Why I Serve In Latin America

It is time to get ready for another trip. This time I am flying to the Philippines to participate in the International Leadership Forum (ILF) and, afterwards, in the International Leadership Team meetings.

Have I ever mentioned that I do not care for meetings?

As part of the ILF I am preparing a presentation about our work in Latin America. One of the most basic questions is why we have 150 missionaries serving in this part of the world. After all, Latin America is not part of the 10/40 Window. It is not one of the trendy places to send missionaries. Truth be told, Latin America is not even on the radar screen for many mission agencies.

So, why do we make all of this effort? Why invest all this time, people and material resources? I wouldn't have lived here for almost 30 years if I didn't think I have a few answers to those questions.

We serve here because there are 561,211,057 people in Latin America. That is the best statistic I can find. Of that number, 486,000,000 are not Christians as we would define the term… in other words, they have not experienced what Jesus spoke about in John chapter 3. That huge number actually is the "best case scenario" - there may be even more who don’t know the Savior.

I don't know about you, but I think those figures mean there is still a lot of work to do in Latin America.

486,000,000 people marching in lock-step to an eternity without Christ.

This is more than all the Buddhists in the world (376,000,000)

This is more than all the Chinese traditional religious in the world. (394,000,000)

This more than all those who practice African traditional religions. (100,000,000)

This is more than all the Sikhs, Spiritualists, Jews, Baha'i, Jainists, Shintos, "Zorasterists", Neo-Pagans, and Rastafarians in the entire world combined. Many times over.

Latin America has one of the highest youth populations in the world. 270,000,000 people in Latin America are between the ages of 13 and 30

If you are interested in making disciples among youth ( like we are), you should pray about getting involved in Latin America.

There is another reason to invest in Latin America. God is working here. I always remember what Blackaby wrote: "Find where God is working and join Him." If that is true, this is one of the places on the globe where people are going to want to come and stay.

Another reason that I am in Latin America is because we are seeing leaders developed, trained and launched. If we take seriously the multiplication principles that we see in Scriptures, it seems like Latin America is an ideal place to minister.

Recently someone told me they were not going to support the work in Latin America because there were no longer any needs here. As I look at the above statistics and thoughts I am left speechless. However, in the silence my ears are filled with the sound of all those millions marching, marching to eternity without Him.