Letter to supporting Church.

Jim and Jeanne Lowell- Missionaries to the Latin America-Caribbean

1)       A description of your visions and direction for your current ministry area.

Jeanne and I serve as the Directors for Graduates Studies for The Caribbean School of Theology (CST) exists to serve the region by request of the National Churches of the region. The Caribbean Fellowship of Assemblies of God Executives (CFAGE ) have requested that CST provide them with a mobile seminary with roving faculty that supplements the three-year Bible Institute program with a complete academic year of advanced studies leading to a B.A. degree. This is accomplished by conducting on-site annual and semiannual seminars in each participating country.

In addition to the B.A. studies, CST was asked by the executive (CFAGE) of the region to launch an M.A. program. CST is unique in that it brings together pool of experienced minister-students creating a dynamic and practical learning environment. Missionaries who have involved themselves in CST studies have found that relationships with their national peers have been greatly enhanced. The word has gotten out that CST studies are grueling as students read and study to complete an M.A. course in a two week period, three hours a day, usually with five texts, four major papers, and a final paper that represents what is known as “Can’t Sleep Tonight! (CST) But ask any of several hundred present or former students and graduates what CST means and they will tell you that CST gave them the tools to become more effective Christian leaders, pastors, and teachers.

2)       Why the change from Foreign to U.S. based missions.

I was asked to direct the Graduate Studies ministry in four different regions of the world. The assignment I felt right about but the question came was more about where. When Lewis and Cassie McCown came to our home and asked us to join them in the Caribbean and Latin America area of ministry I was first of all feeling, “after India, the Caribbean is hardly a mission field.”

Jeanne and I both have earned PhD degrees in InterCultural Education. We direct the Graduate studies program of the Caribbean School of Theology (CST) that serves the Caribbean/West Indies and South America (Suriname and Guyana); making available a Masters of Arts degree in Ministerial Studies. This is a roving seminary that offers presently 12 graduate seminars and next year will be 18. I teach and preach in every location that I go, resulting in nine traveling teaching assignments this past year. Any location in the region to live would increase expense and travel time. Coordination of books and class needs from any of the other countries I go to would be difficult. The visiting professors that need scheduled and having access to records from other locations would be more difficult as well. Resulting from these needs and problems, we are a mobile seminary with roving faculty. We go to the leaders of each of these nations to teach. In our seminars we have the leading pastors, the national leadership (Superintendent, Assist Supt., Treasurer, Secretary, Committee member, Bible School Principal, and Faculty of National Bible Schools). We have a unique responsibility and privilege to teach the national decision makers for the Assemblies of God in the region. I have been raising money for a Bible School Project in Suriname where there has been no Bible school ($50,000), a library project for establishing libraries in each of these nations’ Bible Schools that CST works in ($20,000). CST MA course projects of $36,000 for new MA course.

3)       The opportunity presented to meet the great commission calling through this assignment.

The Caribbean region has been mission receivers rather than a mission’s force. Two very real victories are the proposed National Strategies for missions that are now being presented to the Presbytery in two nations, Jamaica and Guyana. It should be noted that The Bahamas is 65 yrs old, Belize is 61, Jamaica is 71, Guyana is 51, and Suriname is 45 years old as Assemblies of God churches.

The reality is that not one missionary has been sent from these nations by that national church which is an Assemblies of God Church. One of the reasons of my being part of CST, and part of my calling is to challenge these nations to become Great Commission Churches and to participate with God in His Mission to the Nations of the earth. To live locally and to care globally is a need for our churches both home and abroad. Jamaica and Guyana are first among our region to take up this challenge. They believe that they are to be participants in taking this Gospel to the ends of the earth. I believe our teaching and mentoring these national church leaders has brought about this difference. God is doing a new thing in the key leaders of these nations and they are presenting to their National presbytery "A Strategy for Missions."

4)       The length of time, as a part of this ministry, you are planning on being U.S. based.

We are presently living in Springfield. I would like to change this to a major city by virtue of the fact that airline tickets are cheaper from hub areas into every one of these countries. The need of location in ministry is not so much Springfield, but a location that would give me ease of travel to the nations in which we minister. I can fly out of Seattle saving $200-$250 per ticket.

·       The Bahamas- Nassua, Abaco

·       Jamaica-

·       Belize

·       Guyana

·       Trinidad-Tobago
      Turks and Caicos

·       Suriname

The reality is that I teach in all of these nations. Out of the twelve graduate study courses that are taught, leading to the MA Ministry degree, I teach either four or five of these courses. We presently deliver three courses a year in four nations. By September we will be including two more destinations that will require six more seminars, meaning as high aseighteen teaching seminars a year. I am home very little already. In any case, travel from Suriname to Guyana is travel that takes me back either to Trinidad or to Miami then Georgetown. Travel from Belize means back to Atlanta then to Dallas, Miami to The Bahamas or Jamaica. We could have based in Florida but entry level housing was more than all of us could bare cost wise, along with storm and weather conditions that didn’t seem friendly especially if you are not there for repairs with damage that goes with the location.

At the present time I feel the work we are doing in training leadership at the level we do and the nations that we are influencing in this training are strategic. Our plan is to continue on with this present ministry.

The following comes from a missionary who sat in the last missions course in the country of Jamaica, where a national strategy of missions was forged through a combination of lectures, reading, prayer and the meaningful contribution of other courses as Biblical Theology of Missions, and Missions from the Two-Thirds World that I taught in this country. I got this in a paper and was correcting it today.

It is important for missionaries from third-world cultures to receive proper training before being sent to evangelize the World. As a new missionary arriving in the country of _________, I have been a witness to something I feel very excited about; the opportunity to be involved with the establishment of the ___________ Assemblies of God World Mission’s Program. As I sat and observed the hearts of the men, who I believe have a focus and desire to carry out the Great Commission, and to also know that the desire and heart of the Assemblies of God is to carry out the Great Commission, what a great and exciting time it is to be here in __________. To know that I may be able to witness the sending of the first _________ Assemblies of God missionary to go beyond the boundaries of this nation, beyond self, and most of all beyond the boundaries of everything that is familiar and comfortable is a privilege and a momentous event. What an awesome responsibility it is for those who have set under powerful teaching, challenged to participate with God in missio Dei, and standing, touched by God, and offering this general council to take up the challenge of obedience of the Harvest Master, men who have now realized that God is calling them to reach beyond the boundaries of their homeland and to reach the lost and dying of this world.

Two nations have as a result of teaching and mentoring leaders have brought change to their National Church to include the World into their focus, sending missionaries into their reason for being, with funding, training and oversight of missionaries selected.