Church Growth In Bolivia

An update by David Del Castillo, Pastor of Iglesia Gracia Soberana, Santa Cruz, Bolivia...

This has been a time of growth for our church. Although we have already started conducting pastoral interviews for the group that finished the last membership process, we have many waiting to start the process because they arrived once it had already begun. They are very encouraged to be part of our church!

So much so, that our place is already getting too small. We added 15 more chairs which is the capacity limit and after worship time we have to wait for the children to go to Sunday school so that people have a chair to sit in. Every Sunday we have between 80 - 90 people in attendance and so we pray that God guides us in what to do, since the place we have is very low cost compared to the increase we would have to pay for a new meeting place.

I also wanted to tell you that we recently had our third annual conference Servants for His Grace. At this conference we were visited by Joselo Mercado, Matthew Williams, Chris and Maria Deloglos and Abelardo Muñoz from different Sovereign Grace churches. We also invited Jose Mendoza (Professor of the Spanish Southern Baptist Seminary) who lives in Peru, and Felipe Castro (Director of Hispanic Initiatives at Southern Baptist Seminary). They all taught us about family and it took place from September 14-16. The number of attendees was similar to last year, about 180 people, with the difference being that close to 50% of people in attendance were from our own church, because of the growth we've had in the last year.

Our church was very blessed by this and, as always, was very willing to serve in all the logistics of this event. Joselo also stayed to preach at the church on Sunday the 17th and gave us a course for married couples before the service.

Another important thing I would like to mention has to do with Pastor Erick Miranda of the En Su Palabra church, located in Cochabamba, Bolivia. He recently signed the Sovereign Grace Letter of Intent to be adopted by our ministry and traveled on the 16th to be a part of the conference there. Abelardo Muñoz stayed with this church until Sunday for their Sunday service. The participation of the church was very good and they were very receptive to our ministry. There is a genuine desire to walk together.

We have a lot to be grateful for since God did a lot for our church and for the church in Cochabamba during this time. Please do not stop praying for us, the task is growing, the challenges are growing and God continues to do his work. But we need his favor in everything.

Pray that God will raise up leaders in the church to walk with us. We have already identified some, but may God be confirming this. May He guide the process as we need more hands. Also, pray for us financially. This year has been very challenging but we are impressed by what God has done and how He also provided me with bi-vocational work, in addition to the support of several friendly churches. However, we continue to pray for the future and that our local income continues to grow.

Thank you, and God bless you.