April 11, 2012 – Panajachel, Guatemala….Libna Stevens/IAD
Thousands of Seventh-day Adventists gathered earlier this month at Lake Atitlan in northwest Guatemala to witness the baptism of hundreds of new members. Many of the spectators were there to see the results of their months-long efforts of bringing the gospel to their friends and neighbors.
“You are leaving your past behind and will begin a new life, with new dreams and new desires,” said Pastor Israel Leito, president of the church in Inter-America, to those in the baptismal robes gathered at the lakeshore. He also appealed to the friends and families of the baptismal candidates to seek a readiness for heaven.
“It’s an amazing moment that we are experiencing today,” said Pastor Abraham Tzic, field secretary of the 16,000-member Northwest Adventist Mission office in Totonicapan, Guatemala. “It’s a real blessing how many are getting baptized just today.” More than 320 new members were baptized in the lake.
“These aren’t all who were scheduled to get baptized today, only about 80 percent are here,” said Pastor Tzic. “Many could not come because of the distance and will be baptized in their churches.”
The church in Guatemala has been evangelizing aggressively, holding more than 1,000 campaigns resulting in nearly 5,000 baptisms in the last three months, said Pastor Gustavo Menendez, personal ministries director for the church in Guatemala.
For years, all eight regions of the church in Guatemala have been holding massive baptisms at Lake Atitlan once a year on the last Sunday of every first quarter, according to Pastor Menendez.
“We decided to just hold the northwest mission region at Lake Atitlan because of the increasing efforts from laypeople who enrolled in Inter-America’s Vision One Million discipleship program, and sharing the Gospel,” said Pastor Menendez. Each region held its baptisms.
According to Pastor Menendez, 310 were baptized at the lake last year and that included the northwest region and the three fields in Guatemala City. So far 796 joined the church between all regions on that day.
Pastor Tzic, who oversees 28 churches and congregations in three districts, said there are 1,200 active church members registered in the discipleship program since October 2011, and plans are to have up to 3,000 by the end of this year, bringing a total of 7,500 active church members trained in 2012.
With a shortage of pastors, Vision 60,000, the name the church in Guatemala gave to its own discipleship enrollment program, has drawn more participation from church members and laypeople who have taken it upon themselves to dive into spiritual revival and taken the call of reaching others around them with the gospel very seriously, said Guenther Garcia, president of the church in Guatemala.
“So far, this has been a record breaking year for Guatemala,” explained Garcia. Garcia has been closely leading evangelism efforts throughout the country. He added that the 120 pastors and 35,000 active church members have been doubling their efforts to offer hope and prepare people for the Second Coming of Jesus.
The fast growth of the church in Guatemala has local and top church leaders talking about upgrading three mission offices to conference level status, and two experimental regions to be upgraded to mission status.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Guatemala has more than 239,000 members worshipping in 950 churches and congregations. The church also operates 27 primary and secondary schools.
For more information on the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Guatemala, visit
http://www.uniondeguatemala.org/
To view a photo gallery of the Baptisms event at Lake Atitlan, click here
