Mexico Mission Trips Build Upon Earlier Ones

FBCO teams support the full time work of International Mission Board missionaries Clay and Tammy Richardson in southern Mexico. Each mission team we send there builds upon the work of earlier teams.

In the last two years FBCO suspended trips to Mexico due to COVID concerns. This April and May, we returned. The primary goal of the April trip was to re-establish personal connections in the village of San Isidro Las Banderas (SILB). Team members Dale Bredbrenner and Jerry Woodruff also saw five people accept Christ.

In May, Brandon Kiesling, Emery Pearson, Joe Spradley, and Jonathan Swan followed up. Unique for both teams was that each person had already been on international missions trips in various places around the world.

The experience “really enhanced the trips,” according to Kiesling, leader of the May team. He says allowed it him “to lean on each of them throughout the trip. Each person made a significant contribution on the field.”

While the first team re-established village contact it also made new individual connections. That helped the second team. “We followed up on the initial conversions from April’s trip and installed new water filtration systems in several homes,” Kiesling says. Safe drinking water is a challenge for villagers in the remote location. The filtration systems provided acceptable water.

He commended the work of Pearson and Spradley, both older adults. They “did really well in conditions that were challenging at times: rugged terrain, walking up and down hills in the village, and being flexible when things changed throughout the trip.”

While the walking was sometimes strenuous, Pearson says “I don’t see why, if you’re older, you can’t go if you’re in good health. I enjoyed it. It was fun.”

Kiesling says the teams “had a plan going into (each) week and God brought about everything we asked for and more! We were able to do several in-home Bible studies with families and were able to make several new connections with key individuals for future trips.”

The second team also held several Bible studies for new believers. Two people were led to Christ—a young couple Kiesling met in his last trip in July 2019. That added to the five conversions during the April trip.

FBCO plans to return in July to hold a VBS for children. In May, the team met key leaders in the area who offered permission for the local school building to host VBS.

Each missions trip brings challenges but international trips can have unique ones. The May team’s plan ran smoothly, Kiesling says, “until the day before it was scheduled to leave (Mexico).”

“Hurricane Agatha was scheduled to make landfall just down the coast from Tuxtla, which is the city we fly into/out of during these trips,” Brandon says. “We had to fly out a day earlier and stay one night in Mexico City so we could avoid getting stalled in Tuxtla.”

The team got home as scheduled.

Kiesling says there are several prayer requests for the Mexico missions work.

Seven people have been led to Christ in the April and May trips and the new believers need discipleship training. Pray for the Richardsons who are leading the discipleship effort, and for the new believers as they grow in their faith. Also, pray the ministry seeds planted so far will yield fruit, and for the follow-up work in subsequent visits.

Also, pray for the VBS workers and children.

The July VBS trip is the 10^th through the 14^th. A team of eight will minister to an anticipated group of over 100 kids in VBS. Following that trip, an October team will do more house visits and offer follow-up Bible studies. Both trips are full, but more opportunities will be available in 2023.