Today, Global Disciples has 93 programs training local churches to reach people for Christ, in partnership with 17 church clusters in Latin America. Ernesto Cardenas, based in Ecuador, is now the coordinator for the ministry in Latin America.  

What does this ministry look like? Cardenas compares it to a parable in Luke 15. “A woman who had several silver coins lost one. Then she turned on the light and the lamp [to look]. It looks like that. People are hungry for more. But in this case, she only had one coin. So, people are looking for the ninety-nine.”

Photo courtesy of Global Disciples on Facebook.

Global Disciples has a vision to reach these “ninety-nine” with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Cardenas says this often involves planting churches in areas where Christ has little witness. He says, “That’s the important thing. With the resources that they have finding creative ways to reach out for others.”

How to get involved

One way Christians can get involved is to spread the word about what Global Disciples is doing in Latin America. Cardenas says the organization is developing a solid network of churches to partner with in Latin America and also in Africa and Asia. “In that way, we are finding good partners that are joining us to so we can keep growing and keep promoting discipleship and mission-based programs centered on Jesus.”

COVID-19 has affected this ministry, of course. Many countries have seen massive case counts, especially Brazil. Right now, Global Disciples workers in Latin America find their travel restricted. But Cardenas says, “The ministry is continuing. The ministry is going on in Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia, Central America. We have people right there on the ground knocking on doors and praying with people.”

Pray for this ministry, especially in the middle of the pandemic. People are suffering, Cardenas says, both from sickness and the economic consequences of lockdown. “We have directors, key leaders, who are in the midst of areas that are strongly infected. They have been infected. They have been suffering bad, but they are fixing their eyes on Jesus.”

Pray that the Church in Latin America will image Christ in how they help those who are suffering and provide the hope of the Gospel.

The header image is courtesy of Global Disciples on Facebook.

Trans World Radio’s Steve Shantz says Bolivian protestors began taking to the streets in October. “President Morales tried to go for a fourth term in office,” he explains. “Irregularities in the election process were suspect, so the general populace has risen up and has come out in strong protest against what they think was a rigged election.”

Demonstrations in La Paz, Bolivia against electoral fraud and the government of Evo Morales
(Photo, caption courtesy of Paulo Fabre via Wikimedia Commons)

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s former president, resigned on Sunday and fled to Mexico yesterday. “The government is now without a leader,” Shantz says, but that hasn’t solved Bolivia’s problems.

“There’s still a lot of tension in the country because he (Morales) has his supporters, and they are clashing with the opposition.”

What’s going on in Bolivia?

As described here by BBC News, Morales was Bolivia’s first president from an indigenous background. Though formerly widely popular and credited with improving Bolivia’s economy, things began to backfire for Morales when he sought another presidential term.

According to Reuters, lawmakers met yesterday to accept Morales’ resignation and seek an interim president. Bolivian lawyer Jeanine Añez is one individual stepping up to fill the temporary power vacuum.

Amid political uncertainty, TWR’s national partner – Radio Trans Mundial* (RTM) Bolivia – is calling believers to prayer.

“They have five radio stations of their own and they also distribute programming to over 100 stations across the country,” Shantz says.

“They have been on the air and with their radio audience… praying for peace and stability in the country, praying for unification.”

How to help Bolivian believers

Now that you know, what will you do? Shantz asks you to pray with TWR’s partners and Bolivian believers for peace and stability. Use the prompts listed alongside this article to guide your prayers.

Pastor Diego Davila, director of Quechua ministries for RTM Bolivia, speaks to residents of a Quechua community.
(Photo and caption courtesy of TWR)

“Many people in Bolivia [are] on their knees literally praying for a peaceful solution to the crisis. For evangelism and solid mission work to flourish, you need a stable political environment,” Shantz explains.

“Stability is so important because there is a very fruitful ministry of preaching the Gospel in Bolivia.”

Pastors throughout South America are built up through TWR’s Bible school on the air and daily systematic teachings from the Bible. Other programs reach women and youth, address family issues, and challenge atheists to consider the claims of Christ. When you give online, you can support the production of these spiritually nourishing programs and ensure their distribution continues uninterrupted.

* RTM is the Spanish equivalent of TWR.

Header image by David Peterson from Pixabay.

Tomorrow, April 7th, is World Health Day and provides an opportunity to spotlight these health and hygiene needs around the world.

While there are many organizations with health programs, Food for the Hungry (FH) combines health and hygiene education with the Gospel in around 20 different countries! One way is through their Cascade Groups.

(Photo and header photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

In a Cascade Group, a staff member with FH teaches 10 mothers in an impoverished community about good health and hygiene practices. The topics cover handwashing, water purification, personal hygiene, breastfeeding, and nutrition.

FH’s Beth Allen explains, “It’s a way of taking messages into the community about caring for children and improving the lives of children where mothers in the community are working together to make life better for their children.”

After those 10 mothers have completed their learning in the Cascade Group, they each go and teach 10 more mothers in a new Cascade Group, who go to teach other moms, and so on.

“The Cascade Groups are important to us because, the way they work, they allow us to move a community toward graduation. That’s one of Food for the Hungry’s key concepts is that we’re going into a community but we will only be there for usually seven to ten years, and then the community will move on [by] its own,” says Allen.

“You can see it multiplies very quickly as far as the number of people in the community who not only have the information and the messaging, but then are ready to teach it to each other and hold each other accountable for what they’ve learned. It works really well.”

In communities with Cascade Groups, the mothers often see results very quickly in the health and growth of their young children.

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

Allen shares, “I remember one conversation with a Bolivian mother…who brought me her children. She had three or four children and we were talking and doing an interview. She pointed to the baby and said, ‘This baby is already two inches longer or taller than his older brother was at his age.’ She could see it in the child and that’s pretty amazing where they can see the results of their activity very, very quickly.”

In Allen’s own travels with the ministry, she has discovered that women and mothers in rural communities tend to feel very isolated. “There isn’t necessarily a lot of information transfer going on about good ways to raise your children. They don’t have the blogs with the moms that we have here to trade information. So one of the things this group does is it brings the women together so they’re not trying to be good parents in isolation. They have some backup to try to put new ideas into practice.

“I sat with one mother in Bolivia at one point who, when I asked her about the teaching we were doing in health and nutrition, she began to cry as I was talking with her about the importance of it. I said, ‘What is it that’s so important to you?’ And she said, ‘Well, I didn’t have a single friend in this community until you guys came in and you had me working with the other mothers here. Now I have friends. Now I have people who can help me out. Now I don’t feel so alone in this parenting thing.’ Because parenting is hard; I don’t care what continent you are on — parenting is hard. So she was just so grateful for that.”

But the biggest impact in these Cascade Groups comes when the leaders connect health and hygiene with the value God places on the lives of these mothers and their families.

“One of the messages we talk about to the mothers is that God created us to love one another, and that’s really powerful for a lot of women. One of them is that just the thought that God would have a relationship with them or a desire for their lives. It’s very powerful to walk into a group of moms and say, ‘God has a desire for your life, that you would show love for your children and that your children need you. That is a God-given gift to you.’ [It’s] very, very important for them and it’s very freeing. It’s something that makes them feel valued.”

While the Cascade Groups tend to focus on mothers, Allen says FH’s ministry involves the fathers and the whole family. And when mothers and fathers are effectively caring for the health of their children, it also inspires them to get involved in other community outreaches.

Allen saw this firsthand with a group of mothers in Peru. “Not only were they doing things with the health of their children, but then because of the bonds they formed and because of just the joy of seeing that their kids actually responded, they started to do things like forming up together so they could work better with the government [and] to do things like build schools in their community.”

(Photo courtesy of Food for the Hungry)

You can directly support Cascade Groups with FH by sponsoring a child! “That monthly sponsorship is how we are able to be able to put this program in motion…all over the world,” Allen explains.

To sponsor a child with FH, click here!

And, Allen urges, “[Be] praying for those moms! For many of the people listening to this, you’re a mother or you know of moms who are struggling to make it, just struggling to get through each day, and this kind of program really helps. So be praying for those moms worldwide who really want something better for their children.”

(Photo courtesy of FCBH)

“We just completed the recording of a drama New Testament in a thousand languages — which really means 83 percent of the world’s population now has the Bible in text, they have the New Testament in audio, and they have The JESUS Film, and that’s just a huge deal.”

It’s been a milestone 25 years in the making. But really, it all started with seeing the need. Back in 1991, Faith Comes By Hearing began hearing nationals from Ghana to Guatemala say they needed Bibles, but their people couldn’t read. Therein began the work.

A slow start

“We immediately learned we’re working with oral communities, so you can’t just do a straight recording. It needs to be drama, because for oral people if it’s not a story or a drama or has music then for them it’s not important because it has to have memory cues. Of course, the New Testament has everything, it’s a story, it’s a narrative with revelation and drama,” says Jackson.

“We created a 180-voice recording which we get using 25 narrators. We had music and effects, and we started recording other languages.” Jackson goes on, chuckling, “First five years we recorded five languages! Eh…we weren’t doing really well. And I began to think, ‘Lord, I think you chose the wrong ministry.’”

Jackson heard other experts advising maybe it wasn’t necessary to get Bible translations in all 850 Latin American languages. Perhaps it would be easier to just do the top 50 or 100 languages and then everybody else would just go with the dominant Spanish translation.

In every single language?

While still considering the necessity of doing audio Bible translations in every single language, Faith Comes By Hearing was working with a Bolivian community that spoke Quechua.

In the Quechua community, FCBH planned to start a listening program and give an audio Bible called the Proclaimer to the community. The listening program has the local church or school gather weekly to listen to the audio Scriptures and discuss. After three visits ensuring its use, FCBH lets them keep the Proclaimer.

(Photo courtesy of FCBH via Facebook)

Jackson went to Bolivia to start this listening group, and he hoped to discover if just Spanish was good enough for the Quechua people.

There, he had an enlightening conversation with the pastor, who told Jackson that he preaches in Spanish on Sundays because the Scriptures they have are in Spanish. But it’s wasn’t good enough.

“[The pastor] promptly told me, ‘Nobody in my church speaks Spanish. So I preach the same thing six or seven Sundays in a row, and they don’t know it.’”

So what happened when the Quechua Scriptures came? Jackson shares, “He started weeping, telling me how people would weep and cry when they heard the Scriptures because it was in their own language. They thought God only spoke Spanish.

“When I asked him what stories caused them to weep, he said, ‘The story of the woman with the issue of blood.’… What I discovered was people actually enter the story and when they enter the story, they join the woman and they felt like that woman — rejected, unable to touch God, unable to be with Him. And when that woman touched [Jesus], they touched [Jesus], and somehow Jesus’ presence touched them.”

Jackson was moved. “That was it. From that moment, I then knew we had to actually record the Bible in every single language, because people have to hear it in their own language.”

The Great Commission by around 2030

Faith Comes By Hearing’s milestone of 1,000 completed audio Scripture recordings is part of a greater initiative to have Scripture in every language.

“There’s a whole translation movement. There’s a group called Every Tribe Every Nation, a group of business leaders who pulled all the translation community together and everybody’s aimed at starting a new translation in every language of the world by the year 2025, which means somewhere around 2030, we could have a translation in every Scripture language of the world.”

(Photo courtesy of FCBH)

Jackson explains, “In the Great Commission, Jesus said we’re supposed to make disciples of all nations. The word ‘nation’ there is ‘ethnos’, which means ‘language, tribe, people’.

“So there’s 7,100 languages in the world that we have to provide Scripture. It’s impossible to disciple a people without the Word of God. So we’re in the first time in the history of the world where translators will get the job done.”

Why Audio Bibles?

Audio recordings of the Bible are playing a very key role, especially in these last several translations.

“The problem is that in many of these people groups, the last 3,000 language groups to be reached, the people are all illiterate and oral and any education will be in the major language, not theirs. So when you’re done with the Bible, it’s still like putting a Bible on the moon because it’s inaccessible to them. Their poverty and illiteracy keep it from them. So when we can record it, it means the Bible becomes theirs.”

Faith Comes By Hearing is now maintaining a much faster pace of translation while maintaining excellent quality of their work. Jackson says this has exciting implications.

“What it means is the next thousand languages we expect to be able to complete within about six years. That thousand languages will get us to where almost 95 percent of the world will have a text and an audio in their language and be able to hear the Word of God.

“The Great Commission in our lifetime can and will be fulfilled. Every single person can and will hear Scripture in their own native language.”

Pressing on in the mission

Currently, FCBH has 350 languages ready to go for recording. They just need the funding. Jackson says it takes $35,000 to record a language, about $1,200 to record a book of the Bible, and roughly $135 to record a chapter. Click here to sponsor audio recordings of God’s Word!

Meanwhile, there are a few other things you can do to get involved in the Great Commission with these audio Bibles.

First, you can download the Bible.is app and start sharing God’s Word in multiple languages with others you meet.

(Photo courtesy of FCBH)

Second, Jackson offers this opportunity: “If you’re going to go on a trip overseas, you should give Faith Comes By Hearing a call. We’ll usually provide one Proclaimer, which is the solar panel hand-cranked device, that you can take and when you go over there, you leave that behind at the orphanage, or the clinic, or the church, and you allow a whole village to hear Scripture.”

You can get additional Proclaimers after the first one for $75 each. You can also get microSD chips for cell phones that contain the New Testament to give out as gifts.

Click here to contact Faith Comes By Hearing!

‘I Smile for Life’ gathering in Bolivia (photo courtesy LIFE Int’l)

Young people partnering with the pregnancy care center recently took colorful, vibrant signs and placards to the main street corners of the city, signs with a very simple message, “I smile for life.” Response to the center’s ambassadors was positively overwhelming.

But that’s not all that’s taking place at Centro de Vida. Late last year, LIFE International was invited by 22 young counselors and people working with the center to come and train them. The training provided took participants through a three-step process of abortion recovery. Melinda Delahoyde, Vice President of Mission Advancement for LIFE International, says the first step is helping women understand the grief and what has happened to them.

The second step is to convey the message of hope found in Jesus Christ, that He paid the price for what has ever happened to them. And the third step is an invitation to praise the Lord for the healing He alone will provide.

Delahoyde goes on to say that when this message seeps into the hearts of counselors receiving the training offered by LIFE International, there’s an overwhelming joy that pervades. What’s even more inspiring is to know this is an example of the kind of training that is happening in more than 65 countries around the world as a result of God’s work through LIFE International. Says Delahoyde, “Nowhere do you see a greater application of love and healing of Jesus Christ than when a woman’s heart and mind and soul is healed from that abortion, and Bolivia’s one example of that.”

Click here for stories about what God is doing around the world through LIFE International.

(Photo courtesy Wikipedia.com)

Local farmers complained about a bird called the red-fronted macaw that would consume crops like peanuts or maize. The farmers quickly tried to come up with ways to kill the birds to keep them from eating the crops, but the Food for the Hungry team had other ideas.

The first goal was to keep the birds away from the farmers and their crops. Food for the Hungry helped teach locals how to keep the birds away and how to produce even more crops so that they could easily afford to lose a little to the macaws.

The team continued to build a case with the locals, convincing them that they could turn these birds into a source of income. Kids at school decorated posters announcing, “The red-fronted macaw is your friend!”

(Photo courtesy Food for the Hungry)

Finally the team got to work. They discovered the breeding area of the red-fronted macaw and built an observation deck overlooking the canyon. Every morning, the macaws would leave the cliffs as a massive flock, returning together every night.

Birdwatchers and tourists were enthralled by the colorful birds, and the local people were trained as rangers and guides to help show travelers around. Even the existing jobs prospered, as nearby shops and restaurants received more customers.

As a final blessing, the government decided to build a better road to Torotoro, allowing more visitors to see the macaws. The farmers that had once attempted to kill off what they thought were pests now use the road to transport their produce to markets, and their profit has increased.

As incomes grow, the villagers are thankful that they can feed their children better food, and it’s all thanks to a missions team, a flock of birds, and a God that works in remarkably unique ways. Now Food for the Hungry has an opportunity to share the gospel with the community and teach them about the glories of His creation and the compassion of His mercy.

Around the same time, Mayra also became a sponsor child through Food for the Hungry.

Mayra sits with her family. (Left to right: Mayra, her father, mother, and sister. Photo Courtesy Food for the Hungry)

“FH helped me a lot, the staff encouraged me constantly, and they used to say, ‘You can do it.’ They challenged me to keep going. They made me realize that we are able to change our history,” said Mayra.

At 12, Mayra was given a scholarship to develop pastry-making skills and to learn basic accounting. Four other children from her neighborhood were given the same scholarship. Together, these five kids started their own pastry business.

At 23, Mayra is still chasing dreams. “My dream is to become a specialist and to work at the hospital and open a clinic to help the poor people,” said Mayra.

Mayra’s dreams aren’t the only things that have changed over the years.

Mayra attends to a patient.
(Photo Courtesy Food for the Hungry)

Now, when Mayra looks at her neighborhood, it’s different than before. It’s quiet, the streets are paved, and the neighborhood has basic services.

However, the true transformation is in the people.

“The youth are studying. They want to excel and have a vision,” said Mayra, “and it is because of FH because it is a Christian Organization.”

When children are sponsored through FH, they don’t just receive an education: they receive the Gospel, too. Furthermore, the staff encourages a relationship with Christ.

When Mayra was in the sponsorship program, the staff helped her get evangelism and discipleship training. Then in high school she began volunteering at her local church.

You can help people like Mayra realize their potential and worth in Christ by sponsoring a child.

Sponsoring a child for a month costs just over a dollar a day. And really, what better way is there to spend a dollar? So this holiday season, share the Gospel and change a life by sponsoring a Child through Food for the Hungry.

To sponsor a child, click here.

To donate to the vocational training scholarship, click here.

(Photo courtesy of Bethany Christian Services)

Bolivia/Haiti (MNN) — Bolivia’s child labor law seemingly disregards the age protocols put in place by the International Labor Organization’s (ILO).

Now four months old, the practicalities of the law are being revealed. There are some protections included in the law: children between 10 and 12 must be supervised by a parent while they work, children under 12 are not permitted to undertake third-party employment, and children must still attend school.

Bethany Christian Services international services manager Kristi Gleason explains, “Child labor laws are something that we keep an eye on here at Bethany because it affects kids all over the world. Even though we don’t work in Bolivia, child labor is something that we try to address and keep an eye out for in the countries that we do work in.”

(Photo courtesy Bethany Christian Services)

One obvious problem with Bolivia’s law: how will children, exhausted after a day’s work, be able to engage in learning? Gleason simply says, “They won’t.” She goes on to explain, “The general outcry here is that kids should be in school when they’re 10. They should be having their daily chores to help maintain their home, but they should not be [working] 9-5. In these situations, it’s more than an eight hour day of work. There are concerns about the child’s right to education, their right to their childhood.”

Bethany doesn’t currently have work in Bolivia, but Gleason says they’re watching this law carefully. “Once a precedent is set and one country is doing something, then other countries tend to say, ‘Well, if Bolivia is doing it, then perhaps we can do it, as well.'”

Haiti is Bethany’s closest project to Bolivia, and the poverty conditions there could make a Bolivia law attractive. “I think it’s been pretty clear that there is a problem with child labor in Haiti. The situation with children in restavec, basically, children in domesticity, is rife in Haiti, and it’s something that Bethany has been working to end for several years, now.”

The term restavec is a derivation from French reste avec, “one who stays with.” It refers to a child who is sent by his or her parents to work for a host household as a domestic servant because the parents lack the resources required to support the child. Gleason says Bethany’s approach is to get in front of the problem in order to prevent it. “The question becomes, ‘How can you come around a family and help strengthen the family so that child labor isn’t an issue?'” Gleason adds, “Really, the answer to a child labor law is to come in and create programs that help to strengthen families so that the children aren’t at risk of being put into a situation where they have to drop out of school.”

(Photo courtesy Bethany Christian Services)

Bethany put that plan to work in Haiti because of the country’s vulnerability to child labor and some of the pitfalls that accompany it. “We have several different activities going on in Haiti, but one is a family preservation program.” In this program, Gleason says, “We are coming around families that are living in tent cities and helping them to get out of the tent cities. [We] give them tools and resources and training so that they can become sustainable so their children can stay in school.”

It starts with followers of Christ. Bethany is called to demonstrate the compassion of Jesus Christ to vulnerable children and families around the world. In so doing, the door opens for the Gospel. Gleason explains that “local churches are usually one of our first contact points in a country, so we are either training church members or we’re training pastors, and then we use that large group of believers to either provide respite care for kids or be potential foster families.”

The Quespia family with their hens.
(Image, caption courtesy FH)

Bolivia (MNN) — A “helping hen” is changing the future for children in Bolivia. Last October, Food for the Hungry (FH) distributed young hens to Bolivian farm families. They taught families how to care for the chickens and how to build coops to keep the birds safe from predators.

Now that the hens are mature enough to start laying eggs, new opportunities are unfolding for impoverished families.

First of all, eggs are an excellent source of protein for parents and children alike. Protein allows adults to work for longer periods of time before feeling hungry. For children, fighting back hunger means better focus in school. Learning how to care for chickens also provides kids with a possible job skill.

Secondly, eggs are a source of income. By selling the eggs they don’t need, families can afford school uniforms and books, as well as any medical necessities. Most families in Bolivia grow the food they eat, but extra income from the sale of eggs allows for the purchase of supplementary food items.

“With the eggs my hens provide, I can first feed my children better and also improve their nutrition and their performance in school,” states Eugenio Quespia, one of FH’s chicken recipients.

Learning how to care for chickens gives kids a possible job skill.
(Image courtesy FH)

With a total of 10 children, the Quespia’s are a snapshot of the typical family in this part of Bolivia. Families are usually large, with most of the children still living at home. Parents often migrate for work in soybean and cotton fields, or as domestic and construction workers. This leaves elderly grandparents to care for the children.

While most parents send money back home, that’s not always the case. One of the groups targeted by FH for the chicken distribution was grandparents who are raising their grandchildren alone.

By meeting basic needs, doors open for FH to share the Gospel.  Learn more about their work in Bolivia here.

A child at the Bolivian school. (Photo courtesy of Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center)

Bolivia (MNN) — The next school year is starting, but 9% of elementary and secondary teachers in the United States are unemployed.

However, the Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center in Bolivia with The Mission Society is seeking Christian teachers who can give their time and energy for education ministry.

“We still are lacking a few teachers for the coming school year and that’s always a prayer concern that the Lord will be bringing in the right teachers we need for this year,” says Len Phillips with The Mission Society.

Whether you’re at the entry level or just retired, volunteers can come for a year or longer. Phillips says Spanish isn’t required. “Because we are an English speaking school, many volunteers can jump right in without any problem. People who do speak Spanish, that’s all the better because for many of our students Spanish is their first language.”

Len Phillips and his wife, Betsy, transferred to Bolivia from Honduras 7 years ago. Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center is an English-speaking international school serving grades kindergarten through 12th grade.

“We really see that as a real strategic ministry of bridging into the Bolivian culture and society to reach the children, and not only the children but the families of the children,” says Phillips.

(Photo courtesy of Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center)

The school offers English education and high academic curriculum from the United States. This especially attracts parents who’d like their kids to go on to college.

Bolivia is 95% Roman Catholic with just a small percentage of Evangelical Christians, according to the CIA World Factbook. But the school’s surrounding community experiences a mixture of spirituality.

“We see kind of the whole gambit of…the indigenous people who are still steeped in tradition religious practices, and then we see the very modern and very secular people that we encounter in Santa Cruz and some of the larger cities,” Phillips says.

The Gospel message is central to the mission at Santa Cruz Christian Learning Center. Phillips says they focus on “teaching Christian world view, teaching Christian values and principles and it’s interesting that we even see at times that families that are not Christian families…find that aspect of our school very attractive as they see many other normal schools where kids at an early age get involved in everything from smoking, drinking, drugs, sexual activity and things like that.”

Because they are a private school, they tend to attract families in the middle to upper class category. These families don’t really experience material needs, says Phillips, “But there are a lot of relational needs and just a lot of family needs so it’s been a real joy for us to see kids and their families come to know the Lord as their Savior and just to see lives transformed through the ministry of the school.”

A small group of students from Ohio Christian University went down to the school in March for a spring break missions trip. The students mostly did practical work. Some education students even got in the classrooms, shadowed teachers and tutored. They also helped with Spiritual Emphasis Week at the school and shared in special chapels each day.

Phillips asks for prayer, “For the spiritual atmosphere on our campus. That’s just a real key that the Lord would be at work and that He would continue to be opening up hearts and lives and just giving that spiritual vitality even to our teachers and staff as they minister to our students.”

Click here to learn more about The Mission Society.