2022 Quarterly Update #

We praise God for his goodness! He is faithful, loving and ever patient as He interacts with us. I would like to sum up some of the main events in our life this year as a testimony and reminder of that.

We arrived back in Bolivia in August 2021 with the purpose of setting up a gap year training center. By January we were well on our way towards having a place picked out and beginning to prepare it as a place

For learning. We were also involved with starting a local gathering of believers. These were instrumental in getting the place ready as well.

Classes began on the first day of February with 5 students. One week later we had 7 and ended up with 8.

From February to early May (13 weeks) we studied through 11 modules.

1. The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus
2. Knowing God (From Eden to Calvary)
3. Romans 1-8
4. Biblical Discipleship
5. Old Testament Panorama
6. Galatians
7. Colossians
8. Introduction to Greek
9. Life of Christ Panorama
10. Bible Study Methods
11. Romans 9-16 (away)

Several (7) teachers were involved helping with the teaching that came from different parts of Bolivia. These were trained by DM2 attendees through workshops done between about 2008-2019. Three teachers were from a local church in Cochabamba.

All in all (though not without challenges) we have seen and tasted the program to be highly effective in training young people for one year that prepares them for the rest of their lives. Roughly about 330 hours of intense Bible teaching was done this year.

Due to the fact that we closed the school halfway through this year, most of the students plan to return next year to complete their studies.

As you all know by now, our son went to be with the Lord. We’ve been advised to take time off the field to heal. We will plan to be in the US and Canada until around the end of the year and return in time for next year’s classes to begin in February.

I will leave you with some testimonies from students regarding CC3D (3D training center). I ran them through Google translate without editing.

“My name is Belen Soza, I am 19 years old, it all started with an ambition to know and be able to learn, I felt the need that there was something more to learn, something more beautiful to know, so God gave me the opportunity to study Bible one year, where the study of the bible was done in a different way, because each verse was studied in detail, the idea of being able to go to a place where the bible is studied intensively fascinated me, since that was what I wanted so much , God opened the doors in a supernatural way and everything went according to his will.

The months that God allowed me to be in the CC3D have been a great blessing in my life, since I have learned a lot and have been able to grow in the knowledge of God, but I still have a long way to go, a desire that I have in me is to be pleasant to my lord, in everything I do and every day learn more of his word and in the months that I was there I have been able to fulfill part of that wish. Being in the CC3D I have been able to learn a lot from the Bible, since we have studied the word of God in the way in which it has been revealed and how God has wanted to communicate towards the human being, I have been able to appreciate the importance that the cultural, historical, social context at the time of studying the scriptures, all of this has been very helpful to now see Christian life from another perspective and to be able to live it in a way that God wants me to live it, not as a false religion, but as a true relationship of a Father towards his children.

Being able to know God in the essence and simplicity with which it is shown through the scriptures, makes it possible for us to understand his love for humanity, revealed through JESUS CHRIST, since he left nothing hidden, but on the contrary, it is revealed clear way for all humanity and thus live the way He wants us to live through FAITH knowing our identity in CHRIST, counting on the blessings we already have for the work of CHRIST, all this makes our look above of what is on this earth and points only to Christ, what this produces in us is the work of God and takes away the focus on our strengths or our abilities, it leads us to realize that our sufficiency comes from CHRIST, that in Him we are already complete and our focus is no longer on what we can do, but on what He has already done on the Cross and that is what the Christian life of living by faith is all about, faith in what Christ has already done, this makes me love to a living and true God who he has already done everything for me, there is no need to make an effort to please him, since being in Christ I am pleasing to the father, the word of God produces its transcendental effect in our lives, it produces a genuine change, it produces a passion for preaching the gospel, teaching and disciple others, tell them our condition outside of God and give them the solution that is through Faith in the Gospel, so that they know a just God, a God of Grace and this truth spreads transforming religious lives or lives without God , in fruitful, sincere lives, full of faith living in the GRACE that we were called to live.”

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“My name is Silvia Herboso Meneses, I live in Cochabamba-Bolivia, an older single woman, a believer in Christ Jesus for 32 years. This year God blessed me by studying at the CC3D Study Center, it was a great blessing to study the blessed word of God verse by verse, to deepen the super abundant richness of God’s Grace!!!

Many truths of his Word remained in my mind and heart, among them I will cite the understanding that “I was a sinner without hope” but, Jesus in his infinite LOVE and GRACE paid the price of my REDEMPTION!!! He gave me hope by including myself in his family, the family of God.

I understood that: “EVERYTHING is by GRACE.” We are justified through FAITH in Christ Jesus. ([Romans 3:21-31](https://biblia.com/bible/nasb95/Rom 3.21-31))

The book of Romans is a great blessing for my life, I understood many things about our sinfulness, and God’s PERFECT JUSTICE, I would lack many sheets to write, all the profound truths I learned in CC3D, “Romans, Galatians, Philemon, Colossians, etc. By meditating and savoring the Richness of the WORD of GOD!

Therefore, I do not hesitate to recommend and encourage anyone to be part of DM2 and CC3D studies, because for me it was BLESSING and SPIRITUAL growth.”

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We thank God for the privilege it has been to be a small part of what He did in the lives of these people.

We ask your continued prayers as we continue to heal and look ahead to the future.

God’s grace and peace be with you.

John