Dear faithful supporters,

     In October, we met with the new executive director of Bridging the World, Dr. Combs. He is a godly man who had great ideas for improvement for the mission board. As he looked at the main focus of the board, to reach countries closed to the Gospel, he began to wonder how Uruguay fit into that focus, since Uruguay is legally open to the Gospel. Because Dr. Combs felt outreach to Uruguay no longer really fit in Bridging the World's changes he took the time to come up with several options for us to consider for how we wanted to work with BTW.
     The first option was to stay under the full leadership of Bridging the World and they would try their best to learn about the process of running a ministry in Uruguay. The second option was to stay under BTW while working in connection with another mission board that is already established in Uruguay. And finally, the third option was to bow out of Bridging the World and join a mission board whose focus was on Uruguay.
     Dr. Combs said that BTW would be behind us in whatever decision we came to and they wanted to help us figure out what would help us the most for working in Uruguay. He came to the meeting with another mission board for us to consider. The board he brought to our attention was Gospel Mission for South America, or GMSA. He spoke highly of it and his former pastor, Bill Park, is on the board.
     The more Dr. Combs spoke of the camp GMSA has established in Uruguay and the missionaries there, we realized we had met all those people and helped in the camp on our trip a year and a half ago! The camp has recently lost its director and GMSA is very interested in having the two of us run the camp.
     We have thought and prayed about taking Dr. Combs' third option and transitioning to Gospel Mission for South America for about a month now. We feel that God has really opened up the doors for this transition. As we reflect on why God first had us join Bridging the World, we see that is how he showed us we are to go to Uruguay and work in a camping ministry there. In addition, we had never heard of GMSA except for when we met the missionaries in Uruguay and then spoke with BTW's director, Dr. Combs.
     The first week of December we traveled to GMSA's headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida for candidate school and were accepted on December 2nd. Our acceptance letter is available for download.

     We thank you for your support so far. If the Lord would have you continue supporting us under GMSA, there will be a slight change in how donations are made. You can find exact directions at www.coutofamily.com/info/ministry/how_to_donate.php.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions you have about the transition.