2021 December Newsletter

Joyous greetings to you from our entire staff, team, and family in the nations!

“The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them… For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.” (Isaiah 9:2, 6-7, NASB)

We have seen the great Light – the Lord Jesus Christ!

“In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it… There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:4-5, 9-13, NASB)

In these unsure and troubled times, when so many are shaken by world events and fearful of the rapid cultural changes we see all around us, we can have the assurance of God’s love for us. No matter how dark it gets, the Light shines! And the darker the land, the brighter the Light. Turn to Jesus – giving Him your heart and trusting Him for all things – and you will experience the light of His life. May your Christmas be filled with His light and with the fullness of joy that is found only in Him. In Jesus’ name!

The close of one season means the beginning of a new one. This year, 2021, has been a year of blessing and much fruit. An uncountable number of disciples have been made and new churches started. There is a hidden army of Spirit-filled and transformed warriors who are faithfully laboring in the nations, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom among the least reached people groups. They sacrifice everything to make Christ known to the lost. It is a sacred honor to partner with them.

We are excited about our proposed training schedule for 2022:

January 24 – February 4 – US and Canadian Leaders’ Training

April 4-29 – International Leaders’ Training (Spanish Translation)

May 9 – Summer Interns Arrive

May 16-20 – US and Canadian Leaders’ Training

October 3-28 – International Leaders’ Training (French Translation)

You can apply to participate in any of these training events on our website (www.keystoneproject.org). Also, all of our training is available online through our Keystone Project Online Academy, which can be found on our website as well.

Prayer

• Pray for our disciples around the world, especially those living and working in dangerous areas of persecution or places where they are affected by the pandemic.
• Pray for the financial success and growth of the hotel and The Keystone Project.
• Pray for the next batch of interns, that recruitment for them will go well.
• Thank you for praying for the mission trips to West Africa and Mexico. Both were very successful, as you can read in David Saldivar’s report.
• Pray for a restful off-season for our staff.
• Finally, our individual and church gifts and offerings are well below what they have been in past years. Please pray that the Lord will raise up new supporters, so that we can continue to grow and expand in the nations.

Thank you for your support and prayers. Have a wonderful and joy-filled holiday season with your loved ones!

Richard W. Greene
President, The Keystone Project, Inc.

Going on the Mission!

The supreme task of the Church is very simple – to make disciples of all the nations and to do it in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is called a Co-mission because we join the primary Missionary (Jesus) on His mission to redeem the world. We are to join Jesus on whatever He is doing in the nations. There are no shortcuts; we must be mobilized ourselves, and we must mobilize the Church to finish this assignment. Therefore, in addition to our in-person trainings in South Dakota and our growing Online Academy presence around the world, The Keystone Project has also set a goal of making at least four strategic missionary trips a year. After the pandemic hijacked the world and international travel in 2020-2021, we were determined to ramp up our efforts to take our training to the ends of the Earth. God allowed us to finish this year very strong. Here is a summary of our missionary trips in the last two months:  

Trip Summary

• Nations visited: undisclosed Middle Eastern nation, the Republic of Benin, Ivory Coast, and Mexico
• Nations reached and represented in the trainings: undisclosed Middle Eastern nation, Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Central Republic of Africa, Mexico, and numerous unreached people groups in Mexico
• Number of pastors/leaders reached: More than 600
• Number of vision-casting trainings: 5
• Missional activities: 7

Beyond the numbers I shared with you in the previous bullet points, it is challenging to measure our trips’ qualitative impact and future fruit. The Holy Spirit moved powerfully and precisely. Any human or natural disruption resulted in leading us to a divine appointment. I am not joking or exaggerating when I say that we couldn’t make a mistake. And believe me, I can attest that if it wasn’t for God’s determination of having His way, I would have made at least two inadvertent mistakes that I thought were in the best interest of our itinerary. We had so many supernatural encounters and divine connections that it is difficult to number them all, much less describe them. But I will share one of the highlights of our trip to West Africa with you. After completing our Vision-Casting Training with about 150 pastors in Cotonou, Benin Republic, we were invited to share the Word in a beautiful, large church in that city. At the end of the service, the pastor graciously invited us to join them in their office. To our surprise, the pastor asked us if we could give a word of encouragement to their missionaries, who had come afar to attend our training.

I was truly blessed and excited to hear that we had such a caliber of missionaries among the group we were pouring into over the previous days. One by one made their way to the pastor’s office. They had such a humble and loving spirit that their presence was enough for us to feel honored by their greeting and their attendance at our training. We began to minister a word of encouragement. Apostle Janine (Senior Pastor) shared with us how they had been challenged by the lesson of the Great Commission and the Unreached People Groups of Benin. She and the missionaries shared that they have been working in areas where there is a lot of persecution by Voodoo Priests – to the point that it is known they have killed some missionaries. To our surprise, they felt convicted by the training to go even deeper into the jungles to the unreached people groups of Benin. The team ended up praying for them and anointing them for the mission. It was a very transformational and challenging experience for us. The current state of the Church typically holds in high esteem the great preachers of the pulpits and those that have platforms to influence the masses. But I believe God’s value system may differ from ours; He might be looking at those things we often disregard, and we might see as menial those things that give Him the most Glory.

May He help us continue to finish the Great Commission!

To Him be the Glory!
David Saldivar, Director of Global Ministry

A New Year with New Potential!

As we come to the end of this year and enter the new year, The Keystone Project team is looking forward to a full calendar of training events once again. During last year and the beginning of this year, we had to cancel and postpone some of our in-person trainings in Keystone, SD, USA. However, this upcoming year is projected to be our first full year of training events since 2019, and we are excited to multiply the number of students that we are hosting, impacting, and equipping at these trainings. Each training has the potential to reach a wide variety of states and nations, and each student has the potential to launch movements of disciples who make disciples who make disciples by the power of the Holy Spirit.

As we prepare for these training events, we do so with a great sense of expectancy, knowing that God will do what only He can do in the lives of these students. We also prepare for each training with a great sense of urgency, knowing that so much of the world remains unreached and countless people have limited access to the gospel of the kingdom. As Paul says in Romans 10:14-15, “How then are they to call on Him in whom they have not believed? How are they to believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? But how are they to preach unless they are sent?” (NASB). That is our prayer and vision for each of these trainings, that God would empower and send out missionaries to the nations.

With this mission in view, we ask you to please pray for each of these training events, that God would bring the right students who will hear His voice and be obedient to His call. We would also like to invite you to prayerfully consider joining us for one of these trainings; if you are interested in doing that, you can fill out the Training Application Form on our website here. Our first training next year is a two-week training for residents of the US and Canada over January 24 – February 4, 2022. This training will be especially focused on equipping Native American and First Nations leaders to reach the unreached on reservations across North America. The next training is the full month-long program for international leaders over April 4-29, 2022, which will also be translated into Spanish. Shortly after the April Training, we will have a condensed version of the training for one week (May 16-20, 2022), which will be for US/Canadian residents; this will also include our college-aged interns, who will be kicking off the summer season and diving into the missional call of God on their lives. Finally, after the summer winds down, we will have one more International Leaders Training over October 3-28, 2022. This will be our first training that is translated into French.

As we look ahead to the quickly approaching new year, may we renew our commitment and dedication to the work God has called us to – the mission of the Great Commission. There is no greater task to which we can devote our lives, and we will find no greater fulfilment outside of walking with Him on this mission.

Dustin Stuckey
Training Coordinator