FAQ

The basic ministry budget is $200,000.

This request is to underwrite a three-year plan of “Vision and Equipping Retreats” to train and prepare influential Latin American believers to reach their peers for Christ utilizing a culturally appropriate, field-tested approach and highly effective proprietary materials.

• The projected budget and costs are $100,000 a year for the three years from 2021-2023.
• The costs are related to:
  • Airfare and ground expenses for the Houstons, guest teachers and mentors.
  • Retreat Center costs for 12-20 participants for 3 annual retreats each in Bogotá and Lima.
  • Materials
  • Additional travel for Richard and Margarita Houston
  • Audio/Visual recording and editing to be used as “force multipliers” for current and future training.

Latin America and the USA are neither exactly the same nor completely different.  The following articles on the internet offer perspectives and insight into the Latin American culture, especially the one that addresses the issue of charitable giving in Latin America.

• Religion in Latin America – PEW research center: http://www.pewforum.org/2014/11/13/religion-in-latin-america/
• 7 key takeaways about religion in Latin America – – PEW research center: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/13/7-key-takeaways-about-religion-in-latin-america/
• Giving in Latin America – a Question of Culture – Global Fund: http://globalfund.org/giving-in-latin-america-a-question-of-culture-2/

Retreat Curriculum

• Personal testimony and character paramount – People becoming like Jesus so that others want to be with and be like them.
• Relational Evangelism training
  • Foundations – Basic Discipleship; have studied and taught
  • I Can Do That! Seminar training in Relational Evangelism – have studied and taught
• Apologetics
  • Listen to The Search For Meaning and The Search for Answers
  • Read and outline Interrogantes
  • Read 4 other books on Apologetics and relational evangelism
• Open Forum
  • Participate in, organize an Open Forum
  • Study How to moderate an Open Forum and lead an Open Forum
• Incarnational Ministry – The disciples on the Zacchaeus teams must be actively praying for and involved in relational evangelism with their “Zacchaeuses”.
• For more detail see the blog “Vision and Training Retreats”

The initial phase of this project is three to five years.

• The first wave. This project envisions transferring the vision and training the first wave of relational evangelists and disciplers over the next 3-5 years.
• The next wave. An integral part of this project is that the Zacchaeus team members be discipling both new believers and future team members, those who will be part of the second wave.
• Patience. Discipleship requires time and patience. This is not generally an instantaneous process.

By 2023. The vision though is that by 2023, there will be 30+ highly motivated disciples who not only have successfully completed the training but are actively involved in incarnational ministry with others.

• Mindful that ultimately God is responsible for the results we will evaluate progress and success in the following manner.
  • Trained and Functioning Relational Evangelists. Twenty-five to 30 Zacchaeus team members in Lima and Bogotá who have successfully completed the minimum requirements of their training.
  • New Believers. Sixty to 75 new believers actively being discipled by the friends who led them to faith in Christ.
  • The Next Wave. Forty to 50 new participants in Zacchaeus team training in their respective cities.
  • National Ministry Leadership. The emergence of at least one national leader to perpetuate the vision and the ministry in both Colombia and Perú.
  • National Vision and Supervision. This is a two-step process: ownership of the vision and then ownership of the mission. National boards in Colombia and Perú that assume both the role and responsibility for the vision, funding and healthy perpetuation of the mission.
• No more than 5 years. After no more than five years, the Houstons will assume the roles of encouragers and advisors to The Zacchaeus Project vision and mission in Colombia and Perú.

• • “Confused mules”. God has miraculously transformed countries in the past.  For instance, in the 1904 Welsh revival reportedly 100,000 people came to faith in Christ.  It had a tremendous impact on the whole country.  One somewhat humorous byproduct was that “Mules in the mines had to be retrained because the coal miners no longer used profanity when giving orders.”[1]  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if God did something like that again?
  • Fully Devoted Followers of Jesus. The desired long-term impact is that God would raise up fully devoted followers of Jesus in influential places in business, government and society in general in Latin American countries starting with Colombia and Perú.
  • Corruption reduced. As in many countries, corruption is ubiquitous – from top to bottom and bottom to top – and chronically entrenched in government and society.  Our prayer is that God would transform the lives of influential leaders to gradually transform both private and public sectors and all socio-economic levels, from top to bottom and bottom to top.
  • Failure is guaranteed only if there is no attempt. It is impossible to promise to do what only God can produce. One politician was warned not to present himself as a potential candidate for President because, if he did, he might fail.  His response was, “If I don’t, I’m guaranteed to fail.”
  • God has done it before, and He can do it again.

  [1] https://sermons.faithlife.com/sermons/36242-welsh-revival-1904

• • Our Neighbors – Starting with Mexico, the Latin America countries are our neighbors. What happens in Latin American countries eventually and inevitably impacts the United States.
  • Why are the problems in Latin American countries unfavorably impacting the United States?  Corruption.  Should we not have compassion for people suffering from poverty, dishonesty and violence by helping address the spiritual causes of the corruption?
• Benefits of Integrity. Reduced corruption, reduced inequity, increased justice will result in social and economic benefit for all in each country.
• Cities and Neighborhoods
  • Capital Cities. Thanks to the Spanish Conquistadores, who in turn can thank the model of Rome, the capital cities dominate the life, commerce and politics of the country.
  • Influential Neighborhoods. Thanks to the dominance of the capital cities an overwhelming percentage of the Influencers of each country live in select number of neighborhoods.
  • “Target rich” environments. The advantage of focusing on the Influential population as the target demographic, is that it offers a “target rich” environment being able to reach that demographic in a relatively small geographic area.
• Bottom line – Not only does The Zacchaeus Project make sense for Latin America, it can be very beneficial for the United States as well.

Please refer to the afore mentioned article Giving in Latin America – a Question of Culture – Global Fund: http://globalfund.org/giving-in-latin-america-a-question-of-culture-2/  

• In theory, yes.
  • There is a little help now and increasing that is one of our medium-term goals.
  • It should be noted that Latin American Christians are funding more and more of their churches and ministries.
• But the reality is that the “economic pie” in Latin American churches is still relatively small and there is much competition for slices of the pie.
• Furthermore, what we in the US would consider “wealthy” evangelical churches are a small percentage of churches in denominations made up of primarily rural and urban poor congregations and as such, the “wealthy” churches are expected to “carry the weight” not only on the national level but also to underwrite the emerging group of national missionaries in both domestic and international assignments.
• Lastly, the “wealthy donors” are a small percentage of the donors, even in a “wealthy” church and are those who “carry the weight” for the “wealthy” churches. In short, many of the people we are discipling are already shouldering a disproportionate financial responsibility.
• An important reason to get behind the Zacchaeus Project is that one of its intended byproducts is to expand the economic pie in evangelical circles. We appeal to you as generous donors in the USA to help us win to Christ people who may be able to expand the donor base in Latin America.

• Sentido a Tu Vida is the Spanish language expression of the vision, approach and practices of Search Ministries. As a ministry however, Sentido a Tu Vida is outside the normal purview of an English-speaking domestic mission focused on an Anglo culture.  Over the years has become increasingly apparent that Search is not oriented or equipped to adequately understand or supervise an international ministry in the Spanish language.
• Through the recommendation of their home church, the Houstons were introduced to TMS Global (tms-global.org/ ).
• After a thorough application and evaluation process the Houstons were invited to join the TMS Global team, a mission that has more than 140 workers in nearly 40 countries on 5 continents and is more appropriately structured to guide the ministry of Sentido a Tu Vida.