The Magdalena Project

~ FAQ Overview~

The following is intended to answer the basic who, what, when, why, and how concerning the Magdalena Project and Vertical Life Ministry's involvement with it.  At this time, we are specifically focusing on support for our 2^nd Phase needs.   

v     What exactly is the Magdalena Project?  The Magdalena Project is an independent, Bolivian managed, three-phase mission project originally projected for completion within 5 to 8 years. 

Phase-One: Land and construction of temporary mission headquarters/new church annex

Phase-Two: Land and 1st + 2nd phase construction of church 

Phase-Three: Land and construction of school/community college (Includes permanent mission office)

v     What is the demographic make-up of Magdalena and where is it located?  Magdalena is the capitol of the Itenez Province located on the banks of the Itonama River bordering the Northeastern Amazon Basin.  The area is comprised of about 75% Mestizo, with the remaining population consisting primarily of Guarani Indians. 

The Community totals roughly 5,000 persons where nearly 70% percent are under the age of 15 years old.  Many children live alone with mothers, aunts, or grandparents as their parents seek gainful employment in larger cities 12 to 20 hours away. 

v     How did the Project begin and who is involved at present?  The Project Vision was birthed in the heart of a young Bolivian Pastor named Ruben Duran and his wife Audelina.  (See web site for more details)  Noting that the Project aligned with our own mission expansion into this same Northern Region, (and finding Ruben Duran a man of character and resilience); VLM  sort of 'adopted' the Project; beginning to work toward its creation and establishment in August of 2006.

VLM relocated the Duran Family and their four children (then ages 3 to 12) from Santa Cruz to Magdalena in January of 2007.  Living and working there over the past three and a half years, they have laid the spiritual and logistical groundwork for the Project's realization; developing critical relationships within the community and with the civil government's infrastructure.

v     Who is Vertical Life Ministries?  Vertical Life Ministries started when a Christian military veteran, retired in Bolivia, began playing American Baseball with the kids in his barrio in 2005.  From that beginning, we became an independent, non-denominational, multi-functional, urban outreach ministry located in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  Our primary focus is centered in marginalized street persons, widows & orphans, and at risk children.  And our core goal has always been evangelism.

v     Who is Vertical Life Missions?  Vertical Life Missions is a new expansion outreach into the Northern Bolivian Pampas and Amazon Basin which began in January of 2007.  Our temporary headquarters in Magdalena serves as the present hub for the Magdalena Project Operations as well as mission outreach in another Project called, Feed My Lambs.  (A three year children's evangelism and leadership-training venture in the Province)

v     Do you have any international partners in the Project?  Christ Community Church World Missions in Noblesville, Indiana has partnered with Pastor Duran and the Project providing $100 monthly financial aid and consulting.  CCCWM currently maintains mission schools in Haiti, Jamaica, Bolivia, and a school and orphanage in India. 

v     Who supports you?  The Ministry began as a personal outreach of VLM's Founder, and until late 2006, it was supported almost entirely by his military pension.  For the past three years, all of VLM's work, (as well as this adopted Project), has month-to-month been supported by six (6) generous donors and our own personal funds.  

In February of 2009, we began receiving $250 monthly from our home church in Mobile, Alabama, Luke 4:18 Fellowship.  We receive another $30 monthly from another individual donor/partner. 

Apart from this, we are not connected to any mission agency or denominational organization for support.  We are independently promoting this Project in an effort to locate contributing investment partners; believing this promotion will open doors for direct support relationships with the Magdalena Project; as well as broaden our own Ministry's financial support base for the expansion of mission efforts into the same Northern Region.

v      What exact purpose do you hope to accomplish?  The first two stages of the Project will establish our relational presence in the Community.  They are the cornerstone for the third:    The construction and operation of a fully certified Christian School & Community College in Magdalena, Bolivia. 

This school/college is designed in vision to fulfill four critical purposes:

1. Development of Education: Increase/exceed the present quantity, quality, and character of basic education in Bolivia. Thus becoming an educational catalyst and change-agent-force of spiritual and economic development in the Community; the Region, and even the Nation as a whole.

2. Development of a Whole-Person Concept: Challenge personal vision to be centered in a whole-person concept of character, personal integrity, and citizenship; leading the student toward: Identifying, Understanding, & Fulfilling their God-designed purpose in life.

3. Development of Local & Regional Economy: Implant a critically needed economic vehicle within the community and region; producing healthy competition that drives basic cost-of-living prices downward, from what is at present, an extreme supply-side-availability pricing.

4. Development of Sustainable & Replenishing In-Country Missions Resources:  Generate In-Country capitol made available to other mission works with a mind to develop their own self-sustaining support resources. This decreases the need for foreign assistance, particularly in education-based projects.

v     Once completed; what type of income generation and how many jobs might this Project produce in the Province?  The College itself will employ approximately 26 to 30 full-time employees (along with various contract and part-time positions); producing a payroll of 16-18K per month.  Beyond taxes and comprehensive operational and administrative costs, the College may be expected to generate from 5-7K of monthly net income for use in support of other mission works. 

The economic growth of the College's payroll, coupled with the influx of over 300-400 national and intercontinental students, will produce a substantive socio-economic Community & Regional impact.  Also, it will elevate Magdalena's prestige as capitol of the Province; attracting a diversity of business interests toward the Community.

v     What specific types of mission works will the profits of this College be invested into?  These net profits will serve to build and improve schools; plant small community churches and family life centers; offer 1^st year College scholarships; establish pirate radio outlets; satallite leadership-training locations; and generate needed vocational training and micro-enterprise capital to create greater individual and communal self-sufficiency. 

Because of the large number of unsupported senior citizens in the Community of Magdalena and outlying areas, we desire to work in alliance with other entities to ensure that the food and medical needs of these citizens are honorably and effectively met before looking away toward other things.  However, the idea of developing a private Bolivian mission agency, able to send missionaries into the 10-40 window of Northern Africa, is being discussed at this time with several other interested national parties.