Dear friends of Mexico Ministries:
“Though your beginning was insignificant, your end will increase greatly.” These are the words Scripture records about Job (Job 8.7). These are also fitting words for the life of Pastor Victorio Perez Perez, of Iglesia de Jesucristo Sobre La Roca Templo Maranatha in Tzabalho, Chenalho, Chiapas, Mexico.
I have known Pastor Victorio since the beginning of his ministry. We build his first church building for him in Tzabalho, a very small room constructed of 1x12 planks with a dirt floor. Later I visited him in his home which was also similarly built. His family cooked and ate outside, and his family shared the tiny house with his married son and his family, with only a curtain separating the two families. I asked Victorio if he would like a concrete block house and he told me it was a life long dream of his (on the back of this letter is an old photo of me on the top of that house about to pour a concrete roof).
As time passed I visited him again and his wife told me he wasn’t home but had gone to serve communion to his mission churches. At the time he had 13 missions and she told me he would be gone for 13 days, traveling by foot from one mountain village to the next encouraging pastors and ministering to the people. Today Victorio still doesn’t drive, speaks little Spanish (and prefers his native Tzotzil language), and serves 20 mission churches.
We built a new mission for him and as the men were finishing the painting Victorio was standing and looking at the church and weeping. I said, “It sure is a pretty church,” and he replied that was not the reason he wept. “Now I know we are not alone.” Others had come from the United States to help and serve.
I marvel at Victorio’s faith and determination to give God his very best. “Though your beginning was insignificant, your end will increase greatly.” And I am happy to announce that in the last week of July we will dedicate his new church!
God bless you,
Larry