Meet Maribel Acuña from Monterrey, Mexico. She is a photographer and graphic designer on the road to becoming a missionary, and those titles aren’t mutually exclusive. Travel with me quickly through time. My wife and I met Maribel in 2005 at the church we were attending in Monterrey. We went on a mission trip the Mexican church was leading. We went to discover what God was doing among the Xiuy people. Through the work of other friends, this people group is now considered reached, but there are still over 10 unreached people groups in Mexico. Our friendship grew with Maribel and occasionally we worked together there in Monterrey, or spent time celebrating birthdays (something that’s a blast in the Mexican culture). We would also meet regularly to pray together for missionaries to be sent out into Mexico and beyond.
Well, in 2008 Maribel attended our International Mission Mobilization Conference in Mexico. She was part of a younger generation of Mexicans at this conference who long to see the church rise up to be part of what God is doing in the world, whether that be locally or globally. As one of these young people, she later attended The Mission Society’s Orientation Training in Brazil, being further equipped in this calling to serve in a cross-cultural context. Today she’s attending John Wesley seminary in Monterrey and taking courses like the “Missionary Program of the Church,” the “Theology of Mission,” “Communication,” etc. Actually other Mission Society missionaries are professors at Juan Wesley. It’s amazing, whenever each of us stops to consider the work of God in our lives, how He’s led us. Maribel’s story is not unlike our own.
Maribel is praying about where to GO serve as a missionary. There are many who want to GO, like our friend Maribel. Please pray that, like Maribel, many others would receive the call to GO and that the Mexican church would continue to catch the vision to SEND this next generation of Jesus followers.
