Different Direction

We are writing to inform you that there are changes ahead for our family. We have decided that we will resign from ABWE and pursue missions in a new direction. There are many things that influence this decision, and we want to focus on the positive. First, we desire to leave ABWE on good terms. We respect them as an organization, the people in the home office and the missionaries on the field are passionate followers of Jesus. We love and admire them. Second, there is no change in doctrine from us or ABWE. We have no disagreements here.

The Church Plant: The new direction has been born out of very positive developments. We see many positive things for the church plant (La Gracia) here in Nicaragua. La Gracia has two national elders/pastors (Marco Parrales & Osman Alvarez) and two deacons. There is a solid core of mature believers. They have land (They need a building still since they are currently meeting under a tent). The pastors grasp the vision for reaching the area. They have the vision for planting daughter churches and preparing to send missionaries. We hope to have an ongoing relationship with La Gracia and ask that you pray for open doors for this. 

The Advice: We received council from some veteran missionaries a few years ago. They said, “It’s better to leave a church plant too soon than to stay too long.” The tendency is the longer a missionary stays, the more dependency there can be on him.

The motive: Our home church has been encouraging us to go through them as the local church. It is their desire to take on the responsibilities of the local church in sending their own missionaries. They will attempt to grow in their role of encouragement, accountability and partnership in missions. They wish to get back to the most biblical view of missions in assuming this direct responsibility...not simply sending funds, but being partners in the gospel. 

Reproducibility: The goal in ministry & missions is to work from a platform that can be reproduced on the field. Our longterm goal is to see national churches sending missionaries too. But can we expect them to follow the same model we use, such as a mission agency, that requires large overhead? Not in Nicaragua! 

Philosophy: We ultimately believe it is the “responsibility of the local church to take the primary responsibility for the mentoring and mobilization of its members, resulting in a healthy local church, capable of multiplication through the sending out of servant leaders to launch new churches.” — Servant Leaders

Accountability: We are pursuing more involvement, accountability and partnership between us, our supporters and the church on the mission field. In doing so, we formed a Pastoral Oversight Team to be the next layer of accountability for our family. We seek to have total transparency and the POT will serve with us to be a guide, a sounding board, encouragers and partners as we serve as an extension of all our supporters.

Servant Leaders: We were invited to partner with a group called Servant Leaders. SL has a focus of helping the local church grow organically and train up its own leaders to serve and be sent out. The purpose of SL is to provide Resource, Mobilization and Pioneer Partnerships. You can learn more about them through their website: www.servantleaderstraining.com

Going Forward: What does this mean going forward? We have let ABWE know of our intent to resign. We now are working to wrap up everything here in Nicaragua and head back to the States. This means we need to sell everything!

SL, in collaboration with our home church, has asked us to go to Ecuador to join Joe & Heidi DePuy in assisting another church to plant a daughter church. Our home church is 100% on board with this direction! This will be a time of service and growth as we see how SL operates. The long term goal is to take this model to other countries in Latin America. It may mean a return to Nicaragua or somewhere else. It can take 4-6 months to get a visa for Ecuador, so we will be in the US for a while. Please pray for provision for housing and a vehicle again.

We have taken steps to get the process started. We now have a new website, e-mail. There is also a new accounting agency that will receive donations on our behalf. See the attached links:

E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.doylefamilymissions.com 

Giving: You can go to the “Giving” link on our website to gather all information.
Further explanation: CMC will handle our accounting and the Pastoral Oversight Team will provide oversight for accountability regarding finances, moral issues or various other situations. 

Central Missionary Clearinghouse
P.O. Box 2219228
Houston, Texas 77218-9228

You can see options for giving by going to www.doylefamilymissions.com/giving.html 

We appreciate your continued prayers for our family as we make this transition. We know that we could not continue in this ministry without your faithful support and prayer. THANK YOU so much for your encouragement, love and support! 

This is a decision that we did not come to easily, but was made together with the council of our home church and trusted pastors. This has been as difficult as when we resigned from Gage Chapel as pastor. We will leave behind many friends and it will be confusing for them to understand too. We have cried many tears with our Nica brothers & sisters. Please pray for our daughters as they make another step into the unknown. They will say good-bye to what is normal, comfortable and to the many Nica friends we have here.

Please explore our website to learn more about us, Servant Leaders and what is ahead for us.​

Together in this adventure,
Dan & Eirana