Greetings from Mexico. Our family hopes that you and yours had a wonderful and blessed Christmas and a very Happy New Year! On the church side of things, we had a number of wonderful Christmas outreaches in our community that I would like to share with you!
The most creative of our outreaches was definitely our annual Christmas parade! We had over 40 vehicles covered in Christmas lights and filled with singing and smiley Christians from our church! This Calvary Rosarito parade slowly drove 5 miles through our community’s main streets while giving out Christmas candy and Gospel tracks.
This festive parade ended at our church, where we enjoyed a fantastic Christmas musical. The highlight of this musical celebration was seeing several of our guests make first-time professions of faith in Jesus.
On the family side of things, we now have both of our children working full time in San Diego. Thankfully, they come back home to Mexico for the weekends to join us at our house and attend the church (so I guess you could call us mostly empty nesters now)!
We are very thankful that God provided both Grace and Daniel good full-time jobs, and they are both doing really well in their employment. We are also thankful that they love Mexico and our church, so they come home to be with us each weekend. With Sarah’s mother and father now also living in Mexico full time, we were blessed to have a full house this Christmas!
With the New Year arriving of 2025, I am full of hope for myself, for our church family and church planters, and for you, our precious ministry partners. The Apostle Paul wrote this in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old things have passed away, behold all things have become new!” The New Year is a wonderful time to allow God to give you new vision for the upcoming year. And there is not a doubt in my mind that God has a good plan for your life and we are praying you get to see His plan bless your life in 2025!
For me, I am very excited to start the New Year by hosting our very first church planting conference in Southern California. Calvary Chapel Bear Creek has been a long-time church planting partner of ours, and they host their own church planting class that they have modeled after our ministry. Last year, their elders invited me to host a church planting conference at their church, and I am excited to do that in just a few days on Saturday, January 11th!
My good friends, Pastors Hugo Limon (Horizon Ensenada), Bruce Zackary (Calvary Nexus) and Trent Douglass (Calvary Chapel Saving Grace) will be joining me as we focus on helping ministry leaders, pastors, and their churches move forward in the great missions work of church planting.
I wanted to let you know about this conference, because it is open to anyone interested in church planting. So if you live in Southern California and would like to attend, I would love for you to join us on January 11th from 9am to 1pm. The conference is free, but registration is required. You can register at CC Bear Creek’s website (www.calvarybearcreek.com).
Finally, I want to once again thank you for your generous partnership with our family over this past year! To have you partner with us each month means the world to us, and we feel honored and blessed to serve with you as your missionaries. We love you and are praying that you have your best year ever in 2025!
Con mucho amor de Mexico, (with much love from Mexico)
Mike, Sarah, Grace, and Daniel
Prayer Requests!
#1- Pray that God will bless our upcoming SoCal church planting conference at CC Bear Creek!
#2- Pray that God will bless our church and church plants with fresh vision in 2025!
Praise Reports!
#1- Praise God for good jobs for our children, Grace and Daniel!
#2- Praise God for a blessed and fruitful Christmas at our church!