SEPAL Guatemala is located in Guatemala City, but their ministry reaches to the far corners of their country and into Costa Rica. The team is made up of Guatemalan and American missionaries, using their gifts to support the Guatemalan church through short term ministry, leadership development, children and youth ministry, sports ministry, special needs projects, and more.
Hector Pivaral is the Director of our SEPAL team in Guatemala. Hector and his wife Patty focus most of their ministry on training pastors and assisting churches. Last month they travelled to Peten, a journey of 14 hours, to visit some of their team members and to launch a training program for Pastors. They will continue to travel to this region to provide training through their three-year Biblical Education Program (PEB).
Their first course was on 2 Timothy. One student said, "I studied Theology, but I had never studied the Bible this way. I need to know my Bible more."
At another location in San Pablo Laguna, they taught a course on Genesis. Again, many of the pastors commented that they learned so much from studying the Bible with Hector and Patty. There were things that they believed that were not Biblical. These leaders are deepening their understanding of scripture through this training that would not be available to them if Hector and Patty were not willing and able to travel and take the gospel to the far corners of their country. Last year our Guatemala team (only seven members) trained 554 leaders, hosted 218 short term workers, and provided assistance to over 600 churches.
Hector is another great example of someone God has called from a secular occupation into missionary service. He is a highly educated civil engineer who now uses his gifts to build the church!