I’ve never been quite sure what to do with dreams. But I had a very striking one in early 2023. The more I pondered and prayed about it I became persuaded it was something I needed to act on. It was a dream of training leaders in Portugal!
I experienced my first International Leadership Institute (ILI) training in 2012. It was the best training for leaders I had ever experienced and at their request I began organizing annual trainings here in the northeast of Brazil with in-person conferences every year after that.
An in-person ILI leadership training event in Recife.
Over the next ten years we motivated and mobilized roughly 400 regional leaders to renew their personal intimacy with God, focusing on evangelism, multiplying other leaders, taking care of their families, being faithful stewards, and pursuing the Lord and His calling with integrity.
We focus on leaders of all kinds. Wives of pastors and missionaries, Sunday school teachers, preachers, elders, and evangelists. If you’re not leading children, a small group or an entire church, it’s our prayer and goal that some day you will be, and you’ll be engaged in carrying forth the Gospel to the men, women, and children of this lost world (Matthew 28:19-20).
During the pandemic with ILI’s help we pivoted to an online format via Zoom, and trained leaders all over Brazil. At last count there have been close to a thousand Brazilian leaders in conferences organized and taught by our team or leaders we trained who went on to train others (2 Timothy 2:2). All to God’s glory!
Leadership training online during the pandemic.
But I kept hearing something that stuck with me. Of all the Portuguese speaking countries in the world, the only one without an ILI team multiplying leaders was Portugal. Of all places, I mean, the birthplace of Portuguese, right? I didn’t know if that was behind my dream, but what I dreamed in 2023 was that I was taking our team of ILI facilitators from Recife to Lisbon to host the first ILI conference in Portugal.
Fast forward to the fall of 2023 and as we tried to organize that conference it seemed like every possible delay and obstacle arose. So, I decided to travel to Portugal myself. With the help of friends I met with one leader, then another, then another. All of them said the best way to start any kind of training to reach leaders in Portugal was through the Evangelical Portuguese Alliance.
And wouldn’t you just know that one of the leaders I met worked with the director of that Alliance! And wouldn’t you just know that when I met Pastor Josué da Ponte (the Alliance’s director), turns out he had gone through ILI’s training online during the pandemic and loved it! And he was thrilled with the idea of hosting a conference in Lisbon!
Along the way I discovered there were significant cultural and even language barriers that many Brazilians moving to Portugal hadn’t picked up on. As a result they were missing critical keys to connecting with Portuguese Christians and evangelizing the lost in Portugal. We decided to focus on Portuguese leaders and with ILI’s funding even commissioned a new translation of the 130 page History Makers manual we launched with this training!
With Pastor Josue’s help we held our first official ILI leadership conference in Lisbon June 24th – 26th. When I arrived in Portugal two weeks prior we had nine leaders signed up. Three dropped out, but the Lord moved another 15 to take their place and we were able to graduate 21 leaders that week! So many things fell into place it was literally like living a dream.
Watch the video of our training!
We didn’t get a full conference of Portuguese leaders, but we did get eight Portuguese, eight Brazilians sensitive to the cultural changes needed to reach the Portuguese, and five Angolans living in Portugal. Everybody loved the training! Please pray for our plans to mobilize and multiply this training in Portugal!
I almost forgot! The dream about taking our team of facilitators from Recife to Portugal? As it turned out, the only Portuguese leader who was able to teach with me was Josué. He and I taught half of the 15 classes and the other half were taught via Zoom by our Brazilian facilitators and ILI’s own Norival Trindade! In a very real sense the dream came true! Even though our team couldn’t join me in person, they helped train leaders in Portugal and the Lord saved us the cost of the plane tickets!
Thank you so much for your prayers for this ministry. ILI is a non-denominational, biblically based, practical, and motivating training that I would highly recommend to any Christian leader.
And I thank you for your prayers and support for leadership training, street ministry and internet ministry. Old men still can dream dreams, and some times, by the Lord’s grace and in his mysterious ways those dreams can even come true. Thank you Jesus!
