God’s ways are so good! We smile when we look back at how God has worked in our lives throughout the years. At least for us, He has often worked according to a similar pattern. He first shows us a vision. In response, we get really excited and start to march forward with plans to fulfill that vision. (OK, I’ll be honest, this applies much more to me than it does to Priscilla). Then, God messes up the plans we thought were in store to fulfill the vision. In response, we stress out and panic a little bit only to ultimately find our way back to the feet of Jesus, totally dependent upon Him. Finally, He ends up working many things together to indeed fulfill that initial vision in a way that is much better and wiser than anything we could have ever imagined at the onset. We are left echoing the words of David in Psalm 40:5, “O LORD my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them.”
What’s Happened?
The words in the paragraph above sum up our feelings about our time thus far in Chihuahua. We came to this city almost three and a half years ago. As you can see from our pre-move updates HERE and HERE, we knew God had called us to plant a church in the northern part of the city. However, God knew much better than we did that we still lacked much preparation before planting the church. We didn’t understand a lot about Mexican culture. We had no experience living among the people. We weren’t in touch with the normal, everyday Chihuahuense—Christian or non-Christian. We hadn’t built many relationships with the people. We had no team to join us in planting the church. Our hearts were not yet broken enough for the lost in the city. We still have a long way to go in all of these areas and still find ourselves completely dependent on God to move powerfully, but by His grace we have grown in all of them. We know that God has worked so many things together in such an incredible way in order to plant a church, just as He showed us in the beginning.
In the midst of the last three and a half years of preparation, God has focused our attention on the largest university in Chihuahua—UACH. He has opened many doors and done marvelous things. You can find more info about that in our last vision update HERE or by looking through our monthly updates on the main page. Through English classes, conversation clubs, Bible studies and one-on-one discipleship, God has moved at the university. We’ve been amazed by all He’s done.
What’s New?
However, something started to happen in our hearts entering this year (2019). We started to realize that the best thing we could do to reach the university was to plant a church near it—a church with a heart to reach and disciple the students. Our hearts also broke for the countless nearby neighborhoods full of families that don’t know Jesus as their Savior. The Lord did many things to confirm the calling throughout the ensuing months. He brought together a team of gifted people who love Jesus and who are sure that God has called them to join us in planting the church. Finally, on October 6th, Roca Norte was born! I continue to work and serve on the university campus, but we are confident that Roca Norte plays a key role in the amazing plan that the Lord has for UACH.
We are still in our infancy as a church and find ourselves humbled and expectant as we see Jesus building His church. We yearn to be a genuine community that is passionately seeking Jesus together and reaching the lost together (Acts 2:42-47). We are excited as the Lord has called us to implement a house church/united church hybrid model that emphasizes intentionally reaching the lost and making disciples. May He be glorified as He leads His church!
What’s Next?
Moving forward, we are looking to see Jesus do things that are exceedingly, abundantly more than we can even imagine. We’re praying that He would allow us to start a café with the focus on reaching students on the university campus. We’re praying that He would build a church that He can use powerfully in the city of Chihuahua. Finally, we’re praying that He would grow and develop a church that plants other churches throughout Mexico. We know we are not capable of any of this unless Jesus works in a miraculous way (2 Cor. 3:5). But we rest in God’s promise in 2 Chronicles 16:9 when He says that He is searching the whole earth in order to be able to “show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.” May we remain loyal to Him and His plan so that He may show Himself strong on our behalf and glorify Himself in the city of Chihuahua!