The James Family
Happy New Year from the James Family!
Happy New Year from Bolivia!
We thank God for your life and partnership in the gospel with us. We want to encourage your prayers with 2 testimonies we recently heard. One is from a pastor in La Paz who writes, “You have no idea the amazing things God has done in my life in 2017, teaching me to live according to the truth and sufficiency of God’s Word”. This man is part of a large pastoral team in Bolivia’s largest church.
Another pastor (rural) told us about what God is doing in the 30 churches he leads on the Bolivian Altiplano. “Many years ago”, he says, “people loved to study and hear the Bible, but 25 years of following Prosperity teaching ended up crippling an entire generation and left our churches weak and selfish. People were divided over silly things, and Bible was totally absent in our church services. “About a year ago a core of our pastors realized the terrible consequences of abandoning the Bible -- we asked God to forgive us of this sin. We started studying Romans along with other ESI (Equipping Servants pastoral training) pastors. The truth of God’s Word impacted us. We saw the gospel in a way we had never understood, and the Lord turned our lives around. We began teaching and preaching the Word of God out of a desire to honor Christ. “The gospel now is impacting our churches, and we have come to understand that what unites us is the cross of Jesus. We have agreed to not let differences on secondary issues divide us. We want to know the Scriptures, and we ask God to help us walk humbly and to honor Him”.
We thank God for reports like these, and pray that many other pastors and churches will be transformed in 2018, growing strong in the grace of Christ in many cities around Latin America.
Kep and Debbie