Discouragement

Hello friends and family. Thank you for taking time to read what has been happening for the last 2 months here in Moyobamba!

The last 10 days or so of December have been very challenging. A depression out of nowhere came and would not leave me for some time.

Thankfully, the Word of God has sustained me and I am finally out of that rut!

Reading through Matthew has reminded me to keep my eyes on Jesus, not the circumstances.

Reading through the Psalms has reminded me of King David’s difficulties and him crying out to God. Here are 2 verses that have ministered to me.

Psalm 25:5

Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.

Psalm 25:17

The troubles of my heart are enlarged;
bring me out of my distresses.

The Calvary Moyobamba family

While the enemy has attacked, the Lord has been at work!

The blessings have been like the Amazon rain! Numerous and overwhelming. One of the many blessings I am thankful for is the church family.

Christmas surprise!

The plan was to have people arrive at church at 7pm on Christmas Eve and eat at 8pm. “We will probably wrap things up at 11pm,” I thought to myself. “Four hours is a good chunk of time.” This was far off! Most people came around 9:30pm. When asked if they were hungry, the majority responded that they were full and just ate. Come to find out, the Christmas tradition here is to eat starting at midnight! My team and I didn’t know what to do because we were very hungry, yet wanted to eat together with everyone else. We decided to wait and allow the stomach noises to continue.

After approximately 7 hours together our friends realized it was late and time to return home. I arrived home around 4:30am and slept until 1pm! Please DO NOT tell my parents.

As a church family, we love spending time together and all those hours were worth it.

“El Hueco”

There is a huge abandoned building close to the church where homeless people sleep and other things occur. It is known as “el hueco,” or “the hole” in English. Some of the men from there came to our Christmas dinner, as they had nowhere else to go for the holidays. As we served them food and conversed with them, we built a good relationship and gained some trust. This allowed me to enter there days later to read the Bible and pray with them. There were no lights, so they had a candle lit to where I could see the pages. As several men gathered to hear, almost all said that they wanted out of that lifestyle and to be right with God. Long story short, 2 of them have now left. One has had close to a month without alcohol and drugs, found a job, reconciled with his family, now attends church regularly, reads his bible that we gave, and has helped with some construction projects. Praise God for His power of radically transforming our new brother in Christ’s life. The other guy has asked to be discipled, so he and I will meet up on Saturdays and go over the bible together.

Mateo’s curiosity

Most of the children in Sunday school have been coming on and off to church, but one boy who has been fairly consistent is Mateo. He has been asking a lot of questions about God and has the earnest desire to be part of His family. Gina the Sunday school teacher shared the full gospel with him. He understood and said he wanted to receive Jesus into his life. A few days later he ran up to me shouting with joy that he is now a child of God with a big smile on his face. I almost cried.

Three Months of Verse-By-Verse Teaching

Since the middle of October, we have had 13 teachings in the gospel of Luke on Sundays and 13 teachings in Genesis on Wednesdays.

One of my favorite messages was the call of Abram in Genesis 12. The first verse reads, “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” I can identify with Abram, because although I miss my family in Colorado dearly, there is no better place to be than where God calls you.

This picture was taken in November. Our hope was that our service would eventually open a door to share the gospel in the classrooms.

“At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word”

Colossians 4:3a.

Axl (from church) and Jesus preparing pineapple juice to serve to 50 students from a school close by. For 4 Wednesdays they came to our church to eat breakfast, converse, and hear a short bible message. Many of them normally go through the day without eating breakfast or lunch.

Praise God for:

• My team, our unity, and their hard work.

• God’s Word sustaining me.

• The open doors to share the gospel.

• People’s testimonies in the church of repenting, loving greater, joy, peace, and many other works of God.

Prayer Requests

• That Calvary Moyobamba can be a culture of arriving on time

O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.

Psalms‬ ‭63‬:‭1‬

During the week of prayer and fasting that takes place at my church, God gave me this longing for Him like never before. In the Psalms, we know David had a relationship with God yet he wanted more of him, he longed for more of Him. God began to show me He is doing something new in my heart and all I have been wanting to do is remain still in His presence and never leave. My prayer for you is that you would long for more of Him. That you would not remain complacent in your walk with God but that you would go running after Him, that you would chase after your first love like never before.

Last Month

In my previous newsletter I told you all that I would be visiting my family over the holidays and unfortunately the Lord led me not to go. I ended up in the hospital one night after not feeling well and the Lord clearly showed me that because of my health and not knowing what was going on, it was not wise to leave. This was heartbreaking for me because since coming back from Israel all I have been wanting is to see my family and it has been the same for them; especially after what I had experienced. But, man, God uses all things to prepare me more for missions. Knowing that there will come a time where I will not be able to see my family and them not see me. Please continue to pray for my family.

Grateful for the Body of Christ

For Christmas I spent it with the Brzezinski’s. I am grateful for the friendship I have with Amy who is in the left photo and her mom who is in the right photo. Amy has truly been an amazing friend and I have been blessed by her and her family in so many ways. I was able to have brunch and dinner with her family and had such a good time.

For New Years, I spent it with Denise, aka Gramma (she is the one who houses the girls who are in the missions training school) and church friends.

Both of these groups of people brought such genuine joy to my life when I couldn’t be with my family and I will never forget that. God is so gracious to have provided a family amongst the body of Christ.

My Health

I have been doing so much better in regards to my health and my anxiety. Thank you all so much for you prayers. I have been able to recognize the causes of my anxiety and know how to navigate through certain situations that could trigger my PTSD. I began to see a psychiatrist. I can truly say that it is the Word of God that continues to bring healing to my soul and having such an intimate relationship with the living God.

It’s almost time, LETS GO

The Indonesia trip is approaching and I absolutely cannot believe I am going. Everything was up in the air because of my health and lack of finances but the Lord provided by giving me better health and money to buy my plane ticket. It was just last week that I found out I was going. Praise God! For weeks I thought I was not going and I was discouraged. In the waiting, the Lord put Genesis 22 in my heart, Abraham offering his son at the altar. God was showing me I needed to offer my missions calling at the altar, I needed to put this trip at the altar. Waiting on God can be difficult but that is where our faith is being refined and growing us. God was faithful to reveal His will on His timing and He has given me permission to GO!

Please continue to pray that the Lord would provide for the rest of the cost of the trip. I am still in need of $1,000. If you feel led in any way to give towards this trip you can use the link below. Thank you all dearly for coming alongside me through prayer and partnership to fulfill God’s call on my life. As you know, my desire is to reach the unreached and eventually move overseas.

Praise Reports

• Praise God for His continual pursuit after me and having me fall in love with Him
• Praise God for the church body
• Praise God for opening the door to go to Indonesia
• Praise God for His continual healing

Prayer Requests

• Pray for my family, that they would have an understanding on God’s call on my life and pray that my mom would have a fire to read God’s word
• Pray for the team going to Indonesia, that God would work out all the details and for a smooth landing
• Pray for a continual healing for my body and mind and that God would give me the strength and all the energy I need to serve Him

The new year has started off with our church having a week of prayer and fasting. This was a time we got to seek God and focus on what He wanted to say to us. A time to surrender our lives, lift up our 2024 year and plans to listen to God. It was a sweet time and the Lord brought us through it. Doing it as a whole church community was also something that we experienced as a sweet fellowship. Koinonia, communion/fellowship/partnership with fellow believers, is amazing. We have really grown and learned so much since our move here to California.

“Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them; They shall not be ashamed,”

Psalm 127:4-5

Last year began with Sven recovering from back surgery and us praying about moving to California from Texas to attend Calvary School of Missions and going on the mission field. What we had to surrender for the Lord and what was needed to be done. We can tell you that what we gave up is nothing compared to the blessings we have received since then. Since we’ve moved here our entire family has joined us. We added to our family last year with Jorden and Aleah marrying and Bryan and Kayla giving us a grand baby girl. Our son Jonathan came back to the Lord; is walking passionately for the Lord and is now attending bible college here in California to learn more about Him. Joshua will be staying in California from Peru for the next year as a student, training to be a missionary alongside us. We have had a busy year but with many blessings.

Japan

So we are finally off to Japan. We’ll be here for four weeks and then we’ll head to Indonesia for 10 days. It doesn’t seem real. We have been praying for this vision tour for a while. You may be wondering why we are going to Indonesia too. Well, we will share more on that in a bit.

Our first leg will be going to Japan. We had wanted to go for a longer vision tour around Japan but that isn’t possible at this time. So for two weeks we’ll be touring around Japan, then the rest of the team will be flying in on the 29-30th of January, and staying for the next two weeks. We plan on going to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Kanazawa and some areas outside of these places. We are connecting with some churches and pastors but we are really just going to see the areas and pray. We pray God will lead us and guide us and speak to us about Japan. We have been told that sometimes He will confirm after vision tours, so we are open and want to let God lead and not our agendas.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Ephesians 2:10

Indonesia

After the four weeks in Japan we’ll be flying down to Bali, Indonesia. There we’ll also travel to East Java island and visit some local tribes and the rest of the time in Bali. You may be wondering why Indonesia? Sven lived in Indonesia for four years and this is also where he accepted Jesus into his heart through missionary kids at his school in Jakarta. So the Indonesia vision team asked him along. Many people may not know where Indonesia is. We have a map for you to see. Indonesia is a very interesting place, there are tribes to big cities. In Bali the main religion is Hindu, the tribes have mainly animism (spiritual worship of nature and animals), while the majority of Indonesia is Islamic. So a variety of beliefs and livelihood. We are open to what God may be leading and if Indonesia is where He’d like us, then we will go.

Sven’s Corner

We are off to Japan and Indonesia! The preparations that have gone into these vision tours you would think would be extensive on the planning and practical application side. But for the last couple of months, since we have come back from Peru, that has not been the center focus. What I mean by that is, of course the details of going to all of our missions classes, serving at the church almost daily, doing all the homework, reading the books, researching about Japan, culture, etc., planning out the itinerary, and purchasing the necessary tickets, hotels, etc., are all very important. But that is not the main thing that God has been doing.   

The preparation that God has been doing, however, has been mostly internal (and He is still doing it by the way). For as long as I have been walking with the Lord (since January 18^th, 1991) I have never gone through as much gut-wrenching pain and trials as I have the last few months. I, much like yourself have been through my fair share of suffering, whether that be physical, financial, mental, or spiritual (all trials on one level or another are spiritual in nature) but this has been on a whole other level. These have been intense emotional trials, so yes the heart for sure, the mind absolutely, but emotionally involves feelings in the seat of emotions (the gut) that can be hard to combat, and yet God is using it all for the good. I am not sure yet how what I am going through will further the gospel, but I know it will because God’s Word says so! God has and is working on the internal, literally from the inside out.  

But I want you to know brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel.

Philippians 1:12

All of this has caused me to rely on the Lord more than ever before. Taking my thoughts captive consciously seems like on a minute-by-minute basis. The cause, root, and attention of these particular trials are between myself and the Lord and are not important to our conversation. I merely wanted to point out that when we go through trials, it is because God loves us and does not desire to leave us in our current state.  

He desires for us to grow in our walk with Him and in His grace more and more, as He molds us and shapes us to be more like Himself every day. This process can only happen, however, if we are willing to go along with His program and not the building of our kingdom of self and desires.  

The Lord needs a willing vessel for eternal, fruitful change to take place. So turns out preparation for the mission field (whether short or long-term) is done in the heart and mind much more than in the practical outward.  

I pray this encourages you. You perhaps are going through a difficult time, the kind of difficult time where you are praying impossible prayers because you know that God is the God of the impossible. “Nothing is impossible with God.” 

Be of good cheer, God is here with you. He is sovereignly in control. Because God sees the big picture and knows, however heartbreaking and gut-wrenching your trial is, it will bring you closer to Him and you will grow in your relationship with the Lord more than you ever have before.  

Abide in Christ, like the branch abides in the vine.  Let the Lord do His perfect complete work in you. He loves you and knows what is best for you.  

On that note, we are excited to go on this vision tour and are excited to see what the Lord will do and more importantly what He will say while we are there. Please pray for us that God’s will will be done in the whole trip. See you here, there, or in the air! 

PRAISE REPORTS

• We had a year of growth- family, personally, and mainly with the Lord.
• We had an amazing holiday season with family and friends.
• We are both healthy for our travels.

PRAYER REQUESTS

• Our travels.
• Financial support.
• Health and safety for travels.
• The Lord speaks and directs.
• Divine appointments and contacts in the countries we are traveling to.
• For team unity.

Praise Report!

• We established a new church.
• We started church services at a new place.
• We started having a children’s church service.
• 70 people attend our Christmas Program.
• God brought youth into our church.
• We had a blessed Christmas at the Leper Colony.

“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

(Matthew 16:18)

Praise God! He provided us with a church building to do His ministry. For many years we have been praying for our church. While we were having church services at my home, we had many obstacles. My own elder brother, who always drinks alcohol, spoke rubbish words that hampered the growth of our church. As you all know, my family does not belong to a Christian background. Only me, my beautiful wife, and my mom are Christians. Sometimes, my mom also has some problems. She says “I am a Christian.” but does not always behave like a Christian. Because of these obstacles, we lost a lot of people from our church. Because of a minor mistake of my mom, people quit coming to our church. I still ask them to come back to church, but they do not come.

Please pray that my mom’s life will be change and she will become devoted to Christ. Pray that she will be witness of Christ to be bring more people into our church.

For 5 years we prayed, and God heard our prayers. Now God has provided us with a beautiful church building to rent. We are now having church services there. God did a wonderful work! In the area we live, most of the people follow Hinduism. They will not let Christian people rent a home. When they do, they tell the Christians they have to eat meat outside of the house and can only come into the house (not eat in it). God provided us a church building to rent in this area!

The people in this area also hesitated to come when we invited them to come to our Christmas program.

Prayer Requests:

• Please pray that God will bring more people to our church as we share the Gospel daily.
• Please pray God will bring children to our church .
• Pray that God will bring more young adults to our church.
• Pray that God will bring women to our church.
• Pray that God will bring all types of people to our church so we can serve them.

By the Grace of God, we made a beautiful church. We have offering at our church. Every Saturday we collect a little money. That money we use for our church.

Amazing things happened! We prayed to have a place for a church, and we prayed for a pulpit. God gave us money to buy new carpet, a pulpit and Gypsum board (for the ceiling) from the offering that we collected at our worship service.

By the grace of God, He gave us the opportunity to do ministry among children. Eight children came to church (above). All of these children live around our church. Some children are interested and want to come to church but their family did not want them to come, so the children came secretly.

We had a blessed Christmas at our new church (above). 70 people attend our Christmas program. By God’s help, it is the first time we had a Christmas program like this. We sang a song and danced, some of our students also performed a song. Pastor Prakash prayed for the Christmas program. Pastor Anand shared from the Word of God. Another pastor, who is my friend, proclaimed and shared “What is the Gospel?” He challenged all of the people who heard the Gospel from their houses, windows, rooftops, etc. outside of our church to believe on Jesus and save their soul. He begged them to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savoir.

Pre-Christmas at Leper Colony

We had a blessed pre-Christmas celebration at the leper colony. Every Friday we gather at the Leper colony to do Bible Study. New people are also coming to our Bible Study. We celebrated Christmas together at the Leper colony among our fellow brothers and sisters. In our Bible study, we finished the book of 1st Samuel. Now we are studying 2nd Samuel chapter 5.

Thank you so much for supporting us, praying for us and raising us up! God bless every entire family at Saving Grace World Missions!

Grace and peace,

Your faithful servants,

Rabi and Mahima

Praise the Lord!

I thank our Lord God that He has kept me and my family safe. I am deeply thankful for the love and mercy of God our Father. 

My family is doing well by the grace of God. We pray together as a family and study the Bible together.

Please keep praying for our spiritual growth so that God’s will can be fulfilled in our lives. Pray for our ministry. We are praying that in the new year God will open new doors for us when He takes us to a new place. 

Please especially pray that those who have newly come to faith in Jesus remain steadfast in the church and in their faith. Many people come but then leave because of social pressure/persecution. 

Please especially pray for our state also. There is a lot of persecution here. A new political party recently came into power here which is against people sharing the Gospel and people converting to Christianity. 

Please pray for me to move forward in this new year with new vision and confidence in serving the Lord. 

Pray for all the believing families of our church to grow in the Lord day-by-day. 

I am very grateful to those who sent us the funds for the Christmas program (above). By your support the program was successful. We were able to give warm clothes as a gift from our church. We also provided the new people who came to our church Christmas program with a 2024 calendar and a copy of the New Testament. Pastor 16* from another city shared the Word of God. Please pray that the people who heard the Word of God at the program will have changed lives.

In the Lord,

Your Brother,

Pastor 8* and Family

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

Hello dear family in Christ!

I praise God for His amazing grace in our lives and ministry. God has been using you all for many years as you take part in the mission work that is happening here. Your prayers and support have been a great encouragement and helped us move forward to do the work that God has appointed us to do. I can clearly see that through the Word of God, we are growing personally and also the ministry is bearing fruit. There are now new church plants in different locations. God is doing amazing things in our personal life and also in the ministry field. 

Camp for Children and Young Adults

We had great time ministering to young men and children at the camp. We all know that we are living in an evil world and are surrounded with sin. Many young men are addicted to drugs, pornography and all kinds of bad things. They are attached to this world. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ. Only the Gospel of Christ has power to break that blindness and allow us to see the true light.

The Calvary Bible Institute students also got the opportunity to serve at the camp for children, teens and young adults. 500 people came! Many gave their lives to Jesus and surrendered their lives to Him. It is a great joy to see young men coming to Jesus. We got to share the Gospel and encourage them with the Word of God. As Jesus said, “there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents.” We are thankful for God’s great Salvation. Keep praying for these young men and children.

Food Distribution

Many different places in the Word of God speak about sharing your food with the hungry. When we do, the Bible clearly says that we do it unto the Lord.

So as a church, we stepped out with young men believers from our new church plant to serve God. We gave food to the people on the streets and shared the Gospel with them and then prayed for them. It is really amazing to see how God cares for each person on the streets. We are not the only people who do food distribution. There are many groups that help the hungry people who live on the streets. I praise God that at times He uses even unbelievers to feed homeless people. What a graceful God we serve. 

Calvary Bible Institute Outreach

We had a great time during this semester’s outreach. It is a holiday season in our state when relatives get together to celebrate festivals in their home villages and tribal areas. We prayed and moved forward to have a couple of young adult meetings in 3 different locations in our state during this season.

We went to each village and had prayer walks there. We invited the young men who we met while we were walking to the young adult meeting in their area.  It was a good time to reach young men and also to share about the Bible college. It was also a great opportunity for the students to share their testimony and the Word of God. 

Women’s Conference

(My Wife’s Women’s Ministry Update)

Hello!  Greetings to everyone. By God’s grace, He gave me the opportunity to share with you about the women’s conference which we are conducting every-other month. God is blessing us more and more by guiding us how to lead and conduct women’s ministry. This time we were really blessed to hear from sister J* at the conference. All of the women were blessed to hear her testimony and from the Word of God. All of the women attending the women’s conference are inviting their family and friends.

I am so grateful to each one of you for your love, prayers, and support for our women’s ministry. Through this fellowship, we are growing in the Word. The women are having so many changes in their lives and families. Through their prayers, their husbands are changing and coming toward Christ. We have some activities to encourage them to grow more in learning and reading the Word of God like Bible quizzes, and memory verses. We are able to share with each-other and pray for each other. We are looking forward to more growth in the women’s spiritual lives. Please continue to pray for all of the women. Most of them are single mothers. 

Weekly Bible Study on the Pastoral Epistles

Every Wednesday we have Bible study on the pastoral epistles. Right now, I am teaching from 1 Timothy. This Bible study is only for the men who were sent out to plant churches and the staff who are serving at the Calvary Chapel here in the city. We gather together to glorify God through fellowship with one another, to study God’s Word, and also to pray for each other. In Hebrews 10 we are told to consider how to stir up one another to love and good works and to not neglect to meet together. It is really helping us to understand more about serving God. We are very thankful to God for His Word. 

PRAYER REQUESTS:

1. Pray for my family to have good health.
2. Pray for our students. They are now in their villages reaching the unreached with the Gospel. 
3. Pray for brother C*. He is serving in M*. 6 people are attending the Sunday worship service at his new church plant.
4. Pray for brother AV*. He is serving in B*.  Pray that the people there grow more in their understanding of the Word of God.
5. Pray for brother A*. He is serving in M*. Pray that the people there also grow more in their understanding of God’s Word.
6. Pray for brother P*. We are planning to pray and send him out to the place God has called him to. 
7. Pray for N* village. We did a Gospel outreach in this village. A few people gave their lives to Jesus. We are facing a lot of persecution in this village, but we are still continuing to have Bible study there. Before we went to this village, the people had never heard about Jesus. 
8. Pray for the men’s ministry.
9. Pray for women’s ministry.
10. Pray for the health of L*, S*, and La*. 

Thank you,

Pastor 6* and Family

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

“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

PHILIPPIANS 1:9-11

2023 closed with one of our family’s greatest privileges. By God’s providence, our family was able to fly to the US and support the wedding of our friends and missionary partners, Luke and Hannah Buescher. I (Matt) was the best man, Noelle was a bridesmaid, Emma, Madeline, and Charlotte were flower girls, and Noah was a ring bearer. Unfortunately, because her adoption wasn’t finalized, Apio remained behind. During our trip, she has been in the loving care of our wonderful friends, Alan and Shillah Ocen.

Luke is loyal, faithful, fun, and inspirational. Luke has been my best friend for nearly two decades, and we have served the Lord together in three countries in many capacities. He inspired me to become a missionary and has been my example of what it looks like to follow Jesus. Luke’s bride, Hannah, is his ideal match. She served Christ for four years as a missionary to an Indian reservation in Montana as a grade school teacher. Hannah represents the joy and kindness of Jesus to everyone who comes across her path. During her six-month stay in Uganda, her intentional friendship with everyone challenged Noelle and me to new areas of growth. Despite being in Uganda for six years, I met a handful of people for the first time who already knew Hannah and considered her to be their close friend! May God bless their partnership.

Our family’s time in the US has blessed us with the opportunity to visit many of our friends and family and to communicate what God is doing in Uganda with many people. The hospitality and care we have received has been immeasurable. We have reconnected with old friends, made new friends, and reunited with our families. God has truly blessed us with a strong home team.

Thank you for your care. Even though it is altogether too short, our time with you has touched our hearts. May God bless each of you.

In Christ,

Matt & Noelle & Family

Greetings from Mexico,

My family and I hope you had a blessed Christmas and a very Happy New Year! Life is never easy, and I’m not sure how 2023 went for you, (hopefully well) but they do say that you can tell if someone is a pessimist or an optimist by how they treat the New Year. An optimist stays up until midnight on New Year’s Eve, to WELCOME IN the New Year. But a pessimist stays up until midnight to make sure the OLD YEAR LEAVES!

             Life is hard, yet God is always moving both in the struggles and the victories of life. This past year has not been easy for anyone, yet God has once again been faithful. We not only had a fruitful year, but in December we were featured in the worldwide online edition of the Calvary Chapel Magazine.

An excellent article on our church and ministry was written, titled, “Mexico Calvary Chapel serves as a church planting sending hub!” If you have the time, I believe you would be edified and encouraged to read it. You can access the article digitally through the link below or go to their website at “CalvaryChapelMagazine.com,” and search articles and the title of the article should come up!

Calvary Chapel Magazine

      As we move into 2024, I am happy to share some good news with you! As the year begins, we have been honored and blessed to send out my good friends, Mario and Mari Vega as our next church planters. (Thank you Lord, #39) Mario and Mari are long time servants in our church and both of them completed our 2-year church planting class with excellence.

         A couple years ago, we sent this gifted couple out as part of a church planting core team to assist a planter who was church planting in a local city. After helping that church get established,  I asked my friends to come back and join our church for a season so they could be raised up and sent out to plant their own church!

I am happy to announce the official grand opening of Calvary Agua Caliente (Hot water) located in South Tijuana. This new church plant is located in one of the nicer colonies (areas ) in Tijuana called Aguas Calientes! (Around the corner from where the large Tijuana stadium is located along with Tijuana’s first division soccer team, Los Xolos)  They have been witnessing and sowing faithfully in that community for six months. Their weekly evangelism outings and weekly mid-week Bible study have proven to be very fruitful.  

       At their sending weekend service at our church, we not only sent out Mario, Mari, and their two daughters, but a core team of eight adults that feel called to assist them in this great work. Their plan is to begin Sunday services in the next week or two. (Please pray for the right building, centrally located and reasonably priced!)   

            Although the focus of our ministry is and always has been our local church, Calvary Rosarito, it is such a blessing that He has allowed our missions program to be a sending hub of church planting. After planting three 1rst generation church plants, and seven 2nd generation church plants in 2023, this will be our 39^th first generation church plant. Thank you Lord!

Finally, I want to thank you once again for the privilege and honor of serving as your missionaries here in Mexico.  It is through your financial partnership that God meet’s our physical needs, and through your prayers that God meet’s our spiritual needs. We love you and give thanks for you!  

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

Mike, Sarah, Grace, and Daniel

Prayer Requests!

#1- Pray that God would bless our new church plant, Calvary Agua Caliente in Tijuana.   

#2-  Pray that God will bless our church, as we gear up with several new ministry projects and Bible studies in 2024!

Praise Reports!

#1- Praise God for wonderful Christmas outreaches with many professions of faith!  

#2- Praise God for God’s faithfulness and guiding Hand to make it through 2023!

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

Or, you can  go to our mission’s website, click on the “become a financial partner” button and fill out the information.

Hi everyone! It feels like forever since I last updated you all. I can assure you that I did not fall off the grid. I am alive and well and still serving the Lord till He returns! Thank you all for your prayers and support. I hope you all had a great Christmas and kept in mind Who we celebrate!

It’s been a pretty busy season with the holidays and so many different events happening here at CC Saving Grace but I’ve been so happy to be able to spend some time with my family and church family. With all this busyness, God has been teaching me quite a few things. I want to share two things with you all.

First, throughout this month I’ve had the opportunity to sit and talk with sisters and encourage each other in the Lord. One thing has become clear to me, we must depend on Him for all of our needs. I know that we constantly say that in the church, and it is a truth. We really must depend on God! But hearing different people’s circumstances and even taking into account my own, I’m seeing that people are depending on God in different ways than I am, and that is so cool. Generally we should depend on Him, but specifically, we should depend on Him in our finances, our relationships, our pain, and our worries. We can depend on Him in anything. The only way we learn how to depend on Him in different trials in life is by going through them so that we see how much we weren’t depending on Him before! This is why I know God is intentional, He knows what I lack and He is faithful to help me because He knows that I cannot do it by myself. God comes through, and I see that in the lives of my brothers and sisters around me.

For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, ‘Fear not, I will help you.’

Isaiah 41:13

I love this verse, because it reminds me that I have a God who walks with me. If I am holding His hand, then I will be okay. It’s easy to worry when so many things around us seem uncertain. Or in my case, when the future seems uncertain. I know one thing for sure, He loves me and I love Him, so I will serve the Lord no matter what. But when I put my focus only on the future, I get a bit worried. I have no fear in being honest! I have a heart for the lost everywhere and I want to live my life watching people get saved, but when I think about being sent in the long run, I have no idea where that is and I would really love to! But God has been reminding me through studying and through people, to not worry. He knows how things will play out and that’s all that matters. For now, He is preparing me and working in me. So I see that I shouldn’t be so focused on the future, I should remain in the present and see that God is doing a great work right now!

Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:6

MTS! Throughout my time here in the Missions Training School, I have been able to learn so much, from the preaching classes, to our missions classes, and even being around my fellow students. I see that each of them are so willing to give up everything to go and follow what God has called them to do, and I am grateful for their sacrifice because it keeps me in that same mindset. One thing that has been on my mind throughout being here, is dying to self. In studying the book of Acts we see how Paul did not count his life as his own. He lived for Christ and was so willing to die for Him. With our teaching class I’ve had the opportunity to study more in the book of Philippians. I see how the Lord is growing me in the area of studying, applying, and then teaching. I rely HEAVILY on Him because I’m not very comfortable with public speaking, but it is necessary, so I keep on! I have enjoyed the studying part. God’s Word is so deep and has so much in it. I am soaking it all in. I love how He teaches me and shows me different things from His Word. Every time I study I am amazed at how good God is and how we can have joy in any circumstance because He provides it.

The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever touching the bottom.

Unknown

I thank you all for your prayers and for always reaching out to me. I am so grateful to have such encouraging and loving brothers and sisters in Christ. I love you all and I am always here for you guys! I am always praying for you.

In His Love,

Alani

Prayer Requests

• For God’s strength and wisdom throughout my time here as a student.
• For His will to be done in my life.

Praise Reports

• I get to be home for a couple of weeks and fellowship with my family and church family!
• God has been teaching me so much!