It is my pleasure to send you this update of how God has called me to the mission field in Mexico, and what the next steps will be.
In December 2019, I graduated from Barclay College in Haviland, Kansas, and returned to live with my family in Orange County, California. I had made plans to join the Teaching Abroad program, newly absorbed into Evangelical Friends Mission, to go to China to teach English to university students. I had long felt a call to international missions, but was attracted to the model of offering a tangible service for a stipend, room, and board from the school. By March 2020, however, it was very clear that I would not be going to Wuhan, China, anytime soon.
In the following months, EFM continued to contact me about their Luke 10 Initiative to open several new fields to send new missionaries by 2025 and asked if I was interested in any of the fields being explored. At first, I felt uncomfortable with the prospect of the more traditional missionary route, since it would require me to fundraise and ask for money, which had no guarantee of success. I continued to discuss the prospect with EFM while finishing a master’s degree and working several jobs in HVAC, plumbing, t-shirt printing, and real estate (to name a few), and volunteering in my church’s youth group (Rose Drive Friends Church). We narrowed our focus to my passion for biblical literacy and teaching, and my proficiency in the Spanish language.
By the end of the year, I felt the weight of an impending decision to step out in faith. All of the other opportunities I had pursued had closed: my business ventures, my HVAC career, and even my ministry as a youth volunteer. Moreover, I had been living with my grandma since college and really needed to move on in life. Would I let go of my plans and follow Jesus on an unknown path, trusting in God’s provision? I prayed for direction, and I asked (pestered) trusted mentors at church whom I should contact to prepare for the mission field. I was introduced to Alan Amavisca and Nick Ward of North County Project, who welcomed me with open arms and began teaching me their methodology.
In 2023, Edwin and Maria Giron invited me to join them on a Luke 10 Exploration Trip to Jalisco and Nayarit, Mexico, with a team of Friends Church members from both the United States and Mexico. There, I learned about Mexico Yearly Meeting’s goal, called Vision 32, to plant an evangelical church in all 32 states by the year 2032. I also got to meet several members of the Mexican Friends Church who were called to go evangelize and make disciples in communities far from home, including Pedro and Sandy Moscosa of Mexico State, and Sergio (Tyson) Contreras of Coahuila.
In 2024, EFM announced a partnership with NCP to train future missionaries for their new mission fields and invited me to train for ten months as one of the first wave of future missionary candidates in this new process. The experience was both hallowing and harrowing, and I was the only one to complete the program in its first year. Earlier this year, EFM sent me to visit Pastor Omar Ramirez and his family, who have been raising a new church body in Zacatecas, Mexico, with the purpose of getting to know the Ramirez family and their congregation in preparation for ministry with them.
After returning and debriefing with EFM, I am proud to announce that I have been accepted for a 12-month field training internship in Zacatecas, Mexico, in which I will be learning directly from Omar how to facilitate ministry and Christian discipleship in Mexico, assisting him in serving his growing congregation, and engaging in long-term cultural and language immersion. This opportunity is an enormous answer to prayer, and I am excited to follow God’s calling in my life to missions, and to partner with EFM and Mexico Yearly Meeting in reaching the weary and the discouraged in Mexico for Christ.
I am currently looking for supporters to partner with me in my next steps with EFM. You can support me through prayer and financial giving. I need and appreciate both so that I can reach 100% in both areas at this stage of my journey with EFM. I currently have 233 prayer partners and my goal is to have 250. If you know anyone who would like to sign up to be a prayer partner, you can send them this link.I am also looking for people willing to give monthly gifts to cover room, board, and travel expenses while in Mexico. Would you pray and consider supporting me financially in this endeavor? There are four ways to partner with me:
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For those who have followed my journey up to this point, thank you so much for your constant love, prayers, and support, through good times and difficulties, as God has continued to transform me into the image of his son as much as the people to whom I minister. For those to whom my story is new, thank you for joining me in ministry and becoming part of this story—a small chapter of God’s greater story of the redemption of all the nations of the earth.
Dutifully yours,
Erik E. Nilsen, M.A.
Evangelical Friends Mission
620-349-9249
English (United States) 
Spanish