Last week I celebrated my one year anniversary of being in Bolivia. This anniversary has caused me to reflect a lot on God’s faithfulness, my life in ministry, and the body of Christ that has encouraged, prayed, and supported me over the past year. Without all of your support, I would not be here. Thank you!

First I’d like to share with all of you about my recent 2 1/2 day campground experience with the children’s orphanage, Talita Cumi. Thirty-nine children and 12 adults (including Todd & Graciela Spence and another family from the U.S.) all piled into a bus and van to travel about three hours north of the city of Santa Cruz for a time of great fun and learning more about God. We focused on four themes related to God’s characteristics: God is the creator, God is holy, God is love, and God is our Father. I shared with the children about God being holy and how only Jesus can wash away our sins and purify our hearts. To demonstrate this concept of holiness, I had a jar of water that represents our hearts. I poured iodine into the water that turned it black (representing our sin) and then I purified the water and turned it white again by adding bleach. The bleach represents Jesus’ blood shed for us on the cross. [If you’d like to see pictures of the kids, you have to sign up for my monthly e-mail newsletter. I cannot put the pictures online].

Recently I helped launch a new discipleship group that reaches out exclusively to university students. Every week we watch a different film and then discuss its principle themes. This approach has allowed us to chat about specific passages of Scripture with unbelievers (a number of whom are my English students) who otherwise might be uninterested in the Word. So far we have watched and discussed The Blind Side, Captive, and Machine Gun Preacher–three movies based on actual events with Christian content and themes.

This night we watched The Blind Side.

The weekly evangelism efforts at Gabriel University by our El Alfarero team continue to bear good fruit. Before each outing I pray that the Lord would lead us to students who are desperate for prayer and need to hear about Christ. This prayer was answered recently when we met Dayana and a few of her friends. Dayana began to cry as she explained that she had a very difficult childhood (having been raised without her parents). We felt blessed to pray for her and her friends as well.

Dayana is third from the left in the blue shirt.

My English classes continue to hum along. This week both of my eight-week English courses will come to a close and two new courses will start the next week. The students in my beginner class will be memorizing and reciting John 3:16 as part of their final project and the intermediate students will be reciting from memory Psalm 121:1-2.

My students playing an English language game.

I would like to share a praise/prayer request. One of my students recently reached out to me because her friend was contemplating suicide. I was able to put her friend in touch with a Christian counselor here at El Alfarero. I praise God that we have these kinds of services for university students. The prayer request is that this young woman would be able to heal in Christ.

Praises:
~ I am praising God for one year on the field. The Lord has been faithful in every area of my life: ministry, church, forming new relationships, cultural and language acquisition, living situation, health, and more. I am very grateful.

~ Praise God for the students who are being ministered to through the various ministries available at El Alfarero and for brining us into contact with those who need prayer and guidance.

Requests:
~ Please pray for me as I seek to finish strong these last couple of months before I return to California for a visit in December.

~ The finances of El Alfarero. We rely on both business income and donations to continue sharing the gospel.

~ Please pray for the children of Talita Cumi–that their recent campground experience (especially what they learned about God) would remain with them.

Thank you! Grace be with you.

Derek