Greetings from Mexico. At the end of January, I was blessed to take a missions trip to our church plant in Loreto (South Baja) and in this update, I wanted to tell you all about this fruitful trip!

Elmer and Crystal Cardenas arrived at our church many years ago with broken lives and a broken marriage. They both quickly professed faith, were born again, and God lit a holy fire in them. They both quickly went “All in” in their new found faith, and began serving together in the church.

Elmer eventually approached me and asked to join our church planting program! Together, they joined our class and began their training. After Elmer completed his 2nd year, he assisted his good friend Eddie Mijares plant his church in the Tijuana dump in a community called Homex. After Elmer completed his third year, we sent him out with a mission’s team to plant a bilingual church in Loreto!

Fast forward to four years later, I got to lead an 11 person mission’s team to Loreto to host a conference for the churches in the city! The conference was fantastic with over 100 local pastors and leaders in attendance including leaders from eight different denominations.

But for me, the Sunday service was even more amazing as this growing church had about 150 in attendance. I also got to spend time with nine of my friends from Calvary Rosarito who had moved down to be part of this church plant use their gifts to serve, and that filled my heart with joy.

A special highlight for me was chatting with three of Elmer’s future church planters that have completed their church planting program. Each one of these men are praying and preparing to be sent out to one of the local communities around Loreto! Please pray for these men as they prepare to take this step of faith to plant their first church!

At the end of our trip, Elmer and his team took us over to a new piece of land that his church is purchasing to build their own permanent church building. I remember when Elmer told me they were going to purchase this land even though they had very little money. Although to be honest, I lacked faith that it would ever happen, his church family stepped out in faith, gave generously, and God has abundantly provided. Thank you Lord for your faithfulness to our church in Loreto and to all of our church plants.

As I am writing this update, I am preparing to go to prison in Tijuana tomorrow! PLEASE DON’T PANIC!!! I’m not being thrown into prison, but am happily going with a good friend of mine named Jesse Garcia along with our church planting board to take a church planting vision tour.

The good news is that our next church plant is going to be planted in the largest prison in our state in a place called El Hongo! It has been a dream of mine for many years to plant a church in the local prison system, and it seems like God is making that dream come true. You will hear a lot more about this church plant in the future, but please keep this in your prayers.

Finally, I want to once again thank you for your generous partnership with our family. It is through your prayers that God meet’s our spiritual needs, and it’s through your financial giving that God meet’s our physical needs. We love you and are praying for you!

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 church plant in the Tijuana prison!
#2- Pray that God will bless our new church planting classes, and the 51 students enrolled. (Many of them first timers)
Praise Reports!
#1- Praise God for a wonderful SoCal church planting conference at the start of January!
#2- Praise God for a blessed visit to our church plant in Loreto South Baja.

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.
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.