It's been more than 40 years, but in 2010, thanks to God's leading, CMS is sending missionaries back to the South American country of Bolivia.
"The basic reason [for the return] is Andrew Cox," says the general secretary of CMS NSW, John Bales. "He did a short-term mission in Bolivia quite a number of years ago, fell in love with the country and also saw the huge spiritual needs there."
The Cox family (Andrew, his wife Paulina and their daughter Lily) will take part in church-based ministry in the south of the country, while Adrian and Anita Lovell will be based in one of the larger cities, teaching the Spanish version of the PTC in person and online.
The tiny Anglican Church in Bolivia consists of only 500 people, but as Andrew Cox points out, "One of the principles of CMS is starting small". And the US-born bishop of the Bolivian Anglican church, Frank Lyons, is an evangelical who wants to see his charges grow in their faith and knowledge of the Bible.
Says Andrew: "There are many evangelical churches and organisations [in Bolivia] but few of them approach the Bible in the way that we're taught to do here, particularly in Sydney. So the bishop is very keen to get his parishioners reading the Bible for themselves, listening to God's word and living it out. What they need are the resources to train people in that."
Seventy per cent of the 9 million people in Bolivia are Catholic, but Andrew Cox says a sizeable proportion still follow the animistic beliefs of their ancestors. Only 4 per cent or so are part of the evangelical church, which has been growing rapidly in the past few decades.
"I think the niche for CMS working in the Anglican Church in Bolivia is twofold," he says. "We have a partner in Bolivia who is keen to develop biblical theology there, which is an area in which we have resources and experience and the blessing of sound biblical theology in Sydney. The other aspect is that the Anglican Church in Bolivia fits neatly between the Catholic Church, which is the dominant religion, and the other evangelical churches " which are generally seen as North American cultural imperialism. They're seen as cults and a form of religion which is not Bolivian 'cause it's not Catholic, while the Anglican Church has a liturgy and sacraments that are familiar to Catholics. But the focus is really on putting the Bible in people's hands and saying "This is what God says', and "This is the truth about Jesus'."
