The Mennonites named for Menno Simons a dutch priest that converted to the Annabaptist faith in the mid 16th century can now be found in many parts of North and South America. To flee religious persecution in the early church many of them fled to Russia and after being expelled from there they fled west to the Americas. Most of the Mennonites in Bolivia were first in Mexico and Paraguay before arriving here in Bolivia. At this time there are close to 60,000 Mennonites in around 57 colonies and the number is growing every year. This past weekend a couple of guys from the church and I were able to go to one of the colonies outside of Santa Cruz, interestingly enough named Chihuahua like the city in Mexico. Our main purpose for going was for the wedding of one of the men from our church that is working as a teacher in a Christian School there in the colony but we also wanted to learn about this group of people that have very little access to the gospel. Although the Mennonites began with a sound doctrine they have now moved to a works based faith even teaching that the more children they have the more certain they are for heaven. They are also very closed to having outsiders come into their colonies, especially when it comes to trying to convert them to another faith (the truth). 
In many cases those who don’t comply to their rules will be expelled from the colony. We truly enjoyed our time there for the wedding and getting to know many of the people there but it was truly heartbreaking to see the great need and challenge that it is to reach these people. Please pray for Bismark Saucedo the man from our church working there. There are planning on having close to 150 students enrolled this year which means many opportunities to reach families with the gospel.