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Kep & Debbie James

Kep grew up in Yarinacocha, Peru through high school in the Amazon jungle while his parents served as missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators.

Kep came to faith in Christ at the age of 15 in Peru. He studied at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL 1975-79, and finished his MA in Christian Ministries in 1980. Debbie (who grew up at Brighton / Browncroft) and Kep married June 20, 1981 in Wheaton. They got involved that same year at Parkside Church in Chagrin Falls, OH where Kep served as youth pastor from 1981-1986.

Kep and Debbie joined SIM and went to Bolivia in 1988 after a year of language study in Costa Rica. They planted the ILC church in La Paz that has planted multiple churches in Bolivia. In 2000 Kep turned the ILC church leadership over to a team of pastors and elders he had raised up.

In 2002 Kep began the Equipping Servants organization (ESI). ESI is a three-year mutual discipleship training process for pastors and church ministry leaders designed to honor Christ by helping men and women think and live biblically and get the gospel at the center of their lives and ministries. Currently ESI has 2500 participants in 15 countries in Central and South America and Europe. ESI plans to expand into Africa (Portuguese) and the United States (Spanish) in 2021.

Kep co-authored a book in Spanish in 2019 called, “The Danger of Christianity without Christ”, and prepared much of the training content of ESI.

Kep is an avid reader and loves hiking and camping. Kep and Debbie have 3 children and 5 grandchildren (Sami and Heather Ross live in Cleveland Ohio; Katie is a nurse in Cleveland, Ohio; Andrew and Angie are missionaries with SIM doing church planting in Montevideo, Uruguay).

KEP'S LIFE VERSE
“We proclaim Him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone complete in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all His energy, which so powerfully works in me”.
Colossians 1:28-29