This past January marked our 27th year in Bolivia. The Lord has been faithful, and we are seeing encouraging growth in the ministry, by His grace. The ILC Church we planted now has 400 members -- Pepe Rocha and the church elders are doing a good job with the leadership of the church. The ILC church started a church-plant in Mallasilla that now has 150 members and is close to finishing its own building construction.

On another front, Debbie’s women’s ministry in the ILC Church is reaching many women for Christ and seeing many grow in their commitment to Christ. And finally our Equipping Servants (ESI) pastoral training ministry is expanding through Latin America. We now have over 1000 graduates since 2002, and 800 active participants in the 3-year training process. Listen to a few stories from ESI participants.

In Ecuador the first 3 ESI groups finished in January. We currently have 4 groups meeting in Loja. Pastor Carlos graduated from the ESI process in January. He writes, “After studying Romans with you, I now have a much deeper understanding of the sufficiency of God's Word, and my ministry of preaching and teaching the Bible in my church is much more effective than when I began ESI 3 years ago.” Tomas, our ESI leader in Loja, is training Carlos and a few other graduates to start new ESI groups. They are even considering taking ESI to the city of Cuenca, population 2 million.

In Peru, Edwin now has 3 groups. Pastor Ovidio echoes what so many pastors in Huanuco are now saying, “We want to honor Christ by being true to the Scriptures”. I'll be in Peru with pastor Edgar Manani the third week of April to lead our ESI Fundamentos Pastors Conference with about 200 pastors and church leaders.

In Mexico, Neri has 2 groups in Tapachula, where he pastors a church. One of his ESI graduates, Alfredo, is leading a new ESI group in the interior of Chiapas, in the town of Yajalon where he pastors a church. Alfredo is starting 2 new ESI groups 90 Kilometers away. This is VERY encouraging, as it was the area devastated in the 1990's when 40K Evangelicals were slaughtered. While the church grew under the persecution, church leadership was wiped out. So the Lord is now raising up new leaders for the churches in Chiapas. Then in the States of Oaxaca and Pachuca – pastor Edgar is leading 5 ESI groups.

In Bolivia, we have 11 ESI groups active in La Paz and El Alto, 4 in Santa Cruz, 1 in Cochabamba, and 1 in Potosi. We're planning to start new groups in July in the cities of Riberalta (Amazon region) and Tarija (on the Argentine border). In addition to ESI groups, Juan and Edgar continue training Pastoral Assistant volunteers in La Paz (10 this year). Each of these PA volunteers are studying the book of Romans and preparing messages, as well as co-leading ESI groups.

We are planning to launch ESI in the city of Asuncion, with a Bolivian pastor who finished ESI several years ago and moved to Paraguay to pastor a church.

All this to say that we’re thankful to the Lord for what He is doing! It is tremendously encouraging watching the Lord move His work forward in Latin America!

A quick update on our kids –Sami and Heather Ross have moved back to La Paz from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and are developing a Biblical Counseling ministry in the ILC Church. Their first child Ethan was born in January. Katie continues nursing at the Cleveland Clinic and enjoys a multitude of friendships. Andrew and Angie and their 3 children finally got their visas to the USA, and moved to Cleveland where Andrew has entered the Parkside Church Missionary-In-Training process.

Kep