We leave for Haiti in two weeks (Dec 15), and I’m excited about leading our newest course, Faire de disciples (Comment le faire?). That’s the French title of PPI’s Course 4. In English, it’s Make Disciples: How do we do it? I work closely with Pastor Isaiah and a translation team to translate every PPI course into Creole – with French titles and Thompson Bible references. Training in Haiti is a trilingual adventure!
Haitian church leaders can’t wait to take “Kou 4.” They’ve heard about it, especially this year, and have asked when we will offer it. The time has come! In Creole, “kou” means “course,” and the word for 4 is “kat.” So “Kou 4” sounds like “coo cot.” Now you know more Creole. 🙂
Kou 4 begins with a welcome, description of the course, and details about our three days of training. That’s Session 1. In Sessions 2-3, we take time to review how to use the Thompson Bible, strategically looking up Bible topics that relate to this particular course – justification, justification of self impossible, and blessings of justification. Kou 4 focuses on growing as a Christian and helping others grow so we want to first remind church leaders of our salvation and security in Christ, which we study thoroughly in Kou 2. All that takes us to lunchtime of our first day.
For the next 2-1/2 days, we dive into the heart of Kou 4 – Sessions 4-9:
- How Jesus “builds” His church (Matthew 16:16-18)
- New Testament study of “building up” one another and its connection with “teaching to obey” in Matthew 28:20.
- Three barriers to making disciples and the starting point for spiritual growth
- How Jesus and early church leaders made disciples
- How God changes us
Church leaders learn all this through teaching, assignments that include group study and discussion, and question/answer times. We strive to keep each pastor engaged in discovering, thinking, discussing and applying!
In Sessions 8-9, we get practical, starting first with our own families. We’ll say, “If we allow God to humble us and grow us in discipling our own family, we can become strong, effective disciple-makers of others!” Then we’ll talk through simple, consistent ways to build up our spouse and children in Christ. In Session 9, we drill down on how to focus ALL ministries of our church on intentionally making disciples. We’ll study the Apostle Paul’s ministry pattern, and talk through what various church ministries add to making disciples (or not). Our final assignment (Assignment 11) leads pastors through an assessment of their personal and church disciple-making strengths and possible growth areas.
We will conclude Kou 4 with a time of recognition, celebration and dedication – the way we end all PPI courses.
Please pray for us as we lead Kou 4 in Ouanaminthe on December 18-20. We anticipate a full course of 112 church leaders. Mèsi anpil (thank you)!
Click HERE for an English-language copy (PDF) of the Kou 4 workbook.
Q. Where can I buy a passport?
Q. What else do we get with the passport?
We’ve lived in our house for nearly 20 years, and it’s time for a face lift. We tackled the bathrooms first, and to save money, we’re doing a lot of the work ourselves. (Pray for us!) Time, patience, YouTube and the right tools make the world go ‘round when you’re remodeling a room in your house. Thank the Lord for cordless drills and trim nailers!
We also got bad news this past week 
So we’re going to Haiti in December as planned!
Dr. Michael Ortiz, director of the International Council of Evangelical Theological Education (ICETE), will present. PPI is a member of ICETE, and I know Michael Ortiz personally from Dallas Seminary. I had the opportunity to attend the ICETE conference in Izmir, Turkey last November, and it was amazing! I look forward to hearing an update from Dr. Ortiz on this webcast and encourage you to join me!
1. Pray for this fund-raiser to be successful for PPI and for participating shops! We think it’s a good side gig that can benefit our ministry efforts in Haiti and other developing countries, and we want it to be win-win for small businesses, too.
