Greetings from Mexico,
Much like you, our 2016 began with a busy bang! In the first month of 2016, I was able to visit the future locations of four church plants that we have planned for 2016! In this update, I wanted to share this exciting news with you!
In the past 7 years, we have had the opportunity to send out 11 different church planting teams. As the Senior Pastor of our church, my goal is to travel ahead of time with the future Pastor to their planned location in order to scout out the land, pray, and share the Gospel in these cities. And with our four church plants planned for this year, in January I rushed around to go on four church planting vision tours to visit these God chosen cities.
First off, we are planning on planting a bilingual church in the border city of San Ysidro. San Ysidro, is located directly across from the Tijuana border and is a large bilingual city, that is ripe for a Bible believing church. Troy Florez is the leader that God has raised up to plant this church.
Troy is a great servant, excelled in our church planting class, and is presently raising up a core team to assist him in the church plant. I had a blast on my short vision tour with Troy as we scouted out this border city of San Ysidro.
The next church plant we are sending out this year is all the way to Florida! Aaron Smith and his family moved to Rosarito from Washington to join our church staff and to train up in our church planting program.
Originally, Aaron wasn’t sure where God wanted him to church plant, but God spoke to both Aaron and his wife Robin that Punta Gorda Florida is the location. (Robin has family there) It seems crazy that God would call a man from Washington, to train in Rosarito Mexico to be sent out to Florida, but that is exactly what God is doing! I had a wonderful time spending 5 days in Florida with Aaron on his vision tour!
Our third church plant is going to be a bilingual church plant located in a city 30 minutes south of us called La Mision. This church, (Called Liberty Ranch) already has land, facilities, and a ministry team of 20 men that are living on site.
Four of these men have (or are going to ) graduate from our church planting program. This month we celebrated with a ground breaking ceremony where we have begun construction on a 100+ seat sanctuary in this beautiful canyon community!
Pray that God provides the finances to complete the chapel.
Our fourth and final church plant planned for 2016 is going to be in the beautiful Mexican Beach town of Mazatlan. (Located in the coastal state of Sinaloa where the recent drug lord El Chapo was captured) Pastor Tony Carranza and his family have been great servants in our church and Tony has already completed our church planting program and is now serving as one of our assistant Pastors.
I was blessed to spend 3 days in Mazatlan with Tony recently where we prayed and sought the Lord about the church plant. On this trip, Tony led several people to the Lord and we also met some Christians that want to be part of the core team for this upcoming church plant!
Finally, I want to personally thank you for supporting and praying for our family and ministry. As you support us, we become equal partners in all of the ministry going on here, including these four future church plants! We are honored to partner with you and serve the Lord as your missionaries!
Con mucho amor de Mexico, (with much love from Mexico)
Mike, Sarah, Grace, and Daniel
Prayer Requests:
#1- Pray for provision and God’s direction for these four church plants scheduled for 2016!
#2- Pray that God will bless our new batch of church planters that are joining my class starting next week!
#3- Pray that God will provide for the financial needs of our family!
