We received this message from Kent Marcum regarding his son and some youth he was leading in Bolivia.

It is 12:00am... I am trying to sit here to compose my thoughts, knowing that there are so many praying and waiting for information. I just returned from a all night candle vigil for the 3 girls who died and their families. It was heart-breaking. This may be a bit disjointed, bear with me...

12 of our jovenes (youth) and 4 chaperones left yesterday morning for a 3 day trip to a camp about a 7 hour drive from Cochabamba. They are all on winter break and wanted to take advantage of the holiday. They contracted a bus from a local bus company that makes the trip regularly rather than taking the usual night time bus. After driving the road on our vacation last week, Josh felt it was safer to travel in the day. Yesterday about 4pm, we started recieving disjointed calls and information about a serious accident that had occured. Things were pretty sketchy until I recieved a call from Josh. He confirmed that the bus had rolled about 100 meters down a steep mountain. The top came off, it rolled over and over several times, some were thrown from the bus, others rolled down with the bus. Miraculously, one of the jovenes who wasn't badly injured was able to climb up to the road and hailed a taxi that was passing by. The taxi driver had a cell phone and reception (extremely unusual where they were at.) Within minutes people from a nearby village had arrived to help evacuate the injured. Half the group was taken to a nearby local clinic. The rest were loaded into pickups and ambulances and started back to Cochabamba. A Christian couple who was passing by took charge of collecting all the personal items and safe guarding them.

Arthur reports on his recent travels to many of the Branch Schools in Central and South America.

Read the attached PDF for the full report.

It is amazing to see our Executive Director, Truitt Adair (standing), and a classroom of students from the Quito School of Biblical Studies in Quito, Ecuador studying at the feet of Armando Alaniz from the Texas Gulf Coast Bible Institute in Houston, Texas!  Brother Alaniz, who taught at Sunset when I was a student in the late '80's teaches Spanish speaking students in the USA, Central America and South America from the classroom in Houston by interactive videoconferencing.  Armando can see the students and the students can see him and even ask questions in real time.  What an incredible way to spread the good news of the gospel of Jesus around the world!

Friends,

Chris Swinford and I are coming toward the end of our mission to Quito, Ecuador. We will both have our last speaking session tomorrow at the Pan American Lectures and will begin to plan for our trip home on Thursday morning. We arrived in Quito last Wednesday night and began a Leadership Seminar at Quito School of Biblical Studies, a Sunset Associate School. This was our first international branch school and certainly one of the finest. QSOBS has 47 students studying at three levels. The students and faculty are outstanding. Over 90 graduates have been sent out to preach in 12 nations and to plant at least 8 new congregations. Kent Marcum continues to do a great job as director of the school. Kent and Sharla have been in Quito for 20 years and have helped to build an exciting and fruitful work. The Marcums were the anchor family in a 5 family team that went from SIBI in 1988 to plant a new congregation in Quito. Three of the original families (Kent and Sharla Marcum, Kevin and Dannie Haynes, Dan and Kathy Leaf) were here this week for a reunion.

Greetings, Truitt and I have had a great time teaching seminars at the school in Quito, Ecuador and being a first hand witness to the amazing job of ministry training being done here. I look forward to reporting more in the school and ministry efforts here, but I could not be more impressed with the administration (Kent and Sharla Marcum have been here for 20 years doing in amazing job!), faculty, students and graduates of the school here in Quito. There are already several arriving for the Pan American lectures and I anticipate a great experience. Wish you were here! More later...

In Him,
Chris