The fifth Project Paul event held in 2017 was in the Comarca Lagunera zone in Mexico from November 25 to December 17. The zone includes 3 larges cities in 2 states of Mexico. The cities are Toerreon Coahuila City, Gomez Palacios and Lerdo de Tejada City in Durango. More than 1.5 million people live in the zone, and the Church of the Nazarene has 3 congregations with a total of less than 100 members.
The goal of Project Paul is to accomplish the goals of Vision 20/20, which is a project of the global Church of the Nazarene with an emphasis especially in church planting and multiplying cell groups in homes. Project Paul originally functioned with volunteer missionaries who served for 3 weeks during their vacation time. Now the volunteers may serve in their available time around their work schedule. The change has allowed many more people to serve in the different evangelism and discipleship projects.
The Bethel Church of the Nazarene with leadership from their pastor, Pastor Omar Gonzalez, accepted the challenge to host the event. They planned to work in 4 neighborhoods in 3 cities. The neighborhoods were El Centenario, La Ex Hacienda de la Perla, Chapala, and Lerdo City. They also worked in the more distant cities of Paso Nacional and Santiago Papasquiaro.
Twenty-three volunteers from the Bethel Church participated along with Silvia Gomez, the church planter in Santiago Papasquiaro. In this time of arduous work, 372 people accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Of that group, 284 were adults and 90 were children. They also helped to strengthen the leadership of one church and opened 5 new missions, which is the same number as the number of neighborhoods in which they served. The local church and the church planters have begun to disciple the new believers.
If you would like more information about Project Paul, please write to Pastor Manuel Molina at manuelmolinaf@hotmail.com
Source: Pastor Manuel Molina Flores, Project Paul Coordinator
