Part I Prayer Requests for Leadership Training-Low ropes course facilitation

Prayer Requests for Lisa Anderson-Umana, September 2008

I mailed out the following prayer requests on Sept. 13 during a CCI/Latin America leadership development course (Low Ropes course facilitation) and many prayed for one of the key leaders in attendance, Cristian, the director of Way of Grace Retreat Center:

“Cristián, there’s no question that God has given you the gift of leadership; it oozes out of every pore of your body. But this weekend let me offer you a leadership challenge: Lead in such a way as to mobilize, harmonize and enhance the God- given gifts of others…”
Cristián nodded his head and smiled: “I can see you are up to something Lisa, let me look for a strategy.”
I returned the smile and we parted ways, each one off to find a cozy spot in the midst of God’s creation for our Quiet Time.
, we are in the midst of a long weekend of 44-hours of training. I dashed back to our house (we live two blocks away) over dinner to send out this fresh prayer request and to invite you to: “…Stay here and keep watch with me" Matthew 26:38.
God has brought CCI /LA forty people together, hailing from Venezuela, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, and Honduras. Experiential Leadership is the title of this workshop (facilitating for low ropes course team-building initiatives).
Specific prayer requests:
• Pray for those for whom this is their first exposure to a style of leadership that doesn’t lead from the front, domineering and imposing itself on others, but rather an inductive style of leadership that leads from the midst of the group, bringing out the best in others (mobilizing, harmonizing and enhancing the God-given gifts of others toward a common purpose).
• The team of trainers is a dream team with Rixy, Xenia, Carlos and Oscar from El Salvador, Sergio from Guatemala, and Melba, Kenia and Carlos from Honduras. Pray for each one of us to exemplify Christ in all our words and actions. Our every move is being closely observed and analyzed!
• Once the training ends on Monday afternoon, pray for their application of this new style of leadership their youth group, churches (we have 4 pastors in the group), camps (we have 3 full-time camp administrators present) and place of work.
• Pray for people to grasp the power of the inductive of leading reflections, i.e.e not preaching but rather drawing out from the group lessons learned from their experiences on the ropes course.
, thank you for staying and keeping watch with me in prayer,
Lisa
PS. This training is the compliment of what the Short-Term missions team from North Way Christian Community, Pittsburgh, PA, built this summer in Honduras. First we built 8 ropes course elements and now CCI LA/Honduras is training leaders how to use them for Villa Gracia (Way of Grace Retreat Center).

(Cristian is pictured here to the right helping to build one of the 8 low ropes course initiatives at his camp.)


Part II --Cristian's testimony of the impact of the Training is to follow immediately