“Please come to our wedding!”
Earlier this spring, when Bobbie and I received an invitation to Armando Lucas and Sophi Santee’s wedding in Lawrence this coming August it brought back to me a flood of memories from our Amigo Team mission trips to Mexico.
I first met Armando in 2006 at the Children’s Haven International’s children home in Reynosa, to which we as a Grace Community Church family had been taking annual mission trips since 1999.
Armando arrived at the home that year as a 12-year-old with huge needs. Over the course of multiple Amigo trips, we had the privilege of seeing the incredible work that God did in Armando’s life through the life-giving, Christ-centered family environment of the Children’s Haven home.
As he grew, Armando trusted Christ as his Savior and excelled at school. Following graduation from high school, he attended and finished dental school.
Each time we visited the children’s home, we got to see Armando’s love for Jesus and his heart for service increase. He went on several mission trips with his church in Reynosa and became an older brother in the faith to all the younger kids at the home.
Now, God has led Armando to a godly young woman and he’s ready to launch a new chapter in his life, planning to emigrate to the United States and marry Sophi in Kansas as soon as he receives his dental license from the Mexican government.
Many of you know that after taking 20 Amigo mission trips to Reynosa over the years, we didn’t take a team this past March. It was a weird March for me, not being able to connect with the children at the home.
However, there has been in my heart what I believe is a God-given desire to take one more team of families down to Reynosa next year and lead one final Amigo Trip—“Amigo 21,” we’ll call it. Dates are February 29 (Saturday) through March 7 (Saturday), 2020, and you’ll be hearing more about registration later this summer.
I hope you and your family will pray about joining our twenty-year tradition of more than 230 adults and children from our church who have been the hands and feet of Jesus and shared his love and served his purposes in the lives of children like Armando.
I’m looking forward to this Sunday when we will recognize our graduates and hear a sermon from one of our Igniter alums, Gage Weller!
Pastor Steve