Your Ambassadors in Chile
Since 2015.
Vince
I grew up in independent Baptist churches, and was saved at 8 years old. The LORD called me to Chile via a missions trip in 2005. I met Kathie in 2006 on a Bible discussion forum on the internet, and we were married two years later.
Kathie
Kathie spent many years in independent Baptist churches as a child, and was saved at 8 years old. While attending a church in California, she met Vince online, and they were married in 2008.
Nathan
Nathan was born in 2009 in Ohio, while his parents were serving in their local Baptist church. He confessed faith in Christ in Chile in 2017 and was baptized in the San Pablo River in Chile.
James
James was born in 2012 in Texas, and confessed faith in Christ in 2018 while in Chile. He was also baptized in the San Pablo River, in Chile.
Asa
Asa was born in Valdivia, Chile, in 2017, during the LaRues’ first term. As a rambunctious and intelligent 7 year old, he has not yet confessed faith in Christ, but his parents are endeavoring to demonstrate a living faith that will point him toward faith in Jesus Christ.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth was born in 2022, in the middle of the Plandemic, in Osorno, Chile. Our youngest child and only daughter, at about three years old has not yet come to an understanding of sin and her need for a Saviour, but we will point her to Jesus every chance we get as she grows up.
Dedicated to Serving the LORD together
We (Vince and Kathie) were married two years after first meeting, with the express purpose of serving the LORD as missionaries in Chile.
Two children and over seven years later, we arrived in Valdivia, Chile, for our first term, working under (now retired) missionary Philip Robinson.
A Productive but Difficult first term
We worked with two national churches under a single pastor, and learned a lot about Chile, as well as the spiritual condition of the country.
Not everything was positive; neither of those churches exists today, but we made made a lot of friends and many of those believers continue to serve the LORD either here in Osorno or in another church in Valdivia (Iglesia Bautista Esperanza, planted by missionary Luis Reppert, whose family are friends of ours).
One could say we learned a lot of “dos” and quite a few “donts” as well. We’re thankful for our term, the Bible institute training, and the experiences alongside (and under) Bro. Robinson, that shaped our family and ministry philosophy to prepare us for the work we’re doing today.
An interrupted furlough
We visited the States in mid-2019, with a plan to spend 11 months in the country. We had deployed with less than our “minimum” monthly support, and were feeling the effects of low support.
Unfortunately, with the outbreak of global tyranny in early 2020, we lost many of our scheduled meetings with new potential supporters, and also missed meeting a few of our existing supporters. While the LORD was faithful through all of that, it was definitely not what we had in mind when planning a furlough.
We decided to cut our losses and return home in June, 2020, and the frustrations of trying to navigate those first months aren’t worth mentioning here, but suffice it to say we have been working hard to make good use of our time in the almost five years since we came home.
Our second term in Chile
Crazy world events weren’t going to stop us from serving the LORD! We got right to work once we got home and found a place to live.
Bible Studies
We began holding Sunday Bible studies right away, alternating between our home and another family’s house.
Regional meetings
Some of the brethren from Los Ríos wanted to continue meeting, so we would travel once or twice a month to meet up with them and hold services in their homes.
A dear brother departed
A sweet, elderly man known to us as “Héctor padre” (the father of our brother Héctor, whose name was also Héctor), died peacefully during his afternoon nap. His was the first funeral that I performed.
Public ministry
We got right to it, as soon as we could.
Lizzie!
Elizabeth was born in February, 2022.
Our first building!
We’ve moved twice since, but we first established a meeting place for our church in July, 2022.
About Chile
We’re right between Valdivia and Puerto Montt, west of Vicente Perez Rosales Nat. Park on this map.
On the western coast of South America, Chile enjoys a variety of climates from arid desert in the North, to the Mediterranean climate of the central zones, to temperate rainforests and permafrost in the extreme South.
Chilean culture is a mix of European and American influence. Road signs are European, while the clothing is heavily influenced by last year’s U.S. styles.
Chile is a unitarian republic, a single central government and set of laws with a single law enforcement organization. It is a secular state, with freedom of religion and worship enjoyed by all.
The main problem is Chile’s religious background, which is 70% Catholic, with the majority of the remainder belonging to some variety of Charismatic sect, most of which trace their roots back to the “Methodist Pentecostal Church” of Chile, the first indigenous religious organization in the country.
Most religious Chileans have been “inoculated” with just enough truth to make it hard to reach them; “the gospel” means going to church, “saved” means obeying the pastor and staying in his good graces, and the only verse that many of them know is Matthew 24:13, which of course is interpreted in all sorts of heretical ways.
My call to the mission field
After finishing my junior year of high school (homeschool) and my second year of Spanish (ABeka video school), I wanted to visit the mission field somewhere in Latin America. My dad suggested Chile and Bro. Robinson, so in early July 2005 I landed in Santiago.
I enjoyed my trip so much that we extended the month to six weeks, and I was able to visit several towns and cities in the South, and we even crossed the Andes to the towns of Bariloche and Esquel.
This visit was intended to be a youth missions trip, but the LORD used it to call me to serve Him in Chile. We are excited to be fulfilling God’s call on our lives together here in the Southern Cone.
Our next term
After a much needed furlough, we plan to return to Osorno and continue our work with the Lighthouse Baptist Church of Osorno (Iglesia Bautista el Faro). It is our hope to plant at least two more churches in the different suburbs of Osorno as the “main” church in the eastern sector of town grows through outreach and evangelism.
In 2027, we also plan to launch a year-round Bible institute, both in-person and online, in cooperation with churches in the United States and Colombia. There are people all over the Spanish-speaking world that need to be trained in the Bible and prepared for ministry