Greetings from Mexico,
In this update I wanted to tell you about one of the main activities of our church’s missions program. That focus is making follow up visits to visit our church plants and the church planters that we have sent out. We get this model from the Apostle Paul and his church planting journeys in the book of Acts.
After Paul and Barnabas planted churches on their first missionary journey, they returned to their sending home church of Antioch to give an update on all that God had done. After a short time in Antioch, Paul was ready to once again travel throughout the Roman Empire.
Paul had the urge to not only plant more churches, but to also visit the churches that he and Barnabas had already planted. We find an important verse about this in Acts 15:35, where we read… Then after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they are doing.”
When a church is a sending hub, they also need to take on the responsibility and care of the friends that they send out. One of the most effective ways to do that is by visiting church plants on missions trips. In October, we had four missions’ teams that were sent out and I want to tell you about each one of them!
I was blessed to lead the first small team that we sent out to visit our church plants in Mazatlan! We had a small group of church staffers that went to visit Pastor Tony Carranza and his family! While there, I was blessed to teach their Sunday service and host their church planting course that has 16 students all praying and hoping to be sent out one day.
We also brought down my friend and church staffer Chris (who leads our church’s lighting ministry) along with 700 dollars worth of lighting equipment that he installed in the church while we are there!
Later on that month, my friend (and CCR Pastor) Carlos Oliveros led a team of 18 to visit our church plant in Loreto! After just a year and a half, this church now averages 150 adults every Sunday in this town of 30,000!
This team was sent down with the finances and tools they needed to do 8 separate building projects and they did a great job upgrading the church’s facility! They also built the church a brand new beautiful stage!
The following week we were blessed to send out a team of 16 women, for a women’s only missions trip to our 5 year old church plant in Monterrey! (A large Mexico state south of Texas) This team of gifted ladies hosted a children’s ministry workshop, evangelized door to door in the streets, and hosted a women’s conference.
The ladies told me that their trip highlight was the several local ladies that they got to lead to faith in Jesus Christ!
At the end of the month, our young adults pastor David Mendoza led a team of 13 on fire college age students to visit our church plants in Culiacan! This energized group hosted a young adults conference where all six of our Culiacan church plants came together for worship, encouragement, and fellowship! The leaders were also blessed to teach at several of our 2nd generation church plants on Sunday!
Each one of our 40+ congregants on these trips chipped in with their trip costs to raise money for their ministry projects and our church was also honored to give a large financial gift to support each event and work project on these trips. I love to brag about the Lord’s generosity and how our church sends out 18% of our total budget to support missions and church planting. A chunk of those funds are sent out every time we send out a short term missions teams!
By the end of the calendar year, our church will have taken 15 of these church planting trips visiting our church plants and encouraging our church planters. If you have never been on a church planting trip I highly recommend it. And by the way, our church’s mission’s trips are open to everyone! (And yes, that includes you!)
Finally, I want to thank you for choosing to partner with us and support our family as your missionaries! We love sharing about the great things that God is doing here, and we share it with you because this is your spiritual fruit. We thank God for you and love you!
Con mucho amor de Mexico, (with much love from Mexico)
Mike, Sarah, Grace, and Daniel
Prayer Requests!
#1- That God would bless our 2 remaining missions trips to Mexico City and Loreto!
#2- That God would provide for the needs of our family, church friends, and the church!
Praise Reports!
#1- Praise God for four blessed church planting missions trips in the month of October.
#2- Praise God for the 13 baptisms we had in October!
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.https://www.egsnetwork.com/gift2/?giftid=DFA990CC09D942B
Or, you can go to our mission’s website, click on the “become a financial partner” button and fill out the information. Please remember to type in “Vincent” in the “purpose of gift” section.