Greetings from Chile, South America!

I am a full-time missionary serving with United World Mission in Latin America. Currently I am living in Chile and serve in the area of leadership development and training-helping train church planters, leaders and Bible teachers, teaching in churches, conferences, Bible Institutes and Seminaries.

Currently I have been overwhelmed with the ever-popular Evangelical belief in Latin America that God MUST and WILL solve every problem so the Christian life will be perfect. I have been reading and studying Scripture to know how to respond to this from a biblical perspective. As I was reading Larry Crabb's book, Shattered Dreams, I was wishing a book similar to his was available in Spanish.

This week while in the local Christian bookstore, talking with the manager about a conference we are doing in July, he handed me a copy of a book he said I really needed to read. The book...La Fe Autentica by Gary Thomas.

I started reading it over lunch and while I had the desire to read the book in one sitting, I realized that there are too many truths that I need to take time to ponder and determine how these truths are meant to be used by God to change my life and to affect my teaching ministry.

Thank you for this wonderful gift!

May God continue to guide Gary in his ministry of teaching and writing and his ministry as a husband and a Dad,

With many thanks, Vikki

Gary,

This is an incredible book. I could barely put it down. I would have to say this is the best book I have read all year. In my mind, the title and by-lines don't really do the book justice. This book goes deep. It focuses on the inward spiritual disciplines--it is full of substance. Mr. Thomas has written a book that strikes at the heart of affluent Western evangelical Christianity. It forces the reader to examine the inward state of our hearts in relationship to God. When I first started reading it, I thought, "this is just as good as Richard Foster's "Celebration of Discipline," that I had read in a college spiritual formation class. By the time I had finished the book I realized that this is the book that should be read "before" someone attempts to delve into the external disciplines of prayer, fasting, and meditation outlined in Foster's book. This is a great work, deserving to be ready by every Christian.

Jason Fletcher

Minister of Music and Education

North Carolina