The El Alfarero ('The Potter') - Student Centre has been serving university students in Sucre, Bolivia since 2001. It is committed to reaching the university population in Sucre for Christ by developing leaders from the local Evangelical church, who in turn will reach out to the students through the centre and disciple them into mature believers.

Meeting Students' Needs

El Alfarero is committed to providing ‘wholistic’ mission through meeting the students' needs:

• economically - providing inexpensive and nutritious food through the café;
• socially - by providing a place each weekday night to meet friends and have fun without the influence of alcohol, drugs and smoking;
• emotionally - by caring for the students and offering free Bible-based counselling and pregnancy crisis counselling; and
• spiritually - by introducing them to Christ, helping them through discipleship to mature as believers and to form part of the local Evangelical church.

The day-to-day running of El Alfarero in Sucre was handed over to a Bolivian leadership team at the beginning of 2007. SIM’s Graham and Debbie Frith will move to Santa Cruz mid-2008 where they hope to establish a new El Alfarero.

A New Dream

Their dream is for the new El Alfarero project to function in the city of Santa Cruz, in the eastern lowlands of Bolivia, close to the state university, which currently has over 50,000 students. The new student centre will be at least twice the size of the existing project in Sucre and will meet the needs of even more Bolivian students.

Graham visited Santa Cruz recently looking for suitable land for the ministry. "We had pre-planned ideas about possible plots and areas, but God had other ideas. All those possibilities closed, but he opened another that we hadn't even considered," Graham said.

"We found a plot for sale on the other side of the campus. It is the right size, and there is a small entrance to the campus from that side only 50 feet from this property. It backs on to the campus property, and so we could open an access to the cafe direct from the campus…We are very excited about the prospect, even though there is nothing definite yet."

Pray

• for God to continue to work in the many lives who have been transformed in Sucre through El Alfarero.
• for wisdom for Graham & Debbie as they work to make the dream of El Alfarero in Santa Cruz a reality
• for God’s provision of the funding for the project
• for God to prepare the students' hearts who will visit El Alfarero in Santa Cruz.

Give

Learn more

Join the El Alfarero group on facebook.com to get news and updates about this project.