Josué Benites is a graduate of The Seminary for Expository Preaching (SEPE) who is currently involved in two rural church plants in the department of Francisco Morazán, one being Iglesia Bautista Bethel in Mata de Plátano, and the other being Iglesia Bautista Casa de Oración in Zinguizapa – two communities an hour or so away from each other. His story is the second in a series highlighting God’s work around Honduras through biblically equipped pastors.
Since he was little, Josué attended an evangelical church with his parents. By the time he was a teenager, God brought him under conviction of his sin, and as time passed, he became more and more aware of his true position in Christ as a believer, having understood the truth of the gospel and having been faithfully involved in church.
God eventually led him to SEPE with a desire to preach His Word, “a desire that I didn’t have before,” he says.
“Since I was a child, I said that I did not want to be a pastor, but over time, God put that desire in me, and I went looking for a seminary.”
He visited MEDA to gather information after being told about it by a brother who had attended conferences there, upon which he applied to SEPE Honduras, was accepted, and ultimately graduated in 2017.
Since then, his efforts have been sovereignly pulled in more than one direction.
In and surrounding a region brimming with plantain and tangerine trees, he is ministering to two church plants, about 12 miles near and far from each other, that are taking steps towards becoming independent.
The burden in these communities is manifold. For one, Catholicism has a strong presence, with as many as five Catholic churches drawing a population of only a couple thousand. Many families also leave for the winter to harvest their crops, making Mata de Plátano a ghost town for a few months every year. Not to mention, many adolescents leave as they get older to attend high school, at which point they are lost to the world.
In a third community called Carrizal, ministry is made more difficult because of charismatic resistance propagating the lie that their doctrine is demonic. Early motherhood and child abuse are also rampant in these poor, agrarian areas.
In response to these challenges, Josué and the godly men he is raising up for ministry are largely focused on faithfully preaching God’s Word and serving the children of these communities. In this way, children’s ministry often becomes an opportunity to get an evangelistic foot in the door. As family attendance then grows, they work to reinforce other ministries for men and women, such as small groups and days of prayer.
Josué recalls a story of the Lord’s faithfulness in this regard.
Throughout the pandemic, most churches had closed, so children who would normally attend other churches in the area were attending Iglesia Bautista Bethel. After the pandemic, however, a united effort was made to focus on ministering to kids who had no home church. As a result, some of those in attendance left for their individual churches, and it soon became clear that many children were no longer going to any church at all.
Like the lost sheep, they pursued them by paying them a visit, and the Lord quickly bore the fruit.
“The following Saturday, we had 15 children who were returning once again, who had been with us since they were little, but who had been absent,” Josué says.
“From that point on, they have been faithful – Saturdays, Sundays, any day that you invite them to children’s group.”
For Josué, the most satisfying part of ministry is “knowing that we are doing God’s work.”
“Every discouragement that may occur due to different circumstances, [we are] focused on the fact that it is for the glory of God,” he says. “That encourages us to keep doing the work of God and to remain on site, trusting that God is building His church in this place.”
HOW YOU CAN PRAY
- Pray for Josué and his family, that they would be able to continue serving the Lord and have the strength and health to do so.
- Pray for the spiritual and numerical growth of the church plants in the area they serve.
- Pray for the futures of the children and youth in the various communities, that they would be faithfully involved in the church and attain a good quality of life.
