools and caring programs for the most needy to family counseling ministries. 

It was truly a blessing to witness yet again the effectiveness of God’s church on mission. Above all, I’m greatly encouraged by the strength of the leadership team at Saq B’e and thrilled to continue working with them. To God be the glory!