One of the summer traditions at Agua Viva is a 'Special Dinner' that we put on every Wednesday for our visiting American church groups. The idea behind the Special Dinner is to make people aware of the different aspects of Agua Viva Ministries and to get them interested and involved. This year's Special Dinner is highlighting our seminary, the Ministry Training Institute (which I will hereon refer to as MTI). MTI is a seminary for Mexican nationals in session for three months each fall that provides Biblical/pastoral/ministerial training through three different levels. A startlingly small percentage of Mexican pastors and ministry workers have read the Bible all the way through, and people become pastors because they were the first in their community to convert to Christianity and soon find themselves in charge of a church, even though they have no concept of what a healthy church looks like. Enter MTI, which provides this must-needed training in a short period of time (many of our students can barely afford to miss three months of work, let alone an entire year!) and at a very low cost to the students (they pay approximately 10% of their tuition - $150, and the rest is funded by the ministry). All of us at Agua Viva believe firmly in MTI, because it capacitates people to spread the Gospel in their home communities, which they can do much more effectively than an outsider could. And, in recent years MTI has been growing, the number of students doubled this past year and we graduated 50 students, with a projected 75 students interested in coming in 2008. It's gotten beyond what the ministry can fund on its own, so we are trying to let our American visitors get a better picture of MTI and see if they would like to invest in MTI by sponsoring students and provided funds for their scholarships. And we figured what better way to get them acquainted with MTI than to let them hear from the students themselves.

So in between courses of the meal, the groups visit three different stations, at each of which is an MTI student sharing a little bit about how they have put what they learned at MTI into practice. I want to share their stories with you.

The first station has two soccer goals with a backdrop between them that has the text of Proverbs 22:6 written in Spanish. Here we meet Hector, who studied in the first level of MTI this past year. Through a translator (in this case me) Hector begins sharing about his ministry in the town of San Vicente (two hours south of Ensenada).
What began with playing soccer with his son and a handful of his friends has turned into a soccer league for about 80 kids who play their hearts out, are coached and mentored by Hector and others who have joined with him, and hear about the Word of God. Different churches and ministries within San Vicente have come together and joined in the soccer league because it is such a great way to postively impact the kids. In fact, three others who are involved with the soccer outreach also studied with Hector in the first level of MTI, and all of them want to return to the second

Next we rotate to Manuel's station, where the first thing you notice is the background of huts with palm fronds for roofs, portraying Manuel's home in Chiapas, right across the border from Guatemala. Manuel has a ton of amazing stories to share, and you can tell that he is trying to limit himself to just a few. He shares about going on his own into a community of Zapatista rebels because he couldn't find anyone brave enough to go with him. There the people wouldn't listen to him because he was not a part of the rebel organization, but he left them with an open invitation to come to his house anytime. Looking for another place to minister, he crossed into Guatemala and began teaching people how to read using a program called Alfalit, which uses passages of the Bible to teach literacy. He taught over 70 students on his own and evangelized many of them. Then later, a family of the Zapatistas came to his house because their daughter was sick. As he talked to them he learned that they were involved in witchcraft and told them that the one true God could heal their daughter. The girl was healed right there in his house and the family became Christians! In August Manuel will begin his third year at MTI. He longs to return to Chiapas and work more among the Zapatistas, building their trust and sharing with them about Jesus.

At the final station we find Carmen, who studied at MTI in 2001, 2002 and 2003. She explains that her pastor at her homechurch in Sonora suggested MTI to her for its quality education and affordable price. She originally came to MTI with the intention of learning how to work with the women, youth and children at her church. But the MTI slogan "Enter to learn, leave to serve" stuck with her, and she decided to go as a missionary into a small town in the state of Puebla, in the South of Mexico. Nine people from this town came to her hometown to work in the fields, where they were reached by Carmen's church. When they returned to their community, Carmen went to help them establish a church. She speaks about how they took a television, VCR and video about Jesus and went from door to door and asked permission to come in and show their movie. Many people, however, refused to even open their doors to them. Before long, Carmen learned that the majority of the women were illiterate, and approached the mayor about giving reading classes to the women. She began her classes, but after a few sessions the students weren't returning because they had too many duties at home to attend to. So Carmen began joining them at their homes and doing chores with them (making tortillas, washing in the river, etc) so that they would be free to come to class. There, she used the Alfalit method and was able to share the World of God with her students. Four of the them were baptized and all 23 of them continue to attend the church that is now established there. Carmen is now living and working full time at Agua Viva as the head cook; she felt called to come and give back to the ministry and make it possible for more people to be blessed by MTI.

All of three of them are remarkable people, people who long to serve God with all of their being. Imagine 50 more like them, from all over Mexico, and that's MTI. And that's one of the reasons I consider it a joy to be here at Agua Viva, as part of a team dedicated to reaching Mexico for Christ.