October News!

Dear Family in Christ:

I know, I always start my reports the same way, apologizing for not writing in a long time. I would like to be in touch with you more often, however, one gets busy with life and ministry here and before I noticed it a couple of months have passed without communicating with you. You have to know, though, that I love you, I greatly appreciate your support, and I pray for you to our heavenly father. I hope you can be encouraged by this news and praise God for His goodness.


My dear friends, I want to thank you so much for your time, for always being there for me and for lifting up your sweet prayers to our heavenly father. I just hope He will reward you greatly for your faithfulness.


Colossians 1:13 “Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.”

In His service,

Talo Vergara

Theology Degrees for our people!

One of the main struggles the mission has had in Bolivia is to develop a theology program where people would be well prepared to serve. Most people here want a degree approved by the government; therefore, they are hesitant about studying at Seminaries. Some local seminaries are struggling to survive and are making efforts to get approved by the government (something very hard to get by the way).

The wonderful blessing is that the MEB (Grace Mission Organization) has come to an agreement with the UEB (Evangelical University of Bolivia) to start a new program in which we have great benefits. In first place our students would only have one class every six weeks. Classes will be held at our “MEB center” so the university will bring the teacher to our classroom. The price is very reasonable and the commitment is to have at least 15 students each class. Another great blessing is that they asked the missionaries (Jerry Olson, Daniel Reed and me) to teach some of the classes. They are open and they want to respect our doctrine, so they let us teach many of the classes.
We have started classes in July and we are glad to know we have a group of 18 students, many of them are youth who are studying some secular career but they want to get ready to serve the lord and to get more theological knowledge.

• Thank God for the incredible blessing of reaching to this agreement with the Evangelical University of Bolivia. It is such a great opportunity and a big answer to prayers that we have had for many years.
  
  
• Pray for the Students, that they continue strong, that we could make the group even bigger and that we do not get short in number risking the cancellation of the agreement (remember we must have 15 to go on).
  
  
• Pray for Jerry Olson as he is teaching Theology I.

First Time Teaching at University

Who would imagine that I would be teaching theology at university level? Definitely not me! But our God does amazing things through those willing to be used by Him. He made himself strong in my weakness because to be honest with you, I didn’t feel to ready to face this big challenge. In September I taught Introduction to the Bible and it was such a magnificent experience for me. First, I learned so much, since I had to run against time preparing the material, getting all the knowledge possible to answer any potential question, and, by doing this, I found myself spending many hours studying new bible events and it’s history, geography and background. The students seemed to enjoyed the class (at least they didn’t complain) as they learned about the Bible. It was an incredible blessing for me. I must say, I’m very sorry I couldn’t share this with you before so you could pray for me, however, thank God for the great experience and pray for the classes that I will teach next year.

New Challenge – Leading a Grace Church (Jesucristo Vive) & youth at Emanuel

Two weeks ago, the “Jesucristo Vive” church had the unpleasant news that its pastor decided to leave his position at church. This came as a shock to most of the congregation, which is evidently suffering the loss. The church board decided to ask the missionaries (especially me) to help out in a special way during this hard time. Therefore, I have accepted the challenge of leading the youth for a while. I will also be preaching every Sunday morning and helping with the many events they are planning in the months ahead.

The challenge is even bigger since the Emanuel church leaders had asked me to help them leading their youth. I was entertaining the idea especially since I was needing a new challenge because the youth here are not use to working outside of their churches and it was complicated to make them get together and work as a team. Right when everyone at Emanuel was looking at me as the new youth leader for the church and youth, Jesucristo Vive needed my help and leadership even more at this crisis time. Therefore, I have started my work at Jesucristo Vive, however, I will do my best to help at Emanuel as well. I believe this opportunity to work as a leader at these two churches can bring a lot of potential to give more unity at least to these two churches.

• Please pray for me, for the big challenge ahead, working with two youth groups and preaching every Saturday and Sunday.
  
• Thanks to God for expanding my work and responsibilities. Right at the time I was feeling a bit depressed because of the lack of response from the youth, I was asking God for new ideas to work, right then, two churches to be lead!

T.N.T visits an orphanage

In September T.N.T got together about 15 youth to visit a girls’ orphanage in town. We prepared a program with a drama, an evangelistic trick, testimonies and some worship songs to share the love of God with these needy girls. We went on a Sunday afternoon and we had a beautiful time, sharing about our glorious Lord with about 20 girls form the orphanage (some of them were gone for the weekend). We took some food, clothes and school materials for them and we spent the rest of the afternoon playing soccer and chatting with the girls. We really enjoyed our time with them as our Master was exalted during this precious time.

T.N.T. (trabajamos nosotros por ti) "We Work For You"

This newly created bomb has nothing to do with explosives or terrorist attacks. T.N.T. is a new ministry that involves any youth from the different Grace churches who are willing to be a part of it. During our trip to Uruguay and our time at Teenstreet, the youth took part in social services to our community with an emphasis on evangelism. They loved this ministry so much that they asked me to create something like it here in Santa Cruz so they could continue serving. With this in mind, we created a new idea (kind of a new bomb) called T.N.T. which stands for “Trabajamos Nosotros por Ti” (We Work for You). We help the different Grace churches in whatever they need – painting, cleaning, etc. Then once a month we either pick a church or we are asked to go and serve one in whatever they need. In March we went to one of our small countryside churches in San Jose and painted it. About 30 youth from 6 different churches helped. It was a great atmosphere as we worked together to get the job done. The church seriously needed painting and they appreciated the work our youth did for them.

In April we helped at Emmanuel Church with cleaning and we painted the kitchen. This time youth from three different churches helped. The church was grateful for the work and we have a dream of also doing this kind of ministry to people in the community.

Praise God for this new ministry and that the young people will have a passion for
serving.
Pray that the young people say strong and that T.N.T. continues to serve with unity.
Pray for new ideas for new projects. We want to help in areas where there have been floods. We tried to go last month but we were not able to reach the area because of flooding.

Discipleship Courses

My main focus right now is starting discipleship courses. I am leading three different ones right now and plan to start more soon. Each course is made up of about four or five young people so there is more opportunity for interaction which makes the impact of the class stronger. The study material for one of the courses is based on “The Twentyone Laws of Leadership” written by John Maxwell. I believe the four students taking this course are my “inner circle” and some of the most important leaders among the youth at our churches. We are nearly done with this course and then these four young people will teach it to eight other young people who are showing some leadership skills. These four young people (two guys and two girls) will teach in pairs and I will help them as it is the first time for them to teach.

The other two courses I am currently teaching are completely different. One deals with fundamental Bible truths and is designed for those who are new in the faith. The other one, with five students, is on Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”. This month I will begin another study, likely based on “Understanding Your Bible” by Craig MacDonald.

It is great to see young people in the churches who are hungry to be involved in some of these studies. As they hear about them they ask me to count them in for the next study. It takes time to build a personal relationship with these young people so that they are willing to be a part of these studies.

Pray for the students, especially the four who will begin teaching in June that they will enjoy it and experience God’s greatness during that time. Also pray that they will work well together as they teach in pairs.
Pray for the new students who are currently studying the basic Christian living course with me. This class is very enjoyable to me because these truths are new to the young people and they have many questions. Pray for understanding for them.

JEM (youth in mission) URUGUAY - January 2007

After Teenstreet was over, 12 Bolivians in our team participated in JEM which this year took place in Rocha (a city about 200 miles east of Montevideo). This year approximately 80 people from different countries participated in it. They did a lot of social work around the city and there was a lot of publicity in the city about what they were doing. They did various services to the community (medical service, painting a school, rebuild a public place, children evangelism, night concerts, evangelism on the streets, etc). Many people in Rocha were moved by their love for God. Most could not believe they came from Bolivia to work so hard for free and under such an intense heat (about 100 degrees!). All the JEM participants wore a T-shirt that said “Why do I do this?” which was a great catch to start conversations with locals. The Bolivians are so excited about doing something so productive for God at JEM that they want to form a group here in Santa Cruz to help serving and assisting the churches here and to go out and do evangelism. ISN´T IT INCREDIBLE?

Praise God for what happened during those five days in Rocha. Praise God for the active participation of 12 of our youth who are so pumped to continue the work here! Pray for that as well.
Pray for the lives touched by the ministry of these young people. Many accepted the Lord through it, and many others were really moved by their testimony.

Teenstreet Uruguay - January 2007

Teenstreet took place in Montevideo, Uruguay, from the 13th to the 19th of January. My goal of having more Bolivians this year was accomplished since we had a team of 18 (including me) going to Uruguay. I especially enjoyed the fact that we had youth from 6 different churches (Emanuel 8, Jesucristo Vive 4, Dios Es Amor 2, La Guardia 1, Fuentes de Vida 1 and La Gracia 1). That was a great blessing since it was in my heart to have this trip to create unity among them. Last year we only had two churches participating in it, so another goal accomplished!
The camp was a total success, it really filled my heart to see the Bolivians loving each second of it, telling me how awesome it was, how much they were needing it, and just to see them actively worshipping God during concert times at night, in a way they had never done it before. They could not even express what they have felt during the time at camp. The communion with God was unique and at camp they have probably had the first real encounter with God. I have heard one of them for instance, expressing that Teenstreet helped him to recover and heal from the lost of his dad. Their testimonies are so amazing that I will put some of them together to send them to you.
· Praise God for such an amazing camp, praise for so many godly people organizing it, for everything that was just perfect during those days.
· Praise God for allowing 17 Bolivians to participate at Teenstreet.
· Pray that the passion they all brought back from Uruguay will not extinguish in the months ahead. Pray that God can use this spark in their lives to really bring light in their lives and their churches.