Greetings from Mexico. This past weekend we had the biggest weekend of our ministry year. We held our 8^th annual church planting conference. Every year, our church prepares to host this international conference, and this year did not disappoint. We hosted over 500 guests who attended from 6 different countries, and a total of 80 different churches were represented.

            The focus of this year’s conference was Biblical church planting, and our eight primary teachings focused on church planting lessons from different books of the New Testament. We were blessed to have teachings from Pastors Hugo Limon (Ensenada), Trent Douglass (California), Tony Carranza (Mazatlan), Aaron Smith (Florida), Gregg Seymour (Las Vegas), Pedro Velasquez (Monterrey ), Danny Hodges (Florida), and myself. We also had 24 workshops that covered every aspect that you can think of in regards to church planting.

A blessing of this year’s conference was the many women that were in attendance. As always we had a full slate of women’s workshops available for the ladies to learn about their important part in church planting. My wife Sarah, Debbie Douglass, Brenda Limon, and Angela Carranza all led workshops.

The highlight of this year’s conference was sending out church planters. One of the goals of our church planting movement is teaching and encouraging pastors to send out church planters. In the past conferences we have sent out one church planter together, but at this year’s conference we were able to send out four different church planters.

Our church sent out our 41^st church planter at the conference. (More on that later) Pastor Tony Carranza sent out his next church planter Raul to Venezuela South America. Pastor Hugo Limon sent out a new church planter from Ensenada back to Culiacan. And Pastor Trent Douglass got to send his first Mexican national (Marcelo) out to the Middle East to church plant.

All of our attendees were blessed and encouraged as together we learned about church planting. The fellowship was rich and many friendships were formed. One of my favorite parts of this conference is that we get to provide this conference free of charge to all of our guests. A special thank you to our generous church congregation, Pastor Trent, and our sending church Calvary Chapel Saving Grace for funding this year’s conference.

On our church side of things, this past weekend Calvary Rosarito was blessed to send out our 41^st church plant (Calvary Del Lago) to Patzcuaro Michoacan. I met my good friend Humberto Ambriz about 5 years ago at one of our church planting conferences. It was Humberto’s dream to raise up a young couple to plant a church in his beloved home state of Michoacan!

Sadly, there weren’t any young couples that were willing to step out in faith and be trained up and church plant. After that disappointment, Humberto heard the call that he was the one God was calling to plant the church! After retiring, Humberto left the American dream and moved to Rosarito to join our staff and take our church planting class. Humberto completed our church planting program with excellence, and our church family was blessed to send him out to do the great work of church planting.

Humberto is 68 years old, yet as he taught on Sunday morning he reminded us that Moses was 80 years old when God called him to go back to Egypt and set his people free. Now Humberto and his beloved wife Miriam take this great leap of faith and they are asking God to do more than they could ever ask or think. Please keep them and their church plant (Calvary Del Lago) in your prayers!

Finally, I want to thank you once again for partnering with us in this great missions work in Mexico and beyond. God has blessed us with much fruit, and we feel honored and blessed that you have chosen to support our family as your missionaries. Thank you again for your love, prayers, and financial support.

Con mucho amor de Mexico,  (with much love from Mexico)

Mike, Sarah, Grace, and Daniel

Prayer Requests!

#1- Pray that God will bless our new batch of church planters. We have 40 students enrolled in our two classes this semester, which includes 10 first-year students.

#2-  Our college graduate Grace has applied for several jobs recently, please pray that God opens up a door for her in the job that He has chosen.    

Praise Reports!

#1- Praise God for our 41^st church plant, Calvary Del Lago in Patzcuaro, Michoacan.   

#2- Praise God for a fruitful and blessed church planting conference!  

For our personal support, checks should be made out to Saving Grace World Missions with “Vincent support” in the memo section.  For special projects, checks should also be made out to Saving Grace World Missions or SGWM, with the project name in the comments section. Use the enclosed envelope or mail directly to Saving Grace World Missions, 17451 Bastanchury Rd., Suite 203, Yorba Linda, CA 92886-1873

For your convenience, you may consider giving through electronic funds transfer or direct deposit. Simply click on this link to directly support our family as your missionaries.

Japan is a nation of being shiny and put together. The mess and grime is cleaned, covered, or hidden. Like any place in the world, entropy happens. In Japan, however, the break down and disorder are fought against as much as possible. The upkeep of possessions is done compulsively, especially items that other people will see. So it came as quite a surprise when several times we would hear loud squeaks coming from the brakes of the bicycles that passed by us each day. Why don’t Japanese people oil their brakes. When they meticulously take care of almost everything in their lives, why not their bikes? It wasn’t just old looking bicycles or random people, it was nearly every bike including the policemen.

One day we asked one of our friends if she knew the reason why this was the case. She told us that people want their brakes to squeak. Bicycles are rode exclusively on the sidewalk. When you come up behind someone you don’t want them to move into your path. If your brakes are squeaky, you can use them to let people know you’re coming up behind them. The other option would be to have to interact with people on the street, they want a system that allows them to do their communal responsibility without having to actually talk or interact with people. Even with something as non-direct or small as letting them know you’re coming up in their blind spot. As Christians who desire to connect with the Japanese and show them the love of Christ and share the gospel with them, how do you overcome a culture that avoids interaction at that level? We need the Spirit to lead us to right people every single day. If He doesn’t go before us, we won’t be able to have any impact in this country. Please be praying for us to talk to the people who are lonely and looking for an interaction with a strange foreigner. 

We have a lot of stuff going on right now, both Alishia and I have been given teaching opportunities this month. I taught a Sunday morning at Calvary Chapel Iwakuni at the end of July. I will be teaching a Sunday and midweek service at Abide in August, and Alishia will be teaching the women’s bible study for two weeks in August as well. There is also our normal young adults bible study and the opportunity to possibly teach at a homeless church this month as well.

We have a team coming from the US in early September that we are hosting, then we will head to Thailand with them for the CCA Asia Conference. Then a few people will be coming to Japan for three month stays later this fall. As we have more opportunities and are doing more traveling to conferences we have some financial one-time needs. If you’re interested in supporting us monthly or with a one time gift, please click the financial button below. 

Prayer Requests:

• Alishia’s health as we head to Thailand. We are trusting the Lord in stepping out to have her go to this and so we would ask that you cover her greatly in prayer.
• With some single female missionaries coming for medium to long term stays here in Osaka, we are praying about moving to a larger apartment so that we can house them and other visitors that may come spend time with us.
• For the Lord to meet all our needs, spiritual, and financial alike.

Hey everyone! It has been a couple months since our last newsletter, and we are really excited to share all the different things that the LORD has led us into. We are truly grateful for every opportunity that has come about this summer, in regards to missions, ministry, marriage, and so much more.

One of the biggest things that has been on our hearts in this season is the LORD’s provision; as the world would see, we face a lot of physical challenges as a nearly-married young couple living in Orange County, CA, serving at the church. But the main focus for us has been to fix our eyes upon Him, in every aspect of our lives, both together and individually. Romans 11:36 tells us that, “…of Him and through Him and to Him are all things.” In this doxology of praise, we are reminded that there is promise, provision, and purpose in the LORD’s will. There is promise that He is sovereign over what we face, there is provision through Him and Him alone, no matter what we face, and He is the purpose for why we face what we face! He is more than worthy.

“Do not seek your needs, seek the God who gives you what you need.”

I (Araceli) as I was praying about provision and the new business we have started (which we will talk about down below!) the LORD put Matthew 6:25-34 on my heart; as I read a commentary, the quote above stood out to me. God knows all of our needs and all I need to do is look to Him and trust that He will provide for the present, for the wedding, and for married life.

Ministry Opportunities Keep Coming

I (Barek) am grateful for the opportunities that have come about to serve in different ways at Calvary Chapel Saving Grace. As we make ourselves available there are always opportunities that arise where a need in the body is to be met, and this is how the church is to function! With all of the staff and students who headed down to Mexico this summer for the Calvary School of Missions, there was a need for help with worship at the Connect Young Adults group, and I was blessed to be able to help with that.

I (Araceli) have continued to serve at the church in the social media ministry. I am blessed to be able to use the creativity with which the LORD has gifted me! I have now been blessed with opportunity to manage and oversee the church’s Instagram/Facebook pages. If you read the previous newsletter, you’ll remember that I was only managing the Saving Grace World Missions instagram, so this is an awesome and challenging responsibility to get to manage both!

Barek and I were able to go to the beach and evangelize with a group of friends from the church! Barek was able to head this up! More and more I see the need among our local communities for the gospel. We both want to continue to evangelize as this is an area the LORD has gifted me in, and I have to exercise the gift. We were able to have multiple conversations with people and we pray that seeds were planted!

Introducing… Brea Barks!

We don’t know how long we will be in training and preparation for the mission field, as we are about to get married and start this life together, but in the meantime, we are excited for this business that the LORD is bringing about. We have been blessed with an opportunity to start a small local dog-pack walking business in North OC! It is very slow going, and we still have lots of needs that we’re entrusting to the LORD as we seek Him, but this is one way in which we know we will see His provision.

PRAISE REPORTS

• For the new business and the clients that the LORD has already provided!
• For the opportunities that have come about to serve in new ways at the church.
• For His provision for a trip this upcoming weekend to the CC Rosarito Church Planting Conference!

PRAYER REQUESTS

• For provision for our wedding, honeymoon, and a place to live!
• For our engagement season, as we are excited to begin our premarital counseling soon.
• For us and everyone else attending to have ears to hear what the LORD will speak at the church planting conference!

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter! We appreciate your support through prayers and ask that you continue to seek the Lord with us in regards to this calling on our lives. If you feel led to partner with us financially, with a one-time or a recurring gift, it would be such a great blessing. There is a giving link below! God bless you, and please reach out with any questions or encouragements.

Til’ Kingdom come,
Barek & Araceli

Praise the Lord!

Greetings to you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you, dear supporters and prayer partners, for your prayers and financial support. We are praying for your family and your country. By the grace of God, my family and I are doing well. God has kept us safe.

Last Month I got chance to visit another state for a mission trip with Pastor 3*. It is about 250 miles from where I live. While we were traveling to the railroad station on an auto rickshaw, a bus hit our vehicle. By the grace of God, we were safe. No harm came to us.

Our one week of mission trip was so wonderful and blessed. We met all of the believers and their families. We encouraged them with the Word of God and prayed for them.

Last month I got a chance to visit the home of a previous Bible Institute student. We spent some time with his family and had fellowship with him. It was good to see that he is doing ministry while he is also working a job. We also met another Christian brother there who used to smoke. God worked in his heart. He has now quit smoking and attends prayer meetings.

I also got the opportunity to preach at a birthday program last month.

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray for my children to grow in the Lord’s fear and knowledge. Please also pray for their final exam.
• Please pray that the Lord will intervene in the problems the world is facing.
• Please pray for our local village ministry. Pray that those we are ministering to may grow in Lord’s Word.
• Please pray for Pastor 2* and his ministry. May the people he is ministering to grow in Lord.
• Please pray for the Christians in our state. May they stand strong in the Lord in the midst of persecution.

Blessings,

Pastor 16* and Family

* Names have been changed or omitted for security reasons.

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

I pray for you and your family. May the Lord keep you and bless you. Thank you for partnering in the ministry through your prayers and support.

I am doing great by the grace of our Saviour. The new semester of our Bible Institute has started. I am teaching “Systematic Theology” this semester. I am excited to connect with the new students. I am looking forward to ministering to each one of them not only in the classroom, but also at a personal level as I get to know them more and disciple them individually. Overall, we have a total of 9 students.

We are running our Bible Institute in a small, rented house. We cannot have a lot of students because the students also stay at the same facility. Another reason for not having many students is that there is a lot of persecution going on in our state. Having a lot of students would draw the Hindu fanatics’ attention since they are always looking for any Christian activity to attack.

At the end of last year, we had an election in our state. The anti-Christian government came into power. Last month we had a national level election, and the same anti-Christian government has been re-elected. The same anti-Christian party is in power in our state and also in our country. They have some laws against Christian mission work. They also have many local groups everywhere who track Christian mission work. They persecute the churches. They come in groups and attack churches and Christian schools. They beat people and destroy their property. Last year many Christians in our state were forcefully kicked out of their villages and their homes were destroyed.

We thank God that we can continue to do His work. We will continue to do ministry as long as the Lord keeps the door open. I know that God is in control, so I am moving forward and trusting Him in all circumstances.

My grandma went to be with the Lord on June 28. She was 95 years and 6 months old. Her life was a life of prayer.

Prayer Requests:

• Pray that God continues to use me for His glory as I teach and disciple these students.
• Pray for my health. I am having trouble with an allergy to dust. I have to take medicine every day.
• Pray for the students to adjust well. Most of them are from different states.
• Pray for the God’s protection upon our lives and ministry

Blessings,

Pastor 9

* Names and faces have been changed or omitted for security reasons.

Dear Ministry Partners,

Greetings to you all in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

According to the “Economic Times News,” nearly 43 per cent of the surveyed farmers lost at least half of their standing crops. Rice, vegetables, and pulses were particularly affected by the uneven rainfall. In the northern states, paddy fields often remained submerged for more than a week, destroying the newly planted seedlings. We need to pray for the farmers. Many times, it is reported that they commit suicide because of losing their crops.

We express our heartfelt thanks to the Lord Almighty for His abundance grace upon our family. At the same time, we highly appreciate each one of you for your earnest prayers and financial support. Because of your financial help, we are able to move forward with the Gospel of Christ Jesus to the unreached without any worry. As a family we have been praying for you, for your family, ministry, job and businesses. May the good God bless you with all the resources and good health.

As a family we went to my home village in another state. It is about 400km away from where we live now. It was wonderful to spend time with my parents. We also had the privilege to meet the believers in my home village. We visited them and listened to their problem and difficulties. We also encouraged them through the Word of God and prayed for them personally. It was a good time to speak to them through the Word of God in a home prayer meeting.

During our trip we met some of Hindu families. One of them is Mr. K.D. and his family. I got the opportunity to share my testimony with them about how God changed my life. They were amazed to hear my life story. I believe some day God will touch their hearts so that they will experience God’s love in their lives. Overall, I spent quality time with my parents and the believers in my village.

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray for good rainfall in our country. Also pray for the farmers to get good crops and that none of them commit suicide.
• Please pray for my parents to have good health. Also pray that they may grow in their faith.
• Please pray for the believers in my home village to grow spiritually. Also pray for Mr. K.D. and his family to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
• Continue to pray for the growth and needs of our local church.
• Kindly pray for me and my family. May the Lord use us for the expansion of His kingdom.

Thank you very much for your prayers and support!!

In Him,

Pastor 3* and Family

*Names and faces have been changed or omitted for security reasons.

Greetings in the Name of Jesus Christ!

First of all, I want to thank my living God that He has sustained us till now. I also thank all of you who constantly lift us up in your prayers.

Thank God also for my family. By the grace of God we are doing well! Please pray for my family so that we grow spiritually day-by-day.

A few days ago, God gave me the opportunity to visit a new family. I told them the Good News about the infinite love of God. I shared John 3:16 and about finding salvation from sin. At the end, I prayed for the family. A young lady who is part of the family is looking for a job. Please pray for this family.

Please keep praying that the Lord will open new doors for me, so that I can continue to do the work of the Lord faithfully. I also visited another family. There was a young man there whose name is H*. He has mental problems. I prayed for him. Please pray for his deliverance.

I especially thank, from the bottom of my heart, every hand who is supporting me financially. May the Lord bless all of you!!

Your Brother,

Pastor 8* and Family

*Names and faces have been changed or omitted for security reasons.

While my (Joel’s) travels typically take me internationally, every once in a while I get to travel to a new state. Back in May, our whole family went on a road trip to Pagosa Springs, CO. While there, we hiked along rivers, to waterfalls, saw historic little towns, and spent time swimming at the beautiful resort we were blessed with a free 7-night stay at! On the way back, we also got to visit the “Four Corners,” where you can stand in Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico all at once. A novelty for sure, but the kids loved it.

This month, I got to head to Alabama for the first time! While I ate some good food (much of it deep-fried and not friendly to my diet!) and got to spend time with some dear family, this wasn’t for a vacation. The purpose of our trip was for a Crisis Management Training seminar in Auburn, where my friend and fellow SGWM pastor Tim, his wife Jenn, and Rob Douglass and Elaine Sedillos of Ends of the Earth Ministries, met up to invest in the stewardship of our dear missionaries and ministries around the world.

Missions is never entirely safe; there is always risk involved. The purpose of this training was to equip us to: assess risk for each area of the world we have workers and ministries in; come up with and write policies and contingency plans for each of those regions; and create teams to help manage any potential crisis that may arise. We hope to NEVER have to implement a single one of those plans, but we need to be equipped in case anything happens to our precious missionaries. Our job as a home office is to steward them well.

In a couple of weeks, my international travels will continue as I will head down to Rosarito, Mexico to teach a workshop at CC Rosarito’s annual church-planting conference (my workshop will be “Building a Worship Team”) and then give my testimony, lead a night of worship, and teach a half-day class at our Calvary School of Missions on “Worship & Missions.”

Then in September, I will be taking one of my longest trips ever, as I lead a team to Japan to visit our missionaries Jeff & Alishia Root as well as to expose the team to Japanese culture as they pray about their future in missions. From there, I’ll go straight to Thailand (where I took my first overseas missions trip almost 20 years ago!) for the CCA missions conference and then a special retreat/conference for many of our SGWM missionaries in Asia. I ask that you keep my family and I in prayer as we prepare for these big things coming up.

We would love to keep you updated on our ministry via our newsletter email updates if you are interested. You can sign up for those by clicking the link below:

Email Updates

You can also become a one-time or ongoing financial partner with us by clicking the button below, or by mailing a check made out to SGWM with “Joel Garcia” in the memo line to 17451 Bastanchury Rd, Ste 203, Yorba Linda, CA, 92886. 

Love in Christ,
Joel, Amy, Maggie, Harrison, Jude, and Clara Garcia

“For the LORD revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the Word of the LORD.”

-1 Samuel 3:21

I have been reading 1 Samuel. I am blessed by the verse mentioned above. It is my aim to know God, as Paul says of himself, “That I may know Him… being made conformable unto his death” (Philippians 3:10). The best way the Lord reveals himself is through His Word. As I am going through His Word, it is my prayer that the Lord would reveal himself more and more to me. I pray the same for you too.

We, as a family, are doing well by His grace. Even though my wife has to regularly take medication, the Lord is helping her to continue to stand with me in the ministry. She is used by the Lord to teach online Bible studies for women and Sunday school in our church. Thank you for your prayers for her health.

In spite of persecution in our area, we are able to continue to meet for Sunday services by God’s grace. Many house fellowships in our town and neighboring villages have been closed down by the police and Hindu fanatics. I have finished teaching Genesis. Now we are going through the book of Exodus. 

My mother went to be with the Lord on June 28^th. She was a godly woman. She devoted herself to the reading of the Word and prayer. It is because of her prayers that I am saved and used by the Lord in ministry. Praise the Lord for such a godly mother. Thank you for your prayer support at this time of sorrow.

Thank you for your partnership in the ministry of the Gospel.

Co-workers in Christ,

Pastor 15* Family

*Names and Faces have been changed or omitted for security reasons.

Pastor 15’s family is in need of monthly support.

If you feel led to become a monthly financial partner or increase your currently monthly support, please click the “Become A Financial Partner” button or mail a check to Saving Grace World Missions with a note designating the gift is for Pastor 15.