In this week's edition of Jym Shorts, Joanna Somesan shares about her experience on the Mexico mission trip.



“¿Listos amigos?” (Ready friends?) asked Pastor Daniel Obed each time we piled in the van for a new day of evangelism. We all agree that Pastor Danny truly is our amigo after serving alongside him and many others for a week in Mexico City (not to mention the many times his impeccable driving saved us from some possibly severe damage to the poor van).

From September 7th through September 14th, myself, my husband Samuel, Pastor Tony Guinn, Terry Moore, Eric Moore, Abel Manring, and Luke Beasley engaged in evangelism in Xochimilco, an area in the southern portion of Mexico City. We worked with a wonderful group of translators from all over the country of Mexico who also shared in our passion for evangelism. This trip was organized through Men For Missions with One Mission Society (OMS) in partnership with Satura Mexico. We were excited to be part of the first trip to this area of Mexico for the purpose of evangelism because, as we quickly discovered, the area is in desperate need of the truth of the gospel. The country is predominantly Catholic with the addition of some worship of the dead and witchcraft–all of which we encountered in conversations with the locals. Many also had questions surrounding the problem of evil: why would God allow such terrible things to happen to me? Abuse, assault, homicide, suicide, organized crime, kidnapping, and human trafficking are very prevalent in this area, and it quickly became clear that many of the people we encountered (especially women) had been a victim of some kind of violence.

We worked with four different local churches in the areas surrounding Xochimilco. Sunday we were able to worship with one of the congregations we worked with later in the week. Each day, we split into seven teams of three (an American, a translator, and a local church member) and went door to door sharing the gospel with the people in the immediate vicinity of the church we worked with that day. We also shared the gospel with people we passed in the streets and employees in local businesses and street stands. Pastor Danny, Pastor Ricardo, and other volunteers from Satura Mexico helped guide the teams in the streets for sake of efficiency and to keep track of everyone.

OMS uses a resource called the “Evangecube” to share the gospel using pictures. The beauty of this resource is that it can be used in any culture or language since there are no words in it that require translation. In the morning portion of door-to-door evangelism, the Americans in each group would share their testimonies followed by sharing the gospel using the cube. After lunch, we trained the local church members in our groups how to share the gospel using the cube so that they could practice it in the afternoon as we went door to door. At the end of each day, we left all of our supplies with the church: extra Spanish Bibles, Evangecubes, Spanish tracts, etc. so that they were equipped to continue evangelizing in the same manner. Then, after working with us, at least seven of their church members had hands-on evangelism experience with those same resources and were prepared to train other church members as well. It is wonderful for us to go share the gospel with people in that area, but it is even better to equip the local churches to continue the same work far beyond our trip.

Due to illness, some of our team members had to stay back to rest and recover on a couple of the evangelism days. Despite this, God provided and our translators were able to take over sharing the gospel in those teams. So, even the translators from all around the country were emboldened with the gospel and can now take it to many different places.

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We collected contact information from anyone who was willing to give it who at least showed interest in the gospel or the church. At the end of each day, we gave all of this information to the local church so the members could follow up within 48 hours. This is so critical because we were only able to have short conversations with each person we evangelized. They now need discipleship, accountability, and Christian fellowship.

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In total, we shared the gospel with over 400 people during this trip–praise the Lord! Of those, around 175 made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. We hope that you will join us in praying for all of these people: that those who professed Christ would be genuine in their faith and that those who heard the gospel will receive it. We know that God’s Word never returns void; it always accomplishes what God intends. Our success is not in numbers; our success is in pleasing God by sharing the truth with others. Thus, our prayer is that God’s will be done and that we and our brothers and sisters in Mexico will be faithful in sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

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