May, 2001

Dear praying friends,

LATN is moving forward. (LATN stands for the Latin America Training Network—see below) A lot of my time as dean involves getting other people set up to start designing courses. We now have five assigned and on the drawing board.

The courses are:

Church Planting in Latin America,
Following Jesus in the Gospels and in Contemporary Life,
Hermeneutics in the Postmodern World,
Historical Theology in Latin American Perspective, and
Biblical Worldview.

I’ve also been working on the recruitment of faculty and working on my hermeneutics course. Other time-consumers include hunting for a small office building to purchase here, setting budgets, and gathering more data on the educational needs of Christian leaders in Latin America. I’m also enjoying teaching a 3-hour night class of adults at the local seminary. They are so eager to learn Bible study methods that it really motivates me and enables me to hone material for LATN courses. I get home late, but too excited to sleep.

On the personal front: Pray for our visas. We can continue to live here without worry, but getting permanent visas has become a drawn out chain of problems because our lawyer has turned out to be inactive and disorganized. Pray we handle the lawyer wisely and that the Lord lights a fire under him and finds documents he seems to have lost.

Juli is leaving us next week to visit North Dakota to attend a nephew’s wedding reception. She hasn’t been home in years. Pray she’ll get the break she needs and return safely. The kids just finished their school year yesterday—a short year indeed. Pray we come up with a good plan to keep them busy this summer.  

I got to baptize Sam (age 15) last Sunday! He seems to be growing in his faith and Christian character. The church plant in which we’re involved rents the very nice Chinese Baptist Church for worship (5PM) and other meetings. The church plant continues to grow, though our cell groups did not flourish and so we’ve put the whole program on hold for now. We did pray a lot. But I don’t think we were set up well for it. The church’s organizational structure, the pastor’s ministry style and the other church programs didn’t make much room for a cell group approach. We’re now emphasizing discipleship studies between individuals and couples.

1. We can find good office space and the financial resources to buy it.
2. The early LATN courses would be very effective and set a standard for quality
3. We would be able to recruit more professors
4. Our visas, Juli’s trip and Sam’s management of his diabetes—that it would continue to be good.
5. For the Bowers, the missionaries whose plane was shot down over the Peruvian jungle, killing Mrs. Bowers and their infant.

Thank you for your prayers and partnership with us.

Yours for the whole family,

Ted Kautzmann

P.S. Take a look at the following FAQs. We'll send you several more installments of these in coming letters.

F.A.Q.s

(Frequently Asked Questions)

The Latin America Training Network is a cutting edge international education program that will equip high-level Christian leaders throughout Latin America. LATN will be a school without walls. It will deliver courses to leaders in ministry without requiring them to leave their families, ministries or countries in order to study.

One of the greatest obstacles the Latin American church faces today is the lack of trained leaders...at every level. New converts are drifting away from the church for lack of shepherding and discipleship. LATN will address this need by preparing key Latin Americans leaders who have the responsibility of equipping others. Although a case can be made for leadership training at all levels, from the most basic to the most advanced, we believe God has called LATN to equip those who already hold high level responsibilities in leading in Latin America’s church.

Our number one priority is to provide advanced training for the top leaders of our existing Free church planting movements in Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and Venezuela. However, LATN’s vision extends beyond our own borders and embraces the continent. Our desire is to provide training for the leaders of many new movements in addition to our own. It is very likely that LATN will open doors for the expansion of the Evangelical Free Church in new countries. Because of LATN’s broad vision, Ben Sawatsky has referred to LATN as the EFCM’s "love gift to Latin America", comparing it to how Trinity International University has become the EFCA’s love gift to North America.