LOOKING BACK at 2024
In 2024, ENLACE helped 120 churches train 2,323 church and community leaders to complete 323 projects in 302 communities, impacting 136,982 people. Those numbers reflect fewer church partners than projected, yet we exceeded our people-impacted goal by 24%. This is because we made a strategic decision to work with our 120 most dedicated church partners to refine our programs and processes before launching them more widely.
In short, 2024 was a great success as we refined more sophisticated programs, expanded into regions, and worked closely with churches to navigate difficult and sometimes dangerous political environments.
LOOKING FORWARD in 2025
A Few highlights:
- El Salvador will continue to develop its Regenerative Agricultural Family Farms to improve nutrition, develop entrepreneurs, and increase income.
- Nepal will continue its income-generating programs like seamstress training and goat, pig, and chicken livelihood projects in Dang and expand into Kathmandu.
- Guatemala will continue to develop its agricultural and environmental initiatives like greenhouses, reforestation, and biodigester greywater treatment systems.
- Nicaragua will continue to equip churches in the remote Bosawás jungle while focusing on small-scale infrastructure and service projects at home in Jinotega.
An investment in El Salvador continues to be an investment in the future of ENLACE churches everywhere as Salvadoran church leaders design new solutions to multi-dimensional poverty and share their learnings with the world.
If helping marginalized churches become more effective witnesses for Christ in a Christian minority context appeals to you, invest in ENLACE Nepal.
If supporting church-driven agricultural and ecological programs that unite communities to help them produce more food and income while taking good care of the environment sounds exciting, invest in ENLACE Guatemala.
If you believe in supporting gospel-driven community development under the threat of government persecution, then please invest in ENLACE veterans Felix and Dina Orellana’s work in Nicaragua.
EL SALVADOR
Highlights & Opportunities
El Salvador again proved to be a laboratory of innovation as two churches deployed 14 leaders to work with 264 farmers from 88 families on year two of the new Regenerative Agriculture Family Farms pilot program.
Participating families diversified production to improve nutrition and income for 440 people. Farmers who once grew just a few basic grains added chickens to their farms for eggs and meat, planted fruit trees, and grew a wide variety of vegetables.
In the Matala community, vegetable-producing families rose from 41% to 92% and food insecurity dropped from 73% to 46%. Total family income increased by 17% as some rural entrepreneurs used Instagram to find new markets. By 2027, ENLACE hopes to train more than 3,000 farmers to help them increase household income by an average of 35%.
Challenges & Prayer Requests
El Salvador’s popular president has made streets safe from gangs, but his policies have severely reduced community development by redirecting funds from mayors’ offices to be controlled by the federal government. Mayors offices that have been partnering with ENLACE for years no longer have budgets to allocate toward community-led initiatives, which means we lost 50% of our project funding. Please pray for God to lead Salvadoran staff, churches, and communities to new funding partners, and that our US staff can raise the necessary funds to stand in the gap as we search for new funding solutions.
NEPAL
Highlights & Opportunities
Nepalese churches and communities have especially embraced livelihood projects to help families increase income from home. The most common types have been goat, chicken, and pig animal livelihood projects and sewing training to help women earn money from home.
Parents who work from home offer children a positive vision of the future, more reason to participate in church-run after-school programs, and are less likely to fall prey to the empty promises of human traffickers.
In 2025, ENLACE Nepal will continue to develop these programs as well as deepen relationships with local government, non-profit, and religious leaders as we continue expansion from the Dang region into Nepal’s capital district, Kathmandu.
Challenges & Prayer Requests
Violating Nepal’s anti-proselytizing laws can result in fines, imprisonment, and even deportation.
Please pray for our staff and partner churches who manage a delicate balance as they demonstrate their deeply held Christian faith within the confines of the law. Please also pray that our continued expansion into Kathmandu will lead us to new partners.
GUATEMALA
Highlights & Opportunities
Guatemala has ENLACE’s highest ratio of people served per church partner. This is because Guatemalan communities, perhaps due to values passed on through their indigenous heritage, are more likely to create collective farming and reforestation projects that benefit a greater portion of their community.
Missional Church in Chimaltenango, for example, has planted more than 10,000 trees that trap rainwater in underground aquifers, improve soil health, and produce fruit and wood to harvest. Churches and communities installed 520 family water filters to serve 2,600 people.
Another environmental initiative was the pilot program installing 5 biodigestor greywater treatment systems. Each biodigester serves 5 families biologically breaking down organic material to make wastewater safe to flow into Lake Atitlan. From hosting American teams to innovating community-level environmental solutions, ENLACE Guatemala continues to develop into a unique expression of God’s kingdom.
Challenges & Prayer Requests
Please pray for ENLACE Guatemala as we increase the number of projects and continue to explore collaborations with other international nonprofits in this large, linguistically, and culturally diverse nation.
NICARAGUA
Highlights & Opportunities
Last year, ENLACE Nicaragua deepened its work in Jinotega while expanding into two new
regions including the remote Bosawás Biosphere Reserve a three-day boat journey into the jungle. Churches engaged their communities in projects ranging from improving roads and schools to helping people gain access to health care and food. With few exceptions, these programs were carried out using only resources mobilized locally in Nicaragua due to the crisis in which all Nicaraguan churches now find themselves.
On the one hand, Nicaragua’s ruling regime requires churches to serve their communities to justify their existence. This is why thousands of churches are asking ENLACE for help. On the other hand, if a church serves its community in a way that appears to involve foreign money, it comes under government scrutiny, risking the same fate as thousands of nonprofits and churches the government has shut down.
It is a delicate situation, but one in which ENLACE is uniquely qualified to serve due to our approach to empowering communities to design their own sustainable poverty solutions and mobilize local resources to implement them.
Challenges & Prayer Requests
Please pray for our staff and partners as they navigate a government that is hostile to international cooperation and prone to shutdowns and expulsions.
Pray for a spirit of innovation as we begin to develop an online learning platform to train church leaders in a country where thousands of churches are asking ENLACE for help.
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Why Invest in ENLACE?
Traditional approaches to community development identify beneficiaries, execute projects, and move on, often giving communities the disempowering impression that change comes from the outside. ENLACE mobilizes entire church communities to partner with their communities to identify needs, prioritize them, and create their own locally designed, managed, and sustained poverty solutions. Communities learn to mobilize local resources, so at least 50% of every ENLACE project is locally funded. This approach doubles your impact, ensures sustainability, and in time empowers communities to create new solutions. For more about ENLACE’s approach, click here.
