This is an article from the March-April 1990 issue: It’s Happening Worldwide!

Latin America—Or We Die!

Latin America—Or We Die!

John Knox cried, "Give me Scotland or I die!"

Knox's commitment to evangelize an entire country has inspired mission zealots like Venezuelan Santiago Duran to echo, "I feel totally responsible before God for everything I have received. I will say now: If I don't share this, I die!"

Duran was one of the 46 "John Knoxers" gathering for a strategic seminar on Latin America at Lake Placid, Florida, the first week of February, 1990. DAWN (Discipling A Whole Nation) sponsored the event.

Most of these church leaders from 16 Latin American countries came with great news from countries where DAWN projects are already being devolved.

Adonai Leiva heads the exploding DAWN movement in El Salvador. Because of the trauma in that country, he had ten families living in his home when he was invited to the conference. But he came with some exciting news: "It took 100 years to plant the first 3,500 churches in El Salvador. With the DAWN project, 1,000 more churches have been planted in just the past two years! More and more denominations are setting goals in order to reach the national goal of reaching 35% of the population by the end of this year."

Hugo Franco, executive secretary of Amanecer (DAWN) in Guatemala, the first Latin American nation to develop a DAWN-type project, reported that the number of churches in his country has increased from about 7,000 at the time of the DAWN Congress in 1984 to about 14,000 in 1989. The Church has therefore reached the goal of doubling their number of congregations by 1990 ahead of schedule, and they are very close to reaching 50% of the population by the end of this year!

Nation by nation, God has been moving powerfully among the society as well as the church. Latin America has never been in a desperate and crisis situation like today, nor in such favorable conditions for a ripe harvest.

There are at least ten factors that these nations have in common and that contribute to the openess to the gospel: external debt, inflation, drug crisis, civil war, unemployment, internal emigration to the big cities, bureaucracy and corruption, absolute poverty, dictatorship, and on top of all these, the loss of all hope in their own religion. But in the midst of all this adversity, it is no wonder that people are turning to Christ.

God is also moving in His church. Revival is taking place in many nations. Prayers, unity and burden for the nations are spreading faster than ever. On a mountain overlooking the city of San Salvador, El Salvador, Christians are praying 24 hours a day for their nation. In Colombia at the same hour of the day believers stop and pray for their nation in a program called "On our knees for Colombia." In Venezuela every day Christians are praying for the taking of their nation in a program called "A Cry for Venezuela." The list goes on.

God has also been preparing men with a burden for their nations. DAWN calls these men "John Knoxers" because they have the same cry of this reformer, "Give me my country or I die." These are the kind of men that DAWN has invited to four regional seminars this year in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Because the church is growing so rapidly in Latin America using DAWN strategies, David Tarnez from Mexico said, "Amanecer (DAWN) strategy has been tested and proven on the ground and it has resulted in being a successful strategy—1 want to present it to the national committee in my country."

The other 45 leaders who attended the seminar were also committed to sharing the vision and to seeing the DAWN vision developed in their nation. Almost all of them said that this seminar confirmed the desire the Lord had been putting in their hearts—to be a "John Knox" for their nation.

As Dawn Ministries team members taught the principles and basic ingredients of the Disciple A Whole Nation strategy, men began to share how God was already working in their countries, preparing their own hearts and churches as well as their nations for just such strategic national plans. They found again and again that, independent of each other, God had been putting the same burdens, desires and dreams in their hearts.

Jose Frutos from Paraguay expressed, "This seminar and the assistence of Dawn Ministries will help me in developing the ministry God has reserved for me."

Rev. Omar Cabrera, pastor of the fifth largest church in the world said, "The Lord gave me a ministry to reach the masses of Argentina and He has raised up others to reach them as well. Literally thousands are coming to Christ every month. I believe we are going to experience a harvest of gold in the decade of the 90's.... I want you to give this seminar in my country."

As a result of this seminar, other nations and leaders are interested in developing this nationwide strategy. The National Evangelical Comittee of Venezuela has invited DAWN Ministries to present the strategy to top leaders of every denomination March 14-17, 1990.

The church in Paraguay has also invited DAWN for the same purpose March 23 and 24. The Church of Bolivia, which already approved development of the strategy, invited them for March 19 to 22, to assist them in the analysis of the contextual and institutional data that contribute to the twelve ingredients of the DAWN strategy.

One of the men who attended the seminar commented, "Twelve years ago I had a dream—different from that of Martin Luther King, Jr.—to see the whole Latin American continent saturated with churches so that each person could hear and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. At this seminar I saw this dream becoming a reality."

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