A group of eight Globalscope staff and students from our El Pozo campus ministry in Puebla, Mexico returned on Friday from a five-day scouting trip to Guanajuato, a city in the middle of Mexico that is home to Universidad de Guanajuato and its 50,000 students. This was the second trip there to see if it's the right place to plant a new Globalscope campus ministry.
When we invited three busy executive pastors and a university ministry director to experience our ministries in Mexico, their first question was understandable: why should they sacrifice a week away from their work and families? After all, missions isn't new to them. They send missionaries from their churches and university, support and send interns during the summer, and are long-time financial partners with our ministries.
When Isabel Miller recently joined our Marketplace Ministries team in Mexico, she already knew Spanish. So, why should she spend time living with a Mexican family when the important tasks of ministry and serving those around her were being left undone? Here are Isabel's reflections on how God went before her to help her learn the deeper lessons of connecting with the people and culture there.
Isabel Miller entered university at Georgia Tech as a business major, never thinking that she would be a missionary or work abroad. But when she got involved with a campus ministry on Georgia Tech’s campus called CCF, she says that “Little by little, through different ways, just step by step, God changed my heart and sort of shifted my eyes toward this kind of work.”
Yola and Misael Cruz Trejo are both originally from Mexico City, Mexico, where they now form an integral part of a CMF team in Mexico City that ministers to hundreds of people. Through this ministry, they’ve seen transformation happen in the lives of individuals, families, and specifically the communities of Fuego Nuevo in Iztapalapa and Xalatlaco on the west side of the city.
Part of Vicki and Greg Syverson's ministry in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico, is discipling, training, and equipping young people for short-term and full-time ministry in many parts of the world.
Steve and Debbie Palich have spent their lives introducing people to Jesus Christ, connecting them to the Church and engaging them with God’s work around the world.
And while the energetic couple’s service with CMF — which began in 1990 and has continued to their retirement from full-time work this month — is now transitioning into a part-time role for Steve, their passion for the goals that have focused their lives remains strong.
Greg and Vicki Syverson met as students at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois, and say that “missions brought us together.”
“Our churches are back in full swing here!”
That’s the good news from CMF church planters Greg and Vicki Syverson in Pachuca, Mexico, about the four church groups they are working with in different parts of the city.
Her 10 months with the EQUIP Britain program in 2020 has prepared and inspired Kayla Dean to help start a similar training program in Mexico City to show young people how to tell others about Jesus.