Mexico
(January 22nd - May 3rd) Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico
Our experience in the first stop of the year has been full of great God provided encounters and opportunities. We have been amazed by the hospitality of our friends and it has made all the difference for us.
Geof and Marion joined us from Australia on February 17th and stayed for 5 weeks. Our time together was pivotal to not only work together on different tasks for the movement, but also to start working out the practicalities of our agenda for the year.
On Feb 19th we had the privilege of celebrating Vivi's first birthday (singing Happy Birthday to her in 3 languages!). Despite the fact that she was sick, it was a very memorable moment for us as a family. We are grateful to God for being part of this multiethnic family that is the family of God (Eph 3:15).
We also had the opportunity to visit the National Coordinator of SM Mexico and his family in a small town called San Juan Ixcaquixtla. We visited 3 cities over the weekend and participated in the inauguration of the new temple of the Acatlán Baptist Church.
Another highlight from our time in Mexico was the first The Unfinished Story for Youth (TUSFY) we run online in April. What started as a course hosted by YWAM Mexico City, ended up being a course with participants from Mexico, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. One participant (20yo) from Egypt woke up for 5 days before 5am to join us. It was just an amazing reminder of how when we make ourselves available to be used by God in His Global Movement He never ceases to amaze us!
Youth Mobilization
(Noemi) A little over two years ago I accepted the role to be the YM Coordinator for SM. Despite loving Youth Kairos and seeing it thrive in many countries, it was always evident that we needed more tools to strategically mobilize young people, courses and programs that could serve our SM teams alongside YK (even boosting the YK effect).
We are extremely happy with the overall response and excitement to mobilize youth through TUSFY. After 2 years, in September 2023 we gave our global teams a trial package which has been trialed in Europe, North America, Latin America, Eurasia, Southern Africa, MENA and Southeast Asia. With the feedback from these trials, we spent the month of March and beginning of April working on a final package which has been released on April 22nd (Praise the Lord!).
Working with young people also means being sensitive to the constant change and generational characteristics that make them such a unique part of any movement or church. With that in mind we felt challenged with the idea to develop a Workshop for Youth Mobilization aiming to empower mobilizers around the world to strategically reach out to the new generations. We will trial the first version of the content on April 26th, please join us in prayer for the development of this new resource.
Europe
At the beginning of May we are going to Europe, the second stage of our project this year. Within the 90 days that we can travel to countries without a visa, we are invited to visit 6: Finland, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Romania and Bulgaria. Please join us in prayer for the financial resources to make it possible, some teams have offered to cover our expenses but others don’t have the capacity and we still desire to serve them.
We are very excited for this block of time with the European team. We will also reunite with Geof and Marion and some of our commitments will involve traveling together. Our first stop will be in Finland for the regional conference where we will speak on the topic of Youth Mobilization. We will also be staying with Caleb’s cousin for a few weeks in Pamplona, Spain.
In addition, we still need to organize a flight to leave Europe at the end of July (possibly to Mozambique, but we don't have the means to purchase it yet).
Prayer Focus
For Vivian's health and growth. For her adaptation to all the traveling and itinerant ministry lifestyle.
For 2024, for all the countries and teams that will participate in this journey, especially the young people.
For financial resources and our partners, that God will continue to bless them in their generosity.
For the 400 USD our teams need to dub TUSFY videos in Portuguese and Spanish.
Pray for the possibility of including Mozambique in our journey for the month of august. Specially for the 3,000 USD we need to travel there.
