The International Community of Mennonite Brethren (ICOMB) is made up of 21 national churches in 19 countries with approximately 450,000 members. ICOMB exists to facilitate relationships and ministries to enhance the witness and discipleship of its member national churches – connecting, strengthening and expanding.

In October, the Trujillo church La Familia de Dios (The Family of God) commissioned 12 people (11 of them women) as ministers of the gospel after apprenticing them in a practical training program called Train & Multiply, introduced by Robert and Anne Thiessen of MB Mission/Multiply. The participants in the program have completed the first level of an ongoing apprenticeship. They received a laying on of hands and ICOMB recognition during the latest conference meeting and served the Lord’s Supper to the gathering of pastors. They are poised to multiply not only their own leadership over the next year, but also four new house churches in Trujillo, Peru.

After witnessing this, four other churches from the conference are now planning to adapt this model under the Trujillo church’s mentorship. This is a new model for the churches of Latin America, where churches multiply leadership and congregations through in-house, just-in-time, on-the-job apprenticeship, focused squarely on simple, loving obedience to Jesus – a truly Anabaptist approach.

—report from Anne Thiessen