David at home in La Paz, celebrating the sun shining on Mount Illimani after days of his mountain being hidden in the clouds!

Trip to the cities of Santa Cruz, Cochabamba & La Paz Bolivia | February 27 – March 11, 2024

Trip Purpose:

After our Discipling for Development team purchased tickets for this trip, we learned that Food for the Hungry-Bolivia was no longer able to continue a coaching relationship with us, so this trip has switched from the original purpose of exploring and deepening our relationship with FHI-Bolivia to holding a one-day vision casting workshop for 50 participants coming from former FHI-Bolivia church connections. Food for the Hungry is hosting this last workshop for us in Cochabamba. In Santa Cruz, we will connect with Rodiz and Stefanie Chambi as well as with Pablo and Karen Peñaloza. Pablo’s church in Santa Cruz is the only committed church so far, so we will be getting to know them and their context better. I will also connect with Friends Church (INELA) leaders to see if they might want to include some churches in the Discipling for Development process along with us.

Other team members will be flying out on February 28 and back on March 8.

Stefanie and Rodiz Chambi are walking with their baby Eden Rose with Cintia Huayhua walking between them. David Thomas is standing on the right with Pablo Peñaloza. These are the key people we are mentoring.

Praises and Prayer Requests:

• Praise God for good relationships with leaders working for Food for The Hungry and Compassion International, even though they have not been able to continue working with us. Some leaders have taken up our offer to personally disciple/coach/mentor them. Pray for these relationships to be a blessing to these leaders and pray for grace for them to grow as Holy Spirit leads them.
• Pray for God’s favor, blessing, and grace to rest on us as we connect with key leaders God has led us to mentor: as we get to know Pablo Peñaloza, his wife, Karen and their six children, and his local church setting in Santa Cruz. Pray for a deepening relationship with Rodiz and Stefanie and baby Eden Rose. We will also see Cintia Huayhua who has a good discipling relationship with Merri Lee and Judy.
• Pray for health, strength, energy, excellent Spanish, and good communication with all those participating in the one-day whole-life discipleship vision casting seminar (Wednesday, March 6) with church leaders invited by Food for the Hungry – Bolivia. Pray for safety in travel for all those coming (often a day’s drive from their cities).
• Pray for favor for me and Rodiz as we meet with various Friends (INELA) church leaders to see if they would like to participate in our Discipling for Development coaching with a few key churches they would like to see adopt whole-life discipleship.
• Pray for me. I am learning to be continually centered, grounded, and rooted in Christ’s love. I know that I am his “beloved ‘huios’ (son, heir, family representative), that Papa is pleased with me, (that he trusts me), that his delight rests on me.” (Luke 3:22) Pray for these truths to root deep down in all aspects of who I am.
• Pray for my Debby to have a strong sense of Papa’s presence with her and pleasure in her as she is alone while I’m gone. Pray for all the grace, favor, Holy Spirit insight, and wisdom she needs in her leadership roles.

I am grateful for many of you who keep up with me on these trips and pray for me. Thank you! I pray God’s blessing flows into your lives in every way! If there is something you would like me to be praying for that you are facing, please let me know. I have several ongoing requests I am holding up before Papa, and I am trusting for healing and breakthrough in his perfect timing.

If you are not on my monthly financial support team, I invite you to join us! Ask, Holy Spirit to see if he would have you join us. There are four ways to give:

• Online. Visit https://catalog.friendsmission.com/thomas. You’ll be given the opportunity to indicate whether you are making a recurring or one-time gift.
• Credit Card. This may be given online (as stated above) or by calling the EFM office (303-421-8100) to give your information to a live person.
• Automatic Bank Transfer. Download the form here and email it Debby McElroy (EFM Bookkeeper) at debby@friendsmission.com. Please note that ACH payments are processed on the 10th or 25th of the month.
• Check. Mail a check to EFM, P.O. Box 771139, Wichita, KS 67277. Make sure to mark your check “Thomas Support” and note if you will be giving on a recurring basis (monthly, quarterly, etc.). Pay to the order of “EFM.”

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

The post David Thomas: Join Me in Prayer for My Trip to Bolivia (Feb-Mar 2024)! first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

David at home in La Paz, celebrating the sun shining on Mount Illimani after days of his mountain being hidden in the clouds!

Trip to the cities of La Paz and Sucre, Bolivia, November 24 – December 9, 2023

Trip Purpose:

We will facilitate a coaching workshop for three days of our first week for Food for the Hungry (FH)– Bolivia leaders including a few leaders from other ministries. This will be held in La Paz close to FH’s national office. The second week in Sucre we will facilitate an Adult Learning and Bible Telling five-day workshop with Food for the Hungry leaders and their local team leaders. We will also have conversations with FH leaders as to how to organize ongoing training with them throughout the year.

 Praises and Prayer Requests:

• Praise God for this amazing opportunity to work with a well-known and successful Christian development organization, Food for the Hungry International-Bolivia! We are no longer working with Compassion International – Bolivia as their Colorado Springs office has another program that they want them to follow. We wish them well. FH wants to see their partner churches and communities gain a strong sense of ownership and empowerment in effectively reaching out to their own communities, long-term after their partnership with them ends. They are inviting us to walk alongside them in the process of improving their organization and methodologies to more effectively see the kingdom of God expand through their work throughout Bolivia. What a privilege!
• Pray for our three-day coaching workshop with FH leaders and a few other leaders we are also training, including our Navigator leaders. Gary, Merri Lee, and I will facilitate this workshop for everyone else. Pray for people to understand Christ’s empowering leadership. Pray for a strong desire to grow in participants to be a more empowering leader, and pray for some excellent experience in coaching, and a commitment in the months ahead to practice these skills. Pray for FH leaders to see ways to improve their organization’s leadership culture to become more empowering, with a growing strong value of developing the leaders they have and work with.
• Pray for our Adult Learning workshop for people to understand the “why” behind the way we facilitate, to desire to learn how to teach in this way, and to commit to taking some practical steps to grow personally and especially for those who will be on local D4D teams, that they will practice this method of facilitation.
• Pray for our Bible Telling workshop for people to see the value and effectiveness of studying God’s word in this powerful and involved way. Pray they would catch the vision of this method and that they would commit to practicing it. This skill often brings a strong “win” to those beginning to implement Discipling for Development in their churches and communities. This is a powerful way to connect people in our churches and communities to Bible study in a much more accessible way than using traditional preaching or teaching methods.
• Pray for our team:
  • Gary and Merri Lee Hipp – American missionaries who coached our Rwanda D4D team. They are an amazing team who have led D4D for many years. Gary is our team leader. They are learning Spanish and will facilitate a few lessons with Katia interpreting for them.
  • David Thomas – Evangelical Friends Missionary blessed to partner with The Navigators D4D in this new work in Bolivia and a former missionary kid from Bolivia.
  • Judy Camp – American Navigator ministry with Hispanic ladies in Los Angeles for many years.
  • Bruce Hook – American Navigator working with American Navigator missionaries and Latin American Navigators in member care in Latin America.
  • Sergio and Mónica are Mexican Latin American Navigators.
  • Marcia and Carlos are Chilean Latin American Navigators.
  • Cintia Huayhua – FH worker, Friends church member, future missionary hopeful.
  • Stefanie and Rodiz Chambi – Friends church members, and future missionaries to the Middle East. Stefanie has been translating our material into Spanish!
• Pray for God’s favor, blessing, and grace to rest on us! Pray for wisdom and Holy Spirit insight as we walk alongside FH a YWAM leader, his local church in Santa Cruz, and a Bolivian Friends missionary couple to the Chiman people.
• Pray for health, strength, energy, excellent Spanish, and excellent communication with all those participating in these seminars.
• Pray for safety in travel for all those coming (often a day’s drive from their cities). Pray for health for everyone during the two weeks of seminars.
• Pray for me. I am learning to be continually centered, grounded, and rooted in Christ’s love. I know that I am his “beloved ‘huios’ (son, heir, family representative), that Papa is pleased with me, (that he trusts me), that his delight rests on me.” (Luke 3:22) Pray for these truths to be deeply rooted in me, in who I am.
• Pray also for me to be continually aware of Holy Spirit’s presence and nudging, to find a good rhythm of rest alongside the times of intense focus in facilitating and listening to others facilitate. Pray for growth in my emotional intelligence and awareness of everything and everyone around me. Pray for God’s favor to rest on me!

Bless you!

David Thomas

The post Join David Thomas in Prayer for his November/December Trip to Bolivia! first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Thank you so much for supporting me and our team in prayer!

This has been a very good trip.

• Our five facilitators besides myself did a great job in their first experience facilitating these three workshops with our Discipling for Development (D4D) lessons.
• Our six hour facilitation in La Paz on Saturday was the best and had excellent participation. Santa Cruz was the second best, and we did well for our first seminar in Cochabamba. We found that people are not able to get to a 6:00pm week-day meeting on time, so we lost an hour of time for our two workshops in Cochabamba and Santa Cruz.
• It was great to have participants ask us good questions and show lots of interest. We have several church groups interested in our coaching, including Friends churches. They would like us to help coach their missionaries working with the Chimani people in the jungles. There were also some people with the Assemblies of God, and a Friends church in two of the cities who would like to disciple their communities holistically. A YWAM leader in Santa Cruz also showed interest.
• A few leaders of large denominations are not as interested as D4D does not offer money or projects for the development branch of their church denomination structure. Also the holistic approach doesn’t fit their spiritual discipleship vs physical development paradigms. This is good, because we need those people who really want our coaching.

• Of special note was the interest of two Christian NGOs, Food for the Hungry – Bolivia, and Compassion International – Bolivia. Both have had successful ministries, and they both feel they have not yet experienced the wholistic, empowering community transformation they have wanted to see. They are encouraged by Discipling for Development’s experience, and want us to train their leaders and staff, and enter a long-term, five-year coaching relationship! We have not worked with these groups in this way before, because they bring in outside money and projects in the communities which often results in dependency. We are being attentive to what God is doing. Back in 2007 God led the Navigator D4D team to begin coaching their first church group (Evangelical Friends Church of Rwanda) because God was clearly leading, and everyone on their team including Debby Thomas and Augustin Simparinka were so hungry, ripe, and ready for D4D coaching! That was a worthwhile investment! May the Lord lead us well now!
• It was a pleasure for me to be a part of this team. Judy took the finances, Gary did the overall leadership, Merry Lee organized the devotionals, Cintia took care of us in La Paz, Rodiz in Santa Cruz, and Henry Nogales in Cochabamba. Merry Lee coached one facilitation team and Gary in the other. As the main D4D mentor with Spanish I was able to focus on the key parts I had. Stefanie Chambi became my right-hand person as she clearly understands D4D and is able to clearly communicate as well.
• Gary was able to recover from an intestinal problem, and Judy as well from a cold that turned into bronchitis. Thank you for praying for our health!

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21

Thank you very much for surrounding me and my team with your effective prayer!

David Thomas

The post David Thomas Post- Bolivia Trip Prayer Update first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.

Prayer Update: Navigator D4D Exploration and Relationship Building Trip

To Cochabamba, La Paz and Santa Cruz, Bolivia October 17-24, 2022

David Celebrating Illimani’s appearing out of the clouds January 2022

Dear Friends,

David Thomas along with Gary and Merri Lee Hipp, and Judy Camp will be flying to Bolivia to connect with umbrella organizations that can give covering to begin our Navigator, Discipling for Development (D4D) work in Bolivia. Our purpose is to also connect with leaders who are interested in whole-life discipleship, to invite some to join us in an early 2023 D4D Foundations workshop. Out of those people who participate in the late January workshop we hope to develop some ongoing partnerships.

The Travel Advisory from the State Department for Bolivia is “Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution:”
There is a “paro,” a strike or a city-wide “lock-down” planned to start Friday the 21st in Santa Cruz. We will fly into Santa Cruz the night of the 21st. They are demanding the national census be taken so that more resources can be allocated to their growing population. This means the city will be locked down. Our plans for Saturday morning will probably not work to meet in person, and we might have to present online instead. Roads will be blocked, so travel from and to the airport can be complicated.

How can we pray together for this trip?
My parents, Hal and Nancy Thomas, have served as missionaries for many years in Bolivia. Dad shared that he was always trying to connect a mostly spiritual gospel to the many physical, economic, agricultural, … (all of life) needs people faced. As he has come to understand Discipling for Development, and our work in Rwanda, Africa, he feels the timing of this trip is a Kairos moment, when God wants to connect the experience we have in D4D with a surge of hunger for a holistic gospel and for the empowering discipleship and leadership development that are a part of our D4D culture.
• Pray for divine appointments, for God to lead us to the people he is calling us to partner with!
• Pray for good health in the altitude: Cochabamba is 8,000 feet, and La Paz is 13,000-11,000 feet!
• Pray for excellent communication between Spanish and English!
• Pray for good listening on our part and discernment of how Holy Spirit is leading us.
• Rodiz and Stefanie Chambi will join us for all the travel within Bolivia. Pray for blessing for them as they take time out in their busy lives. Pray for excellent times together as a team!
• Pray for excellent connections and relationship building with various Christian leaders!
• Pray for Almighty God’s favor, grace and blessing to rest on us this trip!

Ephesians 3:20-21
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Thank you in advance for partnering with us in prayer for this trip!

David Thomas

The post David Thomas Prayer Update: Navigator D4D Trip to Bolivia- October 17-24, 2022 first appeared on FRIENDSMISSION.COM.