The Vincent Family

We hope that everyone had a wonderful month of April as we celebrated the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

I know that for our family here in Mexico, we enjoyed a wonderful month that began with our little girl Grace celebrating a birthday and turning 12 years old. (Only one more year until she becomes a teenager, yikes!) We are so proud of the Godly young lady that Grace has become.

 

On the church side of things, to celebrate Easter Sunday for the 2^nd straight year our church combined our normal three Sunday services into one giant outdoor Easter Outreach service. We shut down the street in front of the church, rented an extra 800  “tecate beer” chairs.  (Why Tecate Beer chairs? They were the cheapest of course!) And we encouraged our congregation to bring an unsaved friend to church with them and prayed that by faith, God would fill every chair.

 

The Easter service was amazing and blessed by our Risen Lord. The worship time was anointed, special music was supplied by a mother and son who sang a bilingual duet of the Don Francisco Easter Classic “He’s Alive,” and I preached a sermon out of Luke Chapter 24 that I titled “The Very First Easter.”

 

It was an encouraging morning as we reflected on the truth that we love, serve, and follow a risen and living Savior named Jesus. I love the words that the resurrected Jesus shares with the church taken from Revelation 1:18  “I am the living one, I was dead, and behold I am alive forever and ever!”

 

At the end of the day our church hosted around 1100 people for our Easter Service. That set a new Sunday attendance record for our church. We were also blessed to have many first time visitors, and 15 of them made first time professions of faith to the Gospel message that was presented.

 

Because the way in which these new believers responded in faith to the Gospel was so unique, I wanted to share it with you. As we were holding the service outside with a large spread out crowd, at the end of my sermon God put it on my heart to have anyone that wanted to respond to the Gospel cry out  “YO CREO.” (or “I believe” in English)

 

After sharing the Gospel and that opportunity, there were at least 20 seconds of dead silence in the large crowd. Finally, everyone heard a loud male voice in the back of the ground boldly cry out,   “YO CREO.” As the crowd began to applaud, there was another profession of faith and then another and then another. Over a time period of a couple of minutes, eventually 15 non Christians cried out “YO CREO” or “I BELIEVE” and we were honored to call them up and say a prayer of faith with them. It was an amazing scene to witness the power of our living God still saving and rescuing the lost.

 

Since we didn’t want any of our children to leave church disappointed, we did have a giant Resurrection Easter Egg hunt where all of the children received plenty of candy to celebrate our risen Savior. And since we didn’t want the adults to feel left out either, we also provided “The world’s largest pile of Easter Cookies” for them to enjoy. (Can you tell that we like to make big claims down here in Mexico?)

 

Also in April, our church was pleased to ordain or newest Assistant Pastor, Fernando Serrano Arevalo. Fernando moved to Rosarito a few years ago with loads of ministry experience having served as a Pastor in a denominational congregation. After a year at our church, we brought Fernando on to our full time church staff. After an extended time of testing and prayer, this month our five other staff Pastors were honored to ordain Fernando in front of our church body.

 

Fernando’s present duties at the church include running our church café, leading up our church’s counseling, and he also serves as one of my main translators. In the future, Fernando will be directing our Biblical Counseling Center that will be opening soon to serve our church and community. Fernando is also in my church planting class and he is planning on one day being sent out to church plant. Please keep Pastor Fernando, his wife Liliana, and their children in your prayers.

 

Finally, I want to thank you once again for partnering with our family and ministry here in Mexico.  Through your prayers we receive God’s guidance and protection. Through your financial support, we receive God’s provision. We could not do anything here without the help of our Lord Jesus and you, our precious co-laborers. We love you!

 

With much love from Mexico,

Mike, Sarah, Grace, and Daniel

 

Prayer Requests:

1. Pray that God would continue to bless our daughter Grace as she begins her 12^th year.
2. Pray that God would bless our new Pastor Fernando, his family and his ministry.
3. Pray that God would provide financially for our family and church in these difficult financial times.