There is a move of God among youth and young adults in Mexico and Latin America. We have missionaries who are part of that movement. This is a glimpse of what God is doing in the youth of Mexico:
By Becci Snyder
“Do not come forward UNLESS you sense God calling you and ONLY if you are willing to DIE.”
The auditorium went silent, it was a holy moment, time became suspended and seconds became eternal. Young people left their seats and their peers behind, totally oblivious to their surroundings and what anyone else thought about their decision. They would deal with Christ alone on this night. They knelt, they wept, and they rose up determined to be obedient to a heavenly call.
I said to myself, “this is why” we do whatever it takes to have this youth event. We fasted and prayed; we spent nights cleaning and preparing sleeping quarters; we made menus and food; we designed and decorated. THIS is WHY, we encouraged and begged the kids and their parents “don’t miss this event” and sold everything imaginable from popsicles, candy, meals galore, and hit my super special reserve emergency finances. This was work done by many people but because we believe in this! It does not matter that I am 61 and tired, I will do it all over again next year because I love these Young People and I believe they have the call of God on their lives to do “proezas” (wonders) in their generation.
I have never seen an event like this anywhere, not in the USA or Mexico. The most delightfully excruciating combination of in your face missions challenges delivered by missionaries from closed Muslim countries. One of the missionaries shared the story of the son of one of her co-laborers who was being raised in a muslim country, in a public school, and still lived as a SOLID Christian in the face of everyone trying to convert him to Islam. How, you may ask? At the age of 16 he had already read the entire Bible through 16 times! The speakers were missionaries who have served in outreach in the nations and have faced much persecution in their work. That’s the kind of speakers this event had.
The event was not a time of being entertained but a time of engaging in outreach. The youth were trained in evangelism and to the streets “do it now evangelism” through dramas, sketches and personal street evangelism that was immediately put into practice as they took it to the streets in a coordinated outreach with the local church. And then there was the intense worship coupled with powerful “God Demands Your All” sermons. The kids cried out to God, confessing their sin and repenting. All of which is done against a backdrop of sleeping on a cement floor, 4 minute “timed” showers and not when YOU want to shower. Half would shower at night and half in the morning; devotions at 6 am. Eat “all” your food and “like it” no matter what the menu is (thankful that they have not been made to eat any “three squeak sandwiches” yet! Which apparently has something to do with 3 live baby rats in a sandwich) and keeping a good attitude all the time or risk washing the bathrooms! THIS IS THE MISSIONARY INVASION!
You may ask: Who would come to this event and pay to get in as well??? Our young people are regularly doing this all over Mexico and even in Chicago. I have seen them 500 strong weeping before the Lord. And they are preparing to take this Gospel of the Kingdom to the hardest places on the planet. Yes, these kids that you could not pull away from Internet or their cell phone or their video games THEY are desperately hungry for a divine purpose worth dying for. When they feel and hear God’s heart for the lost and they go to the street and lead people to Christ they find out that God wants to use THEM…NOW! He has a purpose for their lives, WOW! POWERFUL!
I am so done with entertaining youth. These kids, like generations before them, were made to rise to adversity as the sparks fly up.
David Rice (FCA missionary) and Alan Hernandez caught a vision from God of a radical youth event during their days at Christ For the Nations. A Youth Event that shakes the youth to the core, exposing them to missionaries, evangelism and incredible worship and preaching on the back-drop of a “no frills” and “no creature comforts”. NEWS FLASH: THE KIDS LOVE IT!!! They are continuing on to Bible Schools and missionary training. One pastor who brought 17 of his youth to the event for the first time last week announced at the end of the event that he would bring 50 youth next year, likely half of them from the mountain region. This type of encounter with God is calling youth and young adults to something higher that they’ve been called to before.
This is a call to:
- Missions to the unreached and Missional living where they are now
- Passionate Worship, Personal Prayer, and challenging Study of the Bible
- Sacrifice and Surrender as a Lifestyle
For a month now I have heard a bugle call at the crack of dawn from the army barracks not far from my house. Six hundred male voices have come wafting across the valley from the army barracks as they do their calisthenics. A new commander-in-chief of the army barracks in town has ordered a month of sleeping in tents for all of his men, no matter what their rank. So with their houses and their barracks in full view, they sleep in tents on the ground while their wives and children are tucked in beds in their homes nearby. Many years ago God commanded His people to also spend a week in tents every year (the Feast of Tabernacles) so that the generations to come would not forget the mighty works of God in bringing them out of Egypt and through the wilderness and into the promised land. Milk and honey and homes that you never built are easy to inhabit and also intoxicating. Lest we forget, we too have received a call as pilgrims and sojourners, and as soldiers too! Can you hear the bugle yet? There is an incredible task before us, will we hear the call and leave our comforts to engage in the mission God has for us? Will we call our youth and our adults to rise to the challenge of advancing the Kingdom of God in the nations?
David and Becci Snyder have been ministering as pastors for over 35 years and have been serving as missionaries in Mexico for the last 35 years planting churches, pastoring, and founding and leading a Bible Institute to train Mexican ministers for national and international ministry.
