About our Pastors:
Only a handful of pastors in our churches have any formal training in the Bible. Most are simply literate enough to read God’s Word, and spiritually mature enough to be identified as leaders in their churches. You can expect around 60-90 pastors, deacons, other church leaders, and their wives to be in attendance – perhaps 5-10 women and the rest men.
Purpose of the Conference:
Our pastor’s conferences give our pastors an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of God’s Word that they can share with their congregations. In addition to this, it also gives us an opportunity to engage with our pastors and check on the status of their churches and needs. They encourage each other with their conversations about their struggles and successes in ministry and they are refreshed in revival services in the evening (which the American teachers do not need to attend).
Cost:
In addition to the regular fees for visitors, which cover the cost of your stay, we also need $3,500 to cover the cost of the conference. This covers around 1,000 meals for the visiting pastors, as well as transportation reimbursement to pastors who live up to 8 hours away and would not be able to afford coming to the conference without help. It also helps cover incidentals like mattresses for visiting pastors. Typically, the sending church provides this cost, though we can occasionally find a donor who is willing to fund this part of a conference.
Schedule:
Of course, timing for an event like this in Haiti is never exact and is flexible. However, our staff does their best to make the conferences run reasonably close to the schedule below.
The conference runs from Tuesday to Friday to allow Pastors to be at their churches on Sunday. The teaching times are from approximately 9-5:30, with a 90-minute break for lunch. The Tuesday session starts a bit later (closer to 10) and the Friday session gets out early (12-1). In addition to the teaching, the pastors also do some singing and prayer during that time. After accounting for the singing and prayer, you will control around six hours of instruction each day and four on Friday. This gives you a total of 22 hours of teaching and interaction.
We encourage you to save up to a third of your time for questions and answers. Our pastors love to engage with your material. Like anywhere else, it may take some time for the first person to come up with a question, but once he does, many more will follow.
Don’t forget to account for translation taking half of your time. So, in a three-hour block, you only need one hour of English material, adding one hour for translation, and one hour for Q&A (broken up however you like).