Tarahumara Mission mission trips

In 1988, Cruz Velazquez and two friends ventured into the Sierra Madre Mountains in northwest Mexico. Their objective: to take Christ's message of hope and love to the Tarahumara, and Indian tribe numbering more than 120,000 and known for resisting modern culture and influence.

With little cash and only meager supplies and food, Velazquez then 20 years old and his friends set up camp in the remote valley of Corareachi. Language and cultural barriers proved grueling for the inexperienced missionaries, and Velazquez´s friends soon left. Cruz, stayed but in five years only six Tarahumaras made a decision for Christ. Frustrated but undeterred, Velazquez continued to minister learning from his failures and clinging to the vision God gave him.

Sometimes hard to believe by his superiors, Cruz's ministry started to grow in preaching and founding churches in several villages which now have their own Pastor. Some of them Indian ministers.

CHILDREN MINISTRY

Then, things started to happen again, he began building projects for sheltering kids that come to school for five days, and then, dorms and dining rooms were built in two villages.

Besides being fed and attending school, the kids receive Bible teachings while in site. The facilities can sleep up to 100 kids, they get three warm meals a day.

The kids love to come to school because they know they will get good food and a warm bed from Monday thru Friday, things they cannot afford at home. They walk for hours through the mountains in order to attend school.

BIBLE SCHOOL PROJECT

Cruz had always dreamed of having a Bible school for training the native Pastors in the mountains. For many, it was a very ambicious project that would become impossible to achieve. Then God used some American and Mexican churches to provide some of their time and money to contribute for the construction of the building. Then after seeing it become real, Cruz replies "I have seen the glory of God through what he has done out of nothing here, we did not have any money, we got the lot donated by a church member, then the Lord began providing everything else". "God is a God of wonders".

"You can dream, as for God, dreaming is something that can become real" Cruz says when asked how he feels now that he has finished the Bible School project. A goal that seemed unreachable for the eyes of men, now a real and nice building settled in Samachique, one of the most important towns in the Sierra Madre mountains.