There is a growing missions movement from countries all over Latin America. God is calling them to his harvest field, and it’s exciting to see this increasing desire and enthusiasm to be a part of God’s mission.

Yet sending missionaries is a new endeavor for most of these churches. Fewer than 1% of Latin American churches have sent a missionary and they sense a need for support with training, member care, and ministry oversight.

Avant has had a strong presence throughout Latin America for decades, and we believe God has placed us in a unique position to join Him in what He is doing by coming alongside Latin churches and supporting them to send missionaries to the least reached parts of the world.

In 2019, Avant launched an initiative called Avant Español, to mobilize, train, and care for Spanish-speaking missionaries. Since then, sixteen missionaries have been appointed to serve with our teams globally. Nine of those missionaries are on the field and seven are currently raising their support to go.

Raising support has been challenging for many of our Spanish-speaking members. Often, they have fewer opportunities in their country to find church partners, and finances are generally more limited. Two years ago, we established a project called the Global South Missionary Launch Fund to assist our Latin missionaries with their one-time outgoing expenses such as airfare, visas, house furnishings, training, language studies, and other initial costs. The fund is used as a matching grant, financing up to half of the missionaries’ outgoing expenses while asking their ministry partners to provide the other half.

One of our Avant Español appointees from Mexico, Luis, is raising his support to join one of our teams in Spain. He thanks those who have given to this project saying, “Your generosity moved many hearts to give and encouraged people to be a part of God’s mission. Your giving motivated me to work hard at building relationships and finding new ministry partners. Thank you for being an instrument of great value in the work of God.”