“… and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”. Acts 1:8 NIV
Mexico Friends has sent their first missionary to an unreached group!
It seems to us that each of you deserves to be included in celebrating what God is allowing Mexico Friends to achieve in obedience to the Great Commission. Firstly, let’s remember how the beginnings of EFM were through its first missionary field, which was in Mexico City. Now, 60 years later the country of Mexico has two Friends Yearly Meetings, Yearly Meeting Center Mexico, and the North Yearly Meeting. Both Yearly Meetings are joining their efforts to carry out the VM32 project, which is to start new ministries in states of Mexico where there is still no presence of Evangelical Friends, reaching out to the 32 states by the year 2032. But one of the most beautiful achievements this year for Mexico Friends is that God has allowed them to commission and send their first missionary from Mexico to Ecuador! Let’s all glorify God together for this step in the history of the Friends! In March, during the sessions of the Yearly Meeting Center that was held in Ciudad Juárez, pastors and leaders representing the Friends Churches in Mexico gathered together for a very special and blessed time as everyone surrounded, laid hands, and prayed in unity for José Olivas, a brave 28-year-old young man who is being obedient to the call to be an ambassador of Jesus Christ among the Shuar People in Ecuador. Edwin and I feel privileged to be part of and witness this event that marks a course in the history of Friends and the Gospel. All honor be to God!
José Olivas will be arriving in Ecuador at the end of March and will be located in the Amazon area, where he will be closer and exposed to the Shuar culture. His main focus in the next two years will be learning and adapting to the culture and the language. José is being received in Ecuador by AMEE (Ecuadorian Evangelical Missionary Alliance) and by other leader friends with experience working with the Shuar people, valuable contacts that have been made during the years by the Northwest Yearly Meeting in the United States in their efforts to reach the Shuar. Edwin and I are committed to carrying out the role of being coaches for José, we have been coaching him for the last year and will continue to do so for the next two years.
Since Ecuador is one of the six places where EFM has committed to sending new families of missionaries, Mexico Friends are praying and expecting to work in unity and as a team joining efforts with those that God will send to the field in the Amazon jungle from the US to reach the Shuar people for Christ. We can see how God is moving and he gives us the privilege as EFM and Mexico Friends, to be part of the evangelization of the unreached. Praise him!
VM32 Update and Story
We also would like to invite you to give praise to God for the Ramírez-Peña family who are serving in Zacatecas State. In November 2022, Omar, Ariana, and their children: Omar Jr., Fabiola, and Jimena, in obedience to God’s call, left their home, their friends, their family, and their past back in their original town Xalatlaco, Mexico State to go out to start a new Friends ministry spurred on by the VM32 project. Zacatecas is considered one of the states with the most crime and kidnapping in the nation due to drug trafficking, but even so, this brave family told the Lord “Here we are, send us.” Just a year and a few months later, facing already some difficulties and challenges to start the ministry, they already have reached a group of 25 people that are being discipled, an average of 30 people are attending Sunday services and Bible studies during the week, and they have evangelized another 58 that accepted Jesus as their savior. Praise God! Edwin and I give thanks for the brave and hard-working Ramírez-Pena family to whom we have also taken the task of being their coach even before they arrived at the field. They have often needed encouragement, constant prayer, and help in discernment, for which we are grateful to God for being able to provide this type of help through having the privilege of being their coach.
Mexico: Another of the Six Fields Approved by EFM
In November EFM approved Mexico as one of six places to start new fields and send new missionaries, in partnership with the two Friends Yearly Meetings in Mexico and in support of the VM32 project. Why are we going? The population of Mexico is 131,468,000 and according to statistics from the INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography), currently, the sad reality is that only 9% of the entire population are evangelicals. Can you see how big the need still is? The greatest need is in the center of the country, an area that is called the circle of silence in Latin America because there are less than 1% evangelical Christians. There are even towns where there are no evangelical churches and only 0-5 Christians can be found in an entire town. As is the case with a small town called La Estanzuela which is located in the state of Jalisco. In this small town of La Estanzuela there is a small group of seven women who have been evangelized by a person who is a member of the Friends Church in Las Vegas. These women meet regularly through Zoom with the person who evangelized them and they are discipled. On the last Luke 10 Exploration trip, the team arrived in this town in Jalisco, and all of us who were there could feel the hunger of these people for the Gospel and the need to have a missionary there to begin to raise a church. It was obvious how God showed us that fields like this one, which are ready for harvest, are found throughout the whole country, starting in the center. Let us pray together that God sends more workers to his fields because the harvest is ready. We need men and women of courage to go to those who are hungry and thirsty to know Christ and the truth of the Gospel in this country that is still very bound by other religions, idolatry, immorality, and crime. Would you be willing to say: Here I am, Lord, send me?
Prayer Requests
- Pray for José Olivas, his adaptation process, and learning the Shuar culture and dialect. Pray that God would open doors for Jose and even in his early years in the field he can present the Gospel and introduce Jesus to many.
- For the ministry in Zacatecas, may God raise up leaders to support the Ramírez-Peña Family and the ministry there. For the protection and safety of Omar and Ariana and their three young children (Omar Jr, Fabiola, and Jimena).
- For VM32, so that God raises up more brave people willing to leave everything to go to those who are hungry and thirsty to know the truth.
- For Edwin and I so that God increases wisdom in us to be able to be good coaches to these and other future new ministry initiators and missionaries.
- May God continue to open doors of opportunity so that Edwin and I can continue to do the work of mobilizing, training, and sending many more.
Serving him,
Maria Giron
EFM Missions Mobilizer for Hispanic Friends
English (United States) 
Spanish