As many of you know, I’ve been making ministry trips back and forth to Mexico while Ana and Cristi have stayed in the USA.
So what’s a ministry day in Mexico like?
Here’s an account of one of my recent trips on the mission field…
For 3 years we’ve been trying to get to Saclum, Chalchihuitán to minister and pass out gifts to this very poor Church which is under our covering. This village is located in a very remote area of Chiapas. We drive 2 1/2 hours from Tuxtla Gutierrez to Chenalho and then embark upon another rough 3 hour drive on unpaved roads through the mountains to get there.
In the past, every time we’ve tried to visit Saclum it has rained and we’ve had to cancel our trip because the roads were to muddy and rough to travel on.
This year we scheduled the trip again. We got rained out once again!
I proclaimed to our Indian leaders,
“These people are faithful and would be highly encouraged by our visit, let’s reschedule.”
So we waited for the roads to dry out and planned another trip.
I spent the night in a primitive hotel in Chenalho. Then arose early and got into the back of the pickup truck to make the trip.
Would you believe that about half way to our destination, it began to rain, heavily?
The good news it that since we were traveling down the mountains. We were able to make it to our destination.
The people of Saclum were so glad to see us. They already had freshly prepared chicken soup ready for us to eat.
Then we began the celebration service in which I preached and prayed for all the leaders. After that, we passed out Unanimous Ministries shirts & hats and lots of candy to everyone. We celebrated for 3 hours then drunk some pozol (corn meal mixed in water).
Everyone was so happy and the leaders were so thankful for our visit. We were touched as the lead Pastor began to weep out of gratitude .
After a few more tears we prepared to return home.
We were quickly informed, “The roads are too rough to go back up the mountain, you’ll have to take the long way around.”
I quickly responded,
“I thought this was the long way!”
The people of the village chuckled,
“No but If you keep traveling down the mountain for another 45 minutes it will take you to a paved road, then you can travel 5 more hours and get back to Chenalho.”
It was still raining and already 3:00 pm when we began our long trip home. At 9:00 pm we arrived in Chenalho. I had another ministry engagement scheduled for the next day so I continued traveling back home to Tuxtla Gutierrez. It was 11:30 pm when I arrived back at our apartment. The Tios (our family in Mexico) were waiting up on me.
“We were worried, was everything ok?”
I responded,
“Todays mission accomplished, just another longer day in the life of a missionary”
Thank for making it possible for me to minister in places like Saclum
I want to thank you as my partner in Christ for helping me to have ministry days like I’ve just described. The people were so hungry for God, His Word was proclaimed, leaders and kids were touched. Trips like I just described are so worth it!
THANK YOU For partnering with us to make this happen!