Thank you for praying for our D4D Trip to Santa Cruz and Cochabamba, Bolivia from November 13 – 24, 2025! It was a great trip, and I want to share one Saturday morning with you.
Would you like to meet a “ripe,” ready, eager-to-learn whole life discipleship team? Just as a mango matures to the place it is “ripe” and ready to pick and eat, so a team can be “ripe” and eager to learn. I’m going to share from our three-hour visit to the Cochabamba team.
What makes this team ripe?
- They are organized and used our time together well.
- They know their lessons, and instead of only studying the first required eight-lessons have gone much further than we expected. We love their initiative!
- They shared how their current lesson of Resource Mapping had taught them about their local community including which languages their neighbors speak.
- They are using the lessons, like “Seven minutes with God” on how to organize a quick daily devotional study with their families. One man lives in a home with 12 people, and his grandkids ask him, “When are we doing our Seven Minutes with God today?”
- They are an eight-person team and have five small groups in their homes where they are facilitating the lessons with their families and some neighbors. We haven’t yet asked them to do this! They are taking the initiative!
- We came ready for a devotional study, but they had one already prepared!
- We tested their level of teaching in an adult learning style where facilitators ask questions to guide the group, instead of the prevalent rote-memory education system including preaching and most teaching they are used to. They have room to grow in this area, and now that they know what we are looking for I’m expecting to see some growth. We will also do a full workshop in Adult Learning and Bible Telling next year.
- We got in one lesson on making Personal Development Plans so they can better apply lessons they are learning to their lives. Their level of participation in this lesson shows that Antonio has been using adult learning methods and they are eager to participate.
I have coached some good teams, and Gary Hipp has coached even more. We both felt that this is the ripest team we have ever encountered this early in the process. This was Rodiz Chambi’s first coaching trip, and he said, “Now I know what a ‘ripe’ team looks and feels like!” I am excited to coach this team along with Rodiz and Pablo, giving them an excellent example as they help us coach other teams in the Santa Cruz area. By God’s grace, their eagerness to learn, along with the transformation we will be seeing in their lives, families, church and community will be a valuable foundation to grow a whole-life, disciple-making movement on!
Back Row left to right: Marcario Salva, Rodiz Chambi (coaching with Gary Hipp and David Thomas) Pablo, Rolando Vasquez. Front left to right Veronica, Isidora Chipana (Marcario’s wife), Pascuala Aruquipa, Bernardo Mendoza, and kneeling on the floor Pastor Antonio Mamani (D4D Team leader). They belong to the “Iglesia Vida Para Todos,” a Friends church in Cochabamba.
I included this picture here with their names because some of you like to pray for these people by name. Your prayers make a difference! Thank you in advance for investing prayer in their lives. It is my privilege to coach this group, and to focus your intercession in the place where it is going to have a great impact. Thank you for joining us in prayer!
The Lord bless you!
David Thomas
Planting whole-life, disciple-making movements
May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. Psalm 67:1-2
English (United States) 
Spanish