Meet Esteban Amestegui – A Voice from the Heart of South America
It was a delight to welcome Esteban Amestegui, Langham Preaching’s Global Coordinator for Resources and Prayer, as he shared his fascinating journey from Cochabamba, Bolivia, a vibrant city located right in the centre of South America.
Esteban warmly introduced himself, sharing light-hearted moments about his family and explaining how deeply rooted his life is in Christian ministry, particularly through Langham’s preaching clubs and development programmes.
Esteban explained, “My family was always Christian, and at 12 or 13 years old, I made the decision to follow Jesus, which transformed my life.” His journey from a young member of a local preaching club to an international coordinator serves as an inspiring example of how faith and ministry can grow hand in hand.
Langham Preaching in Bolivia: Growing Faith in Challenging Times
Bolivia’s preaching movement is flourishing with over 30 preaching clubs in Cochabamba alone, and many more nationwide. Esteban shared how these clubs meet regularly to study Scripture, provide feedback, and encourage one another to preach biblically faithful sermons. “People often say, ‘I wish I had this programme before in my life,’” he said. “Now, not only my devotional life is better, but sermons are easier to prepare and more faithful to the text.”
This year, the national preaching movement is focused on the book of Habakkuk—a choice inspired by Bolivia’s current struggles involving justice, environmental crises, and economic hardships. Esteban described last year’s devastating fires that blanketed cities in smoke, affecting people, animals, and indigenous communities. This environmental challenge, alongside political unrest and economic pressures, forms a backdrop to the preaching ministry.
He emphasised the crucial role that faithful preaching plays as Bolivia approaches national elections, saying, “It’s important that preachers seek justice through their message rather than engaging in politics.”
Global Impact: Innovation and Intergenerational Ministry
Esteban’s role extends internationally as he coordinates resources for Langham Preaching and helps adapt teaching methods for diverse cultures and generations. He highlighted exciting developments including multimedia resources designed especially for oral learners and younger generations who connect better with video content.
“We are developing a youth advisory group for Langham Preaching,” Esteban shared enthusiastically. “Gen Z brings energy, new ideas, and insights on how to communicate with younger generations.” One highlight has been the enhanced Prayer Shot video with guided prayers, enabling people worldwide to engage more deeply in intercessory prayer.
Personal Ministry: Building Community Through Word and Fellowship
Beyond his international role, Esteban actively leads a new preaching club in his local church and recently launched a Bible study and football fellowship group for men. This creative approach reaches those who might not normally join church, providing a healthy mixture of study and community.
He explained, “One week we study the Book of Mark to discover who Jesus is; the next, we play football with a short sermon before the game. It’s a great way to engage people.”
Encouragement and Prayer for Bolivia and Beyond
As Bolivia nears significant national milestones amidst complex challenges, Esteban’s preaching reflects hope and faithful leadership. He recently preached from the book of Habakkuk just before the country’s 200th anniversary and upcoming elections, a testament to his deep sense of responsibility and prayerful preparation.
Esteban concluded with heartfelt gratitude for the prayers and support of the Langham community:
“I feel honoured and responsible. Your prayers mean a lot as I step into these challenges.”
Join us in praying for Esteban, his family, Bolivian churches, and the global Langham Preaching movement as they faithfully serve communities worldwide with the transforming power of God’s Word.
Prayer Points
Some fires devastated more than 10 million hectares of forest in my country during 2024. Please pray for the environmental crisis we are facing due to the extractive activities of mining and agribusiness.
Due to a shortage of dollars, our currency experienced hyperinflation. The cost of living has increased too much.
Bolivia is also going through a fuel crisis. We import a lot of gasoline and diesel. The lines for gasoline can last hours, and for diesel, days. Please pray for a long-term solution.
We have national elections on August 17. They might be the most important elections of this century so far. Please pray for wise decisions, as Bolivia celebrates its 200th anniversary of foundation.
On a personal level, if you can pray for my family, we are struggling a lot with health issues. My 3-year-old daughter is beginning to develop her immune system, while my wife has antiphospholipid syndrome, which makes illnesses more complicated.
Also, on a personal level, I have to preach at my church on Sunday, August 3. It is just a few days before the country’s anniversary and a few weeks before the elections. My prayer is that God can speak through that sermon for the church, which is going through such a difficult time.
Video Transcript
Summary
- Esteban’s background and how he came to faith.
- His influence by Langham Partnership and how he joined the global Langham family.
- His home country of Bolivia and Langham’s Preaching programme.
- His home church life and Bible studies on Habakkuk.
Transcript
So it’s my privilege to welcome Esteban. Hi, Esteban. Good to see you, Esteban. Rather than me doing introduction, you can do. Do it yourself, basically, I think. Where are you? And, and yeah, where are you?
Sure. Thank you, Simon. And thank you everyone to join us today. My name is Esteban Amestegui. I’m from Cochabamba, Bolivia. If you haven’t heard the name of that country before, it is at the heart of South America. Our black is red, yellow and green. So many people tend to think that it’s an African country, but it’s an African country in South America. I work as the global coordinator for resources and praying in Langham Preaching. I’ve been involved and working with Langham since 2019.
Excellent. Well, we’ll delve more into that in a bit. You don’t look old enough, Esteban, to have worked for Langham for eight years.
So, Esteban, tell us. So I can picture Bolivia. So whereabouts is that? Sort of north, south, your town where you live?
Also, Bolivia is at the center of South America and Cochabamba is also at the center. So if you just put your finger in the center, you will be touching my city.
Okie dokie. Excellent. I’ve got a picture of that. Everyone else can be getting their Google Maps up and working that out.
So you were playing with your background. You are at home, but that’s not your home home, as it were. That’s not your background. But tell us about home, family that you have.
Sure. Yes, sorry, sometimes my light is not very good in the room where I work. That’s the reason why I use this virtual background. But let me share a little bit of my family in this picture. Oh, sorry, let me share my screen again.
In this picture, you can see me, that’s my wife. Her name is Alejandra Garon, and that’s my little daughter. Her name is Ariana. This was when we were celebrating her third year. So she’s three years old right now and she talks a lot. She’s very intelligent every single day. We are very happy with all of her comments and her ideas. We’ve been married for six years now.
That’s wonderful. I was going to say, I’m hoping you’re going to tell us that that was her third birthday or…
It was. It was an odd set of pictures. I looked at a good cake as well.
Oh, wonderful. So she… is she a preacher in the making by the sounds?
I think if her vocabulary is coming along, perhaps you can tell us then a bit about your personal journey. Has home always been Bolivia?
Yes. Well, my parents went to All Nations Seminary. They studied there for two years when I was three years old, so I learned English then and I never forget about it. I forgot about how to speak in English, but yeah, when I was five years old, my family came back to Bolivia. They went to study how a mission in All Nations. Well, a little bit about my background with Langham.
Right. Yeah, yes. Go for that, Esteban. Yes, please do.
Well, maybe I could start with my background with the faith.
If you talk about yourself and then we’ll see where Langham comes into that.
Okay, so now tell us about how you came to faith.
Okay, my family was always Christian, so I had contact with the faith there. But when I was 12 or 13 years old, I made the commitment to follow Jesus. I was going through emotional crisis, the type of crises you go through at that age. But God used it so I could get to know Him more. I made the decision to follow Him and to become a Christian.
From then, I’ve been part of a preaching club, a Langham preaching club, when I was 17 years old in my local church. Through the years, I went through the three levels that Langham Preaching has and I became part of the preaching team in my local church. Every single week we met every Wednesday night to listen to feedback from the previous sermon from last Sunday and prepare the sermon for the next Sunday.
It’s been an incredible process because people, especially the preachers, were able to give their ideas of how they see the sermon going next Sunday. They also made improvements so when they preach on Sunday, it’s a very good sermon. The next Wednesday they receive more feedback so they can improve as preachers.
From then, I’ve been translating the prayer shots that I imagine all of you receive for many years. Then I became part of the team of Langham Preaching, serving as personal assistant to the director for Latin America. From then, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Jennifer Cuthbertson. She was the coordinator for facilitator development. I helped her especially during the pandemic, because all the things we used to do in person, we needed to start thinking about how to do this in an online environment. So that’s been my journey with Langham and a little bit about my background as a Christian.
Thank you. It sounds like you’ve known no other way apart from the Langham way from a preaching perspective since you were around 16 or 17.
Yes, that’s fascinating. So during that time, you see your church and your preachers, your ministers, your leaders at your church developing week on week through that program. Are you directly involved much in Bolivia with the preaching program or are you looking at it more internationally? What I’m trying to see is just the picture that’s in Bolivia and how the preaching programs work there.
Oh, because I’m also a preaching club coordinator. We are part of a network in Cochabamba with all the preaching club coordinators. We meet once a month. I think we have between 30 and 40 preaching clubs in Cochabamba and in the country we have a higher number every single year. We have a national event when people from all over the country come and we study a book.
This year, for example, we are going to study the book “How to Preach the Prophets” and the book of Habakkuk. It’s the team that studies what book will be most useful for the entire country. Since we’re going through a lot of struggles with justice and a huge crisis, the Book of Habakkuk is really relevant, and the team really focuses on that.
We have a national team in Bolivia, and it’s incredible how people get involved and say, “I wish I had this program before in my life because I don’t know what I was preaching before.” I wasn’t doing expository preaching or biblical preaching. Now that I know, not only my devotional life is better, but the sermons are easier to do and they are especially faithful to the text. That’s one of the comments we normally hear in the national movement.
Let’s stick with that, Esteban, because I think we’ll come back to your role. But you sent through the prayer points you got, many of which were for your country. I think it was quite interesting that there were points about the environment. I know you’re going to share an image about the fires that you’ve had in Bolivia. There was a point about politics with elections coming up and also the economic situation you find yourselves in. Could you try and join those two together? You’re just talking about the book of Habakkuk and sharing that around through the preaching coordinators. To me, that seems to be strategically the right time in the right place. Perhaps you want to talk about some of those situations and how preaching slots into what’s happening there.
Let me share. This is a photo from my city last year. Actually, last year the entire country had smoke like this. It was very difficult to see from one point in the city to another. The reason is that many millions of acres were burned down for agriculture, for the agro industry.
The problem is that it produced a huge environmental crisis across the country and every city. We lost a lot of animals and their environments along with many indigenous communities that live near those forests, which were endangered.
It was a huge issue. Thankfully, we had rain, but even with rain for two weeks, the air quality was terrible and caused health problems. The city was filled with dense smoke, which was terrible.
The reason this happened is because this type of industry brings a lot of money. Since we’re going through an economic crisis, they wanted to extend land use for this type of business.
Another problem is we have a shortage of dollars. The government paid a huge amount of debt with available dollars, and the country now has a shortage. Because of this, the value of the dollar increased, so anything we need to import has at least doubled in price. Food, medicines, many things are now very expensive.
Additionally, we use dollars to buy gas or diesel. The government subsidises half the price for the common person to get fuel, but the government has no borders and is paying extra to cover the price. Now we also have no fuel.
Every person with a car needs to wait in five-hour lines to get fuel, and sometimes, after waiting for hours, they announce there’s no more fuel, so you waste your time.
Fuel for industrial and farming use, like diesel, is even harder to get. People can wait days in line.
Another issue is government corruption. We found out about many scandals. The son of the president owns many kilometres of land, and at just 26 years old, there’s no clear reason he earned that money legitimately. So there’s scandal.
Unfortunately, none of the candidates for the upcoming elections are very convincing. We hope to make a good decision for the next president and government, but it’s sad to live this way in the year we’re celebrating 200 years since the country’s founding.
So, bittersweet.
Indeed. You have national elections in mid-August. Going back, it’s important as preachers lead up to that time not to be political but to seek justice through their preaching.
Thanks for the insight, Esteban. We’ll bring the prayer points up in a moment. Let’s go back to your role, your international roles.
So, you coordinate global resources for Langham. Can you share something exciting happening there, perhaps hinted at with the online stuff? Something that really motivates you? Also, share a challenge that weighs on your heart right now in your role.
(Esteban was unmuted.) I’m involved with developing multimedia resources, especially for oral people. Considering new generations who prefer videos over books, we aim to complement the amazing books with videos to watch alongside reading.
I’m also involved with Langham Connect, an international team of facilitators focusing on adapting lessons to each culture, making learning more natural.
We are improving the prayer shot and developing a youth advisory group for Langham Preaching. This focuses on intergenerational leadership and getting more young people involved, especially Gen Z, as they bring energy, new ideas, and insights on communicating with newer generations.
What excites me the most are the improvements in the prayer shot. We now have a video version with guided prayer, so you can pray along with it.
The youth advisory group is exciting because this new generation is skilful, dynamic, and has needs and gifts that God can use in the church and preaching movements globally.
Personally, in my church we have a new preaching club and are studying the book of Philemon. My wife and I are very excited about this.
I also started a Bible study for men. One week we study the Book of Mark to discover who Jesus is from that book. The other week we play football and invite others to join us. Before playing, we have a short sermon.
It’s a great way to engage people who wouldn’t normally attend church. It’s healthy for everyone.
That’s brilliant. One of the joys of Langham Connect is having the same conversation across many countries rather than duplicating efforts. Langham Preaching is in about 85 countries, and your coordination helps understand what makes each generation tick and what they need.
Any other challenges besides what you’ve shared about your country and Langham?
In my local church, as preaching club coordinator, after a few months they invited me to preach. On Sunday, 3rd of August, I preached a sermon from the book of Habakkuk. It was challenging because it was three days before 200 years of the country’s foundation and one or two weeks before the elections.
I feel honoured but also responsible. I hope all my preparation through Langham will be useful in this challenge.
Well, bless you, Esteban. We have 30 people on this call eager to pray for you.