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Over the last six months Hispanics for Christ and Kairos University have been rolling out our partnership in theological education. We have been developing the same Kairos program model in Spanish to be used with Spanish-speaking church leaders across the Americas. We can now offer accredited degrees from bachelor’s level through the Doctor of Ministry.
As of May, we have 23 students from Canada, the United States, Mexico, Bolivia, Columbia, Uruguay, and Argentina enrolled in programs! This is possible because of generous individuals and churches helping with our scholarship fund, which supplements the monthly tuition of these students. Additionally, this takes the commitment of our four faculty mentors who guide these students on their educational journey. We are exploring how this program might support and serve as another level of preparation for three Pastor Training Centers in Mexico and Argentina.
This educational partnership is leading to new church planting and collaboration for church planting among Hispanics. One of our students in the Master of Divinity program, Emilio Vasquez, is planting a new Hispanic ministry within Salt Creek Baptist in Dallas, Oregon. Pastor David Curtis serves on his mentor team, along with Pastor Sorin Crivceag, who planted a Hispanic ministry at West Hills Community Church in Salem, Oregon. Another of our students, Jose Obando, is a member at Hope Point in Tacoma, Washington. Pastor Phil Long is helping prepare Jose with his theological education through Kairos/HFC, with the idea of sending Jose to Nicaragua to develop a Pastor Training Center there to prepare men to plant churches in Central America.
A final example of fruit from this Kairos–HFC partnership is in Mexico. One of our new students in the DMin program, Pastor Mauricio Rivas from Village Church in Beaverton, Oregon, is focusing his project on designing a program to deliver theological education to pastors in eastern Mexico. He has invited Tony Campos and me to speak at a conference in Nogales, Mexico, in June. They have invited almost 150 pastors from the Yucatan Peninsula and other parts of eastern Mexico to attend. We hope to develop this relationship into a church-planting movement collaborating between several different groups and mission agencies.
We have additional opportunities and invitations from students in Uruguay, Northern Argentina, and Cuba that we don’t have the resources to respond to. If your church would be interested in partnering with HFC and the church networks in these countries, to be directly involved with them, we would love to speak about this!