Breaking Down The Barriers

A brief note from Paul Johnson, regarding the Amazon Consultation (ALTECO):

God is breaking down the barriers ... that has throttled true partnerships, and now the spirit of cooperation is stunning.... Four years ago, many skeptics told us it would take a "Red Sea caliber miracle" to get mission agencies to work together! Well guess what? He opened the sea again, and we're now learning to walk across on dry ground .. hand in hand, and shoulder to shoulder with our tribal and national brothers as well!!

• We had 72 participants - 23 returnees & 49 first timers .. more than 100% increase from 2005!


• Delegates represented 41 distinct organizations - 22 previously involved, and 19 new ones!


• In three Amazon Consultations to date, we've had a total of 142 delegates, from 54 organizations!


• There are 12 individuals from 10 organizations who have attended all three consultations to date!


• We are now in touch with a total of 86 organizations, about the annual consultations!


• We anticipate another 100% increase in 2007, and are planning for 150 - 200 participants next year!

ALTECO's focus is the 400+ tribes of the Amazon region, but the Asians and Africans have approached Alteco leaders for help in replicating what we're doing in their areas of the world as well. Of course, we're thrilled to help our brothers anywhere, and anticipate - in God's time - the formation of "GLECO" - the Global Empowerment Coalition!

The Challenge Before Us

Thursday night’s sessions began with Paul Johnson laying out “The Challenge Before Us”. Some time ago, the question was asked to missionaries, “If we take all the missionaries out of the Amazon, how many of the tribes could stand on their own?” The surprising (to me) response? 2-5%! So the challenge placed before us is that our strategy must change dramatically and soon.

What Paul was talking about, in a word, is self-sufficiency. Another word? Empowerment. Think of a father-son relationship. Within tribes, a father will teach his son to hunt or to fish. The father doesn’t teach so he can sit back and let his son do all the work. He also doesn’t teach so his son can go off on his own, disregarding the family either. The father teaches his son the skills that he needs to help contribute to the family, and to be able to take care of himself, if he ever needs to.

In an ideal world, the relationship between missionaries and tribes would be like the relationship between the father and son just mentioned. But missionaries have been reluctant to teach the skills, or to step back and encourage the tribal Christians to exercise their gifts. The issue is full of cultural complexities on both sides, but the end result has been that the missionaries believe that the Amazonian church will not be able to function when and if they leave. Clearly, this is not what God intends for the Amazonian churches.

The Bible teaches us that we all need each other. We are all part of one body, and we are each given a gift by the Spirit that is meant to be used within the Body. The key is in the equipping. “…these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” So the challenge before us is to equip and empower the Amazonian churches. The difficulty is that empowerment is difficult to accomplish and hard to measure. The fruit will come in the long run, but we are a results-oriented society, so we (our donors, our organizations and churches) want to see the fruit now.

The harsh reality is that many of the South American countries have already begun kicking out the missionaries. More are thinking about it. Peru is currently moving to block access to the tribes. A candidate in the current Peruvian election has stated that he wants the missionaries out. So the time is now to move from dependency on the missionaries to dependency on God.