Daniel Bianchi, who has served as the Lausanne Movement's regional director for Latin America since 2017, has been appointed director of Arise Latin America, carrying into the region a youth missions movement that held its largest congress to date in Manila, Philippines, in July.
Rev. Dr. David Ro, co-founder and executive director of Arise Asia, announced in a social media post on Oct. 20 that Bianchi had accepted the position. Bianchi will carry into Latin America the work Arise has done across Asia, where it has mobilized young Christians to serve as cross-cultural missionaries.
The appointment follows plans Ro outlined to Christian Daily International after the Arise Asia 2026 Congress.
At the time, he said the movement intended to expand into Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and Central Asia, and that talks with local leaders in those regions were already underway.
Decades in Latin American missions
Bianchi's background spans several of the region's main missions networks. He became a Christian in Buenos Aires in the late 1970s and later joined Operation Mobilization, known as OM International, serving with its ship Doulos in Europe. Ro's post says he went on to direct OM's work in Argentina.
He later led the missions department of the Argentine Baptist Convention and founded the Agencia Misionera Internacional, a mission sending agency. He also served as a vice president of COMIBAM International, a cooperative network of missions bodies across Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries.
In 2014, Bianchi founded Conexión Oriental, which Ro described as linking Latin American churches with persecuted Christians and mission partners in the Middle East and East Asia. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from a theological school in Londrina, Brazil.
Ro and Bianchi served at the same time as Lausanne regional directors for eight years, Ro for East Asia and Bianchi for Latin America. Both worked on preparations for the Fourth Lausanne Congress, held in South Korea in 2024.
From mission field to mission force
Bianchi takes up the role in a region that has spent decades building its own sending movement. At COMIBAM's first continental congress, held in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1987, participants adopted the motto "from a mission field to a mission force," COMIBAM associate director Allan Matamoros told CDI in 2025.
The network now links training centers, mission agencies and local churches in 25 countries, CDI reported. An estimated 30,000 Ibero-American missionaries serve cross-culturally in more than 200 countries and territories.
Matamoros, a Costa Rican who served for more than two decades in the Muslim world, said Latin American missionaries often connect well in Muslim communities and in India, where extended family and close community carry weight. He said they may have less money than Western counterparts but "bring trust, joy, and a way of living" that fits many of the cultures they serve.
Focus on younger generations
Arise Latin America will focus on Generation Z and Generation Alpha, the age groups born from roughly the late 1990s onward, Ro wrote. He said he and Bianchi believe God can raise up a new generation of missionaries from among them.
Its mission, he said, is to challenge young people to "go where there is no gospel," a phrase drawn from Romans 15:20. Its motivation comes from Hebrews 12:1–2, the passage behind the "For the Joy" theme of the Manila congress, and its aim from Acts 20:24, in which the Apostle Paul speaks of finishing the task given to him.
Ro wrote that he hopes to see young people "willing to live sacrificially," crossing cultures so that people who have never heard of Jesus can hear the gospel.
Challenging places will bring forth future missionaries
The Arise Asia 2026 Congress met July 27–31 at Christ's Commission Fellowship Central in Manila. CDI reported that more than 4,000 young leaders from 64 countries attended and that 341 people came forward to commit to long-term cross-cultural mission.
Speaking to CDI after the closing session, Ro said he expects a growing share of future missionaries to come from places marked by conflict, poverty and persecution.
"Those challenging places will actually raise up people to go to challenging places," he said.
Ro also said the next Asia-wide Arise gathering is planned in three years.
