Missionaries to Venezuela

We are Paul and Robin Tinley. Both of us grew up in Mexico as missionary kids. For nearly twenty years, God has given us the privilege of serving in Venezuela. Our three children, now married adults, were raised here. Our primary role in relation to TeamOriente is teaching and training - - specifically, helping prepare Venezuelan believers as full partners in sharing the Gospel, starting new churches, and going to unreached peoples.

Here is the latest e-mail from Paul and Robin

In the five months since our move, “Go” could be our motif. We have been on the road more than 7 of

those 19 weeks since, beginning two days after we got here. Mobilizing Venezuelans to cross-cultural

missions means we stay mobilized! By far the greatest impact on us, which we believe also will be of

greatest benefit in sending Venezuelans to unreached peoples, were three weeks spent amongst non-

Westerners and in restricted countries. That opened our eyes like nothing else to the great needs, the

great obstacles, & the great challenges of presenting Christ in cultures with millennium of resistance

to the Gospel. It also helped us define the gaps to be filled here in order to get people there.

We aren’t the only ones going! One Venezuelan who is preparing for service in India, while continuing

to plant churches here. A “city gal” moves this year to a tribal group for missions service. One of our own graduates from the Cross-Cultural Training Center is preparing to head to a restricted nation to minister to unreached peoples. At our recent national convention a Venezuelan missionary to Africa shared what God is doing there.

A number of Venezuelan churches are sponsoring volunteer mission trips this year to ethnic groups here and to other countries (including some with difficult access for us). The Venezuelan Baptist Department of Missions and Evangelism is heading up four cross-cultural trips this year. When we receive volunteers from the U.S. we see two things happen: Some of them hear God’s call to serve full-time cross-culturally, and most of the group go back to the states with a totally new understanding of and heart for missions. We hope and pray for similar results as Venezuelans go on mission trips.

As in The Chronicles of Narnia, where “Aslan is on the move,” God is on the move.

Give

Lately, several individual Venezuelans and Venezuelan churches remind us of II Cor. 8:2, where Paul (the Apostle!) commends the church for giving sacrificially in the midst of their poverty. We have been witnessing committed believers and churches here giving more - in the midst of economic hardships - to missions.

Others are giving their time here in Venezuela, with the result (among others) of 35 new Baptist churches constituted this year. Below: Venezuelan missionaries on the platform, with several of the representatives from the 29 churches that joined the convention this year lined up before the convention delegates.

Pray

Two simultaneous four-day Prayer Congresses will be taking place in Venezuela April 28 to May 1, one in the east and one in the west. This is an opportunity for people learn what the Bible says about prayer as a bridge, prayer as strategy, forming a prayer ministry, and other aspects of prayer, as well as to participate in around-the-clock prayer vigils (2 hours at a time!). We will be helping with the western one for the first time. Venezuelans teams will be working in both. All of us would appreciate your prayers as we prepare to lead

in the area of prayer! Pray that this would be a time of genuine drawing near to God, seeking His face, and spending time with Him. Pray that those who come will have a new or renewed vision of what a daily prayer life can signify in their own lives and in Kingdom growth.

Go, give, pray - - these are three biblical mandates we continually share. God grant that we each are doing all three!

In Him,

Paul & Robin Tinley

For information on eastern Venezuela, please visit www.byhisgrace.cc/teamoriente/

(Note that the contact email is the one on this letter, not the one on this web site, and

that we currently don’t have a blog.)

For information on more mission work in other areas, visit www.imb.org.

For more information and photos go to : TINLEY TIMES or click here

We are continuing to gather information on these dedicated missionaries.

Venezuela is not a safe place.

For security reasons contact information is limited.

You may e-mail Paul & Robin Tinley at:

ptinley@samregion.com