Hello Everyone! I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ. My name is Wilmer Rodriguez (38) years 
old now and I live in Caracas capital of Venezuela in the north of South America. This is the place of my birth.
I am the first of four children. I am married to Carroll Alezard from Caracas, too since 2012 and I am living with two stepchildren, Jesus (11) and Zarah (6). Regarding my country Venezuela, it is small and well known for its petroleum, however many people in the world have not heard about us. Our native language is Spanish. Fortunately, it is a free country to express not only the Christian faith but any religious belief. At the moment the nation is facing some economic and social difficulties, but most of the inhabitants and specially Lord´s people expect this will change.
About the way I came to the Lord Jesus in 1997, I was so tied with bad spirits or demons, I wanted to take my life and was very rebellious with my parents and the rest of family. It had not to do with drugs (though I sometimes drank alcohol) or mental problems.
In those days I could not sleep because of demonic attacks. To solve it I began to visit some sorcerers and witches and realized of the following: there is a spiritual world or dimension that we do not see, but affects all the human beings. Short after I understood the need from God´s help. So I attended to a church and started a process of deliverance from demons which afflicted my life during various years. I always remember the story of the Gospels about the demoniac Gadarene because something like this happened to me.
Even though the situation above was not easy for me, I fastened and prayed with constancy and intensity. Then the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit make me free. Glory to the Almighty God…
In my first years as a believer, I attended a church without sound doctrine (I mean a mixture of Christianity with other beliefs). During my path in Christ I have learned that He called me not only to eternal life but for ministry as well. I have in my heart the inquietude for evangelistic ministry (I got the confirmation for it). My desire is to preach and teach the gospel in a proper way. Besides the Lord´s gift I see in my wife an important support to achieve this goal.
Currently my wife and I have a weekly radio program called “Christians in Action” and we lead biblical teachings and preachings in our house on Wednesdays. We are sure that the Holy Spirit has instructed us to do it. This will be a support to develop and growth in the ministerial field. In the future through God´s will we would like to establish a place for Christian Education and other for helping people in drugs and those living on the streets.
I started this ministry training course because I want to be equipped for whatever the Lord wants me to do. I hope to go on at CLI despite it is in English (but this is a way to improve my English level). I thank God for technology mainly internet, for this online learning program, because I have not seen it in Spanish. I mean the web site design, structure, CLI´s vision and curriculum.
My congregation is a small one and this gives me the opportunity to take part in the church activities. Sometimes I preach and teach in the local service and also there are some activities outside in the streets of the city. My wife does the same. That’s the reason I need this kind of training. It´s necessary to have the best tools we can, in order to expose the Gospel as we have been entrusted.
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Tim 2:15) My prayer is that I will be ready and equipped for whatever the Lord wants for me to do and that I will forever walk close to Him and be in His perfect Will.
Ministry Training Opportunity
My name is Shary Sheppard, I am 61 years young and have been married to my husband Peter for 42 years. We raised 3 wonderful children and I now have 15 Grandchildren and one Great Grandson. All of my children have blended families but to us a Grandchild is a Grandchild, a gift from God.
I was not raised in a christian home. In fact my Dad was an alcoholic and having been raised very strictly in the Lutheran church had turned away from the Lord. I however was blessed to have a babysitter who was Baptist I think. She led me to Jesus at 4 and I gave my heart to Him. I took my self to church and my brothers when we were all very young. I kept going to church and living for Jesus and that did make me an outcast many times growing up. At the age of 16 my parents and one of my brothers were killed in an automobile accident. I spent 3 months in the hospital and Jesus never left my side. After coming home I went to live in a Foster Home and they were Christians. I then started going to the Catholic Church because it gave me what I needed at the time and the Lutheran I was raised in did not. Jesus kept me out of drugs and alcohol, so I was very blessed.
My husband was not a Christian, even though he told me he was before we married. Our life together has been full of turmoil and anger. He says he has accepted Christ now and it is not for me to judge. I raised our children in the Catholic Church and kept seeking the Lord. In the 90’s I had my eyes opened by a wonderful friend who introduced me to an Open Bible church. It was wonderful to learn about the real Jesus and what He already did for me.
I have been seeking the Lord’s face for many years now and He has brought me through many trials. I continue to pray and to learn. I love to share Jesus with friends and was searching for a way to have more knowledge to share. I have close friends that have spoken to me about being a minister so I started to research how to make this happen. I found Christian Leaders Institute and even though the devil has been tossing things at me for months I am finally finished with the Christian Leaders Basics Certificate. I thank God for this ministry training opportunity for me.
I am disabled and get a very small disability check. My husband is a logger or works construction. All that means there is little money to pay for me to go back to school. So when I found CLI and this ministry training opportunity online. It was perfect for me. I have prayed about this for a very long time and God showed it to me. My husband and I talked it over and even though he would rather I found something that would get me a paying job, he is supportive in my calling. I always tell him….God has a plan and He will show the plan when He is ready but I have to be ready also.
My church attendance has been spotty since I stopped going to the Catholic Church. I have attended several churches until I see that they are not really teaching from the Word of God. I have not forsaken church though because I watch faithfully several ministers on TV. I know that I need a local church that I can gather together with and I have hopefully found one recently. The fact that my husband will still not attend church with me will not slow me down. The Lord does have a plan.
My dream for the future is to have more confidence in mentoring the people I have met on Facebook who are in great need. I am also open if the Lord’s plan is to send me some place else to plant a church. God knows His plan and I only need to rest in His love and listen.
High Quality Classes. Study At Your Own Pace.
Christian Leaders Institute begins the student path by stressing the importance of the mentor connection. We make sure right away that students understand that we want them to find local mentors. We believe it is of vital importance to our students that there is somebody who is there locally that they can connect to face to face and talk about their lessons.
But why do we think this is important? After all, students don’t need mentors, right? They can join without a mentor, and all they have to do is keep working to complete the courses.
Well, that’s half true. Students can join without having a mentor name and e-mail at this time. It’s also true that there are some very strongly motivated individuals who can motivate themselves to complete even the most difficult of courses. However, some of the course work requires review by a mentor, and there are several reasons for this. I will list them below briefly and then talk about how each one specifically relates to the local mentorship model.
The Importance of the Mentor Connection
- As noted in an article published in the distance education article, students sometimes experience a loss of interest or lack of time required to complete classes offered online or through other distance learning methods.
- CLI staff cannot be available every hour of every day, and certainly do not have personal experience with many of the cultural idiosyncrasies of many students’ countries.
- Mentors keep students accountable.
- Called leaders will experience spiritual attack.
Sometimes you may find that a course is not what you expected. It may be that you started out all fired up to take the course, but somewhere along the way the fire died out. You knew you were called and you know that you needed this training, but somehow you just lost interest.
Or maybe you didn’t have time. At first it wasn’t difficult, just an hour or so a day. Eventually, though, time just seemed to disappear. You would get to the end of the day and fall into bed, exhausted from the days work, and think “I just didn’t have time to study today. I’ll make up for it tomorrow.”
A local mentor is a great help in these situations. The mere existence of a time and place to meet with someone locally is a great motivation for students to get the work done. A mentor can work through your busy schedule with you and help you find the time that you could have spent on course work. He can motivate and encourage you to revive the fire that started you on the course in the first place. Most importantly, a godly mentor can help you to keep your focus where it needs to be – on your calling.
While Christian Leaders Institute has staff that is dedicated to giving students the best possible experience, they are just people like everyone else. Part of keeping overhead low is having a carefully budgeted staff that each perform their jobs during the hours allotted them. Since Christian Leaders Institute staff are located in America, this means that they are often not working during the times that somebody in Africa or Asia might need somebody to talk to about things. Also, the theological staff are especially busy, being mostly bi-vocational, and are even less available for student interaction.
Additionally, CLI’s American-based staff does not have a lot of understanding of cultural differences one might encounter in Africa, Europe, Asia, or even South America. This can make it difficult to help students sometimes, since we often revert to cultural norms when trying to explain a new concept.
A mentor connection with a local mentor can facilitate such discussions where CLI staff cannot. Local mentors are in the student’s environment and culture, and therefore possess a greater understanding of what the student wants to know and how to explain many questions. They are also available to discuss questions during the time that the student often has them, since they live in the same area and the same time zone.
CLI staff also is not able, because of time and budget constraints, to review all the sermons and student stories. Furthermore, even if they review written submissions of sermons, they are unable to provide feedback on other learned preaching aspects, such as delivery of the sermon. This makes it difficult for the student to honestly measure how much the training has really helped him or her.
A mentor helps by reviewing materials with students. Mentors also watch the students give their sermons. After watching the sermon, a good mentor can give a student important feedback. Mentors can tell them if they seemed nervous or uncertain. They can see if the delivery seemed weak. They can tell students if they’re making eye contact, looking out at the audience, or looking down while they’re speaking. Local mentors can provide all this feedback because they can actually watch a student as they are presenting their sermon, not just read the written content that is sent in.
And one very important part of having a mentor is aid in times of spiritual attack. Satan does not want to see new leaders raised up in the kingdom of God. His mind is set against God’s will, so when he sees a called leader pursue his calling, our enemy is quick to respond with an attack by his servants. That attack might come at any time, through any means.
CLI staff are far away from most of our students. Sometimes a student may be under attack, and we wouldn’t even know because we don’t see them. Even if we did know, the distance would make it hard to provide any real support during the attack. However, a mentor can often see when a student is under attack. He can help by providing sound counsel. A mentor can lend his or her mentees a listening ear, a ready shoulder to cry on, or perhaps even a temporary internet connection. He or she can provide students with encouragement and support.
While these are all good reasons to have mentors, there is one more that is the best reason. CLI has been providing online ministry training to students all over the world for almost a decade now. During that time, we have seen that students who have local mentors are 80% more likely to succeed in their studies than students who have nobody. The best reason to have a mentor is that while God may have called you, He also gave you a community of people who love and support you. And He wants you to utilize the strengths of the people that He’s put in your life to propel you onward toward your calling.
So if you’re considering joining CLI, or you’re already a student who just hasn’t had time to find a mentor yet, what are you waiting for? Make the mentor connection now and open the door to opportunity. You’ll never make a better move in pursuing your calling.