Greg and Vicki Syverson: Big dreams and hard work in Pachuca, Mexico

Greg and Vicki Syverson met as students at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois, and say that “missions brought us together.”

“I’d always known that I wanted to be a missionary,” said Vicki, “so I just didn’t have time for any guys who didn’t want that, too. Fortunately, Greg did!”

Finding CMF

The couple married and began a search for a mission organization. They hit dead ends everywhere for various reasons, but a fortuitous meeting with then-recruits Craig and Allison Fowler in a young marrieds class at church led them to CMF.

“Craig and Allison had served as REACH interns with CMF and were planning to serve in Ethiopia, so we got in touch with CMF,” said Greg. “The four of us went out to dinner with CMF’s David Giles and it felt right.”

“Of course, in our interview at the Indianapolis office, all of the directors oozed Africa, because that’s where they had served,” laughed Greg. “Vicki didn’t feel that connection, though. We watched 6 videos about CMF fields — five of them in Africa — but found our calling when we watched the one video about the ongoing work in Pachuca, Mexico. We visited there, then did a year’s internship at Southland Christian Church, and then left for the field in June 2001.”

Ministry highlights

The Syversons are church-planters first and always, so that’s the primary focus of their ministry.

They were working with one church in Pachuca for many years, providing teaching and leadership development, but that one church exploded into four in different parts of the city over the past couple of years. Two of these — Nueva Vida South and La Viña — are very young and dynamic, and meet primarily online for now.

“Nueva Semilla meets outdoors on land they are preparing to purchase an add a building,” said Greg. “They run about 80 right now with 13 cell groups. The Nueva Vida church meets in their building.”

They started the On the Move ministry school three years ago as an extension of their church planting ministry. The curriculum trains young people in planting churches and serving wherever they go.

“The school is three months of intense discipleship training,” said Vicki. “First, we focus on inner healing, identity in Christ and forgiveness, then move into classes on simple church planting.

“We graduated 21 full-time students over the past three years, and have had a total of 65 part-time students,” she added. “And they are our spiritual sons and daughters, our family. Our house is always full of people!”

The couple plans to start a Level Two curriculum in the spring of 2022.

“We feel a sense of something big coming with the school,” said Vicki. “Level Two will be our graduate program in church planting.”

Looking forward

Greg and Vicki and teenage sons Benjamin and Matthew have been serving in Pachuca for 20 years and show no signs of running out of dreams and goals for their ministry.

“We’ve built a good foundation for growth,” said Greg. “But our question is always, ‘Where should the next church be?’”

“And our desire is always to find creative ways to have abundant provision for the big dreams we have!” added Vicki.