Costa Chica Trip Update
Dear Hope Church Family,
During the worship service on March 23rd, my friend, Phillip Summers, and I were commissioned to represent our churches on a mission trip to Acapulco, Mexico. It was an honor for us to serve in this way, and we enjoyed a very intriguing, fruitful, and joyous journey. I am eager to give a brief report here, and if you have more questions or interest to hear the fuller story, I would love to share more at your convenience.
The immediate connection to Costa Chica (the familiar name for the larger region around Acapulco) for Phillip and me is that Winston-Salem, and more specifically Waughtown, is home to close to 30,000 folks from Costa Chica. The migration patterns have created a pipeline of sorts from there to here. The other point of contact for us is that the longest tenured missionary from our denomination’s world missions agency is a woman named Ellen Barnett, who has served in Acapulco for over 50 years. Some of you had a chance to meet Ellen when she visited Hope last spring. In her many years of service, Ellen has nurtured church plants, a Christian school, and oversees a seminary in Acapulco that trains pastors to serve in that region and all across the world. Lastly, Philip, through Ellen, had cultivated a friendship and partnership with a pastor who was formed under Ellen’s care, named Mario Salinas. Mario was tragically assassinated by cartel leaders in his village of San Nicolas nearly two years ago, leaving behind a widow named Elena, several adult children, and a vibrant ministry.
Our hopes for the trip were to visit the New Horizons Christian School and the Maranatha Seminary to discern if there are viable partnerships available for our churches, to pray with and for Ellen and her ongoing ministry in Mexico, to deliver a gift of financial support for Elena Salinas and her family in the wake of the tragedy their family has endured, and to meet some of the seminary students who possibly could become church planters among the Costa Chica population here in our city.
I am overjoyed to report that your prayers sustained us, and God opened doors for us to realize all of those hopes in the short five days we were in Mexico. I cannot imagine the trip going any better. And the energizing reality is that the door is still open! In the coming months I have an opportunity to facilitate a seminary course for the students in Acapulco. The possibility of organizing a group to support the New Horizons school is taking shape. And the potential of helping Elena Salinas and her family testify to God’s healing and sustaining mercy to the people of Costa Chica is also gaining traction.
Seeing firsthand the gracious work of God in a completely different part of our world is such an invigorating and encouraging gift, and it only serves to stoke the longing for His Kingdom to come here and everywhere on earth as it is in heaven! Rejoice with me that God is at work!
Grace and peace,
David