That Wasn’t the Plan, God!
(Fall / Winter 2025)
Rather than focus on the blow-by-blow account of everything that happened at the end of 2025, I want to focus this update on the biggest praise report I’ve had in all of my 10 years here in Culiacán. Yes! It’s really that big! But before I tell you what God’s been up to, I will take a moment to give you a very brief report of what I’ve been up to.
BEHIND THE SCENES
From September to December, I found myself in charge of lots of things… all behind the scenes. I was put in charge of organizing a missions trip and asked to be the chief admin for the EPICC (church-planting school) and NOW MISSIONS, our new online school of missions. I was part of the planning committee for Entre Amigas, our annual fall women’s conference, and became the treasurer for our women’s ministry. I was invited to join the worship team again and coordinated a missions team from Rosarito that came to help us build our new church. I said goodbye to a family pet, restarted Transformadas (our women’s rehab center ministry), helped plan Calvary Culiacán’s 10th anniversary, and went on a major missions trip one week before making my annual trip back to Ohio and California, missed the grand inauguration of our new building, and within days of my return, participated in and/or planned 4 Christmas parties… all while balancing life as a single mom in a war-torn city.
I fully understand now why God wanted me to leave behind all secular work in order to focus all my energy on the ministry. There’s no time left in my schedule for anything but ministry and “momming.”
Now, for the BEST NEWS EVER!!!
DEATH OF A VISION
John 12:24 says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain
of wheat falls into the ground and DIES, it remains alone;
but if it DIES, it produces much grain.
This process, often referred to as the death of a vision, has been our experience in Calvary Misiones. Our vision – to plant churches among the unreached tribes of Nayarit – has died many times over, but we refused to give up. We just kept planting more seeds, and in the past 3 months (November, December, and January), those seeds have finally borne fruit. Praise be to God, we have seen not one, but THREE Bible-based churches planted among the Kuáre and Cora (two unreached ethnic groups in the mountains of Nayarit). While this was always our goal, it did NOT happen the way we thought it would! In God’s sovereign way, He reminded us that His ways are not our ways; they’re SO MUCH BETTER!
Let me share that incredible journey with you…
Isaiah 55:8-9 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens
are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.”
WANTED: UNREACHED TRIBES
In 2017, a young pre-school teacher decided to spend his summer vacation looking for unreached people groups in the mountains of Nayarit. He hiked for DAYS seeking a community untouched by Christianity with no knowledge of Jesus and found a small community called Ojo de Agua, home to the Kuáre tribe. He spent weeks with them, studying their culture, learning their language, but mostly demonstrating God’s love.
In 2018, he began leading small missions teams into that village with his father, a pastor in Tepic, the capital city of Nayarit. These trips were focused on building relationships – playing with children, providing basic medical/dental care, and doing community service projects. They taught the children Bible stories through drama and games, as the language barrier permitted little else.
Then, Calvary Culiacán got involved! In 2019, a young man from Culiacán was invited to join their team, and in 2021, he invited Pastor Antonio from Calvary Aguaruto, who later that year, took a whole team of Culichis to meet the unreached Kuáre tribe, hidden for centuries in the mountains. I was part of Calvary Culiacán’s second trip to Ojo de Agua in April of 2022.
THE BIRTH OF A NEW MINISTRY
Later that year, due to differences in vision, we separated from the Tepic group and created Calvary Misiones, making our first independent trip to Ojo de Agua and the neighboring Kuáre village of Guacamayas in November of that year. Since then, we have been making 3-6 trips into mountains every year, reaching a total of 5 Kuáre communities (Ojo de Agua, Guacamayas, Minas, Fierros, and Pico de Aguila) and 4 Cora communities (Gavilanes, San Gregorio, El Zapote, and Cofradía).
Many people gave their lives to Christ on our early trips to the Kuáre villages, and several were baptized, but due to the lack of a permanent church or local pastor to minister to them, many fell away. This further confirmed our vision and fueled our desire to plant churches there, but we were hindered by the lack of a local pastor, someone who understood their culture and spoke their language. On many occasions, we thought we had found the person who God would raise up to become that pastor, but those were our ideas, not God’s. Looking back, we can now see how the hand of God clearly began to guide us toward the fulfillment of that vision in November of 2023… during an unplanned pit stop.
On my first trip to Nayarit in April 2022, I bonded with little Joselín and other children in Ojo de Agua (left) and played superheroes with two little girls in Guacamayas (right) while teaching them about Jesus, the greatest superhero ever!
PROVIDENTIAL POTTY STOP
Being on a very tight schedule on our way to Ojo de Agua, our leader didn’t want to waste time on a bathroom stop in La Cumbre (the last glimpse of civilization before heading off into the middle of nowhere), but I insisted. I knew I couldn’t handle the 3 hours of off-roading that awaited us with a full bladder. With my promise to take less than 2 minutes, he finally relented, but when I came rushing out, I collided with half the team, now waiting in line to use the single, primitive bathroom stall.
Fifteen minutes later (when we would have been long gone if not for that providential potty stop), a young Cora woman approached me and asked if we were Christians. Her father was a Cora pastor, and they were looking for missionaries to work with! Since the Kuáre are a sub-group of the Cora, and their languages are very similar, we immediately recognized God’s hand in this miraculous connection. Who else could turn a bathroom break into a divine encounter? We assumed this would be the pastor we had been praying for and made plans to take him with us to Ojo de Agua on our next trip.
GOD’S NO’S
In May of 2024, we arrived at La Cumbre, planning to take that pastor with us to Ojo de Agua, but God, in His ever so clear way, said “NO!” BOTH of our vans broke down shortly after leaving La Cumbre, and we had no choice but to accompany the pastor to his village, Gavilanes, instead. Impressed with what we found there, we began pouring into his ministry, investing our time, effort, and resources, and longing for the day he would pastor the Kuáre for us.
In July of 2024, we planned to take a group of Americans from the Calvary School of Missions to Ojo de Agua, but God again redirected us with a clear “NO!” Intense rainfall had destroyed the road, and we were forced to look for a “better” option. We found San Gregorio, a large Cora community at the base of the mountains. We had such incredible success there that we began to pour into their lives as well. They soaked up the Gospel with an insatiable hunger and begged us to return again and again. Dozens of people gave their lives to Christ and many expressed a desire to be trained as pastors, giving birth to our next thought – maybe God will raise up pastors from San Gregorio to reach the Kuáre? But that was not God’s plan either. A firm “NO!” there led us back to Gavilanes.
In April, Pastor Antonio returned to Gavilanes to continue training their pastor and to formally unite our ministries, but he was to be gravely disappointed. The pastor not only flatly rejected the idea of a partnership but also left Pastor Antonio stranded in the mountains – another resounding “NO!” He was later rescued by Elías, a Christian man in the nearby community of Cofradía. During the long trip down the mountain, Pastor Antonio and Elías talked, and by the time they arrived at La Cumbre, plans had been made to train Elías as a pastor in fulfillment of his own dream of planting a church in Cofradía.
That shared dream was fulfilled in November 2025 – a resounding “YES!” from the Lord! I was part of the team that built and inaugurated Pastor Elías’s new church, Casa de Dios Cofradía – the very first transcultural Calvary church plant among the unreached tribes of Nayarit! Nearly 20 people attended the inaugural service, including one man who walked over 6 hours to attend. We also baptized 3 new believers that day!
Our inaugural service in Cofradia (left), Pastors Antonio and Elias baptizing a new believer (top right), and our Calvary Missions team with Pastor Elias and his family (bottom right)
SOCIAL MEDIA TO THE RESCUE!
At the same time, I was also working on a different front – social media. The pastor in Gavilanes had shared a biography with us – His Treasure in Earthen Vessels, by Faye Hooley Byers, the first missionary to bring the Gospel to various Cora and Kuáre villages in the 1960’s. Through her book, I got the names of many people associated with her ministry and began to search for them online. My goal was to join forces with them and possibly reach the Kuáre through their ministry, but none of them responded. I did, however, find Isabel, a Cora woman who was connected to many of them on Facebook. She responded eagerly to my messages, and we made plans for her and her husband to accompany us to either San Gregorio or Ojo de Agua on our next trip.
Due to our work with Pastor Elias, those plans never came to fruition, BUT GOD! In January, we received very unexpected, yet long awaited, news from Tepic – two new churches had been planted among the Kuáre – one in Guacamayas and another in Pico de Águila.
Since we were unable to meet, Isabel decided to proceed on her own. With all of the information I had given her, she and her husband took matters into their own hands, and the Kuáre now have two new Bible-teaching churches!
We are super excited by this totally unplanned development, recognizing that it has God’s fingerprints all over it. We may not have directly planted those churches, but we have the satisfaction of knowing that we planted the first seeds, and that God is going to take care of the rest. I’m reminded of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 3:5-9.
“Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor
he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants
and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward
according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers.”
So, while there were many “Pauls and Apolloses” involved in the process, GOD planted His church, and ALL of us will reap the rewards!
1) Joel Jr. found the Kuáre. 2) Joel Sr. took teams to them. 3) Wendy (from Joel Sr.’s church) invited Carlos from Culiacán, who invited 4) Pastor Antonio, who invited 5) me, who providentially met 6) Hernestina, whose father, 7) Pastor Pascual, introduced us to 8) missionary Faye Hooley via her autobiography, via which I was able to find 9) Isabel on Facebook, who later planted the churches that God had planned from the very beginning! This photo of the church in Guacamayas was taken just 5 months later (below)!
GOD’S PLAN, NOT OURS!
In summary, God used an unplanned bathroom stop to lead us to a man who was never intended to pastor the Kuáre. He used two broken down vehicles to lead us to that man’s village where we learned of a missionary and her autobiography. And He used social media to connect me to the friends of her ministry who would later plant two churches among the Kuáre where we were unable to. And as if that weren’t enough, He also used a painful rejection to connect us to the future pastor of our own transcultural church plant in Cofradía.
Our vision was to see one church planted, but God (as always) went above and beyond what we could ask or imagine, and I am thrilled to formally announce the birth of 3 new churches among the Cora and Kuáre! To God be all the glory!!! Our thoughts and plans definitely weren’t the same as God’s, but our vision was, and through His “higher” thoughts and plans, He brought it all to pass!
IT’S YOUR FRUIT, TOO!
None of this would have been possible without the financial support and prayers of those at home. If you have been one of our faithful supporters, all of this is YOUR FRUIT, too!!! Whether you’ve been with us since the beginning or are just tuning in now, there are many ways to get involved!
Pray for us!
The best way to support us is with daily prayer support. We can’t do what we do without the support of those at home who are committed to covering us in prayer every day. Your prayers kept God’s “NO’s” coming until we finally found the right path! Here are a few things you can pray for now…
1. Pray for these three new churches in Cofradía, Guacamayas, and Pico de Águila – that God would provide for their needs, that the pastors would be led by God’s Spirit, and that the churches would grow and reach more people with the Gospel.
2. Pray for an end to the drug war here in Culiacán. We still have a very volatile mix of calm and chaotic days with no end in sight. Pray that God continues to divinely protect His church here.
3. On a positive note – the war has drawn many people to the Lord! We had more than 20 first-time professions of faith at our church this month and baptized 9 of them! Pray for the spiritual growth and physical protection of these new believers.
4. Pray for our upcoming ministry opportunities and the energy to carry them all out!
- Family Camp in Los Mochis and Culiacán – April 1-4
- Easter services on April 5
- Ongoing women’s rehab center ministry
- Children’s Day outreach events – end of April
Rejoice with us!
· God has provided several new monthly donors for our ministry, and Ruby has a new (and much better!) job.
· Our annual missions and church-planting conference in Mazatlán was a huge success this year! We has an official send-off ceremony for Pastor Elías and his congregation, and many new men accepted God’s call to become church-planters.
· Our annual women’s conference was also a huge success with nearly 200 women attending and many giving their lives to Christ for the first time.
· Our annual youth retreat was also a huge success – so much so that they will be holding a conference-extension to continue processing all that they learned!
(More about all of these in my next update!)
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God has called me to leave secular work and become fully funded. That means raising approximately $2,000 in monthly support while serving on the field. In the past year, we’ve received nearly half of that. Please pray that God will raise up more monthly donors, so we can budget more accurately and participate more actively in ongoing ministries. And if you feel led to do so, sign up! Any amount goes a long way. Thank you for your partnership!
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God bless you as you continue to support our ministry both financially and in your prayers.
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