On Thursday, July 3, our Hispanic Ministry Team will depart for Phoenix, Arizona. After a day-long orientation with MGM International, we will travel to Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico on Saturday, July 5. The main purposes for this trip are to immerse our team members in the Spanish language and culture as well as to help the local congregations around the Ebenezer Bible Institute in Hermosillo. Please pray for our team members as they study Spanish within the Mexican culture. We are praying that the Lord will use this trip to prepare us to minister to the Hispanic people here in Ohio. The team will return to Findlay on Monday, July 14.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MGM INTERNATIONAL

AND

THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH

By Dr. Richard L. Mercado
from the MGMI History page

The man who was left for dead

The history of MGM International begins with the story of its founder, Leonardo S. Mercado. Leonardo’s father, Gumecindo Mercado, emigrated with his family from Mexico City to northern Arizona during the Mexican Revolution. The family was traveling by railway pushcart toward El Paso, Texas. During one rest stop, they stumbled on a man who had been left for dead alongside the railroad tracks. Gumecindo insisted they do what they could to help the wounded man, and, despite some objections that adding him to the pushcart would jeopardize the onward journey, they lifted him to the cart along with all their baggage and renewed their travel toward the United States. Sometime later they were suddenly ambushed by a marauding group of Pancho Villa’s bandits. Just as those raiders were deciding what valuables to take with them and how to dispose of their captives, the stranger who had been befriended by the Mercados spoke up. “¡No! ¡No les hagan daño!” “No, don’t harm these good people. I was lying helpless by the tracks many miles back. These strangers picked me up. They’ve saved my life. Now you spare them.” As it turned out, Pancho Villa’s henchmen knew the wounded man, and, for the sake of their friendship, the bandits rode off, leaving the Mercados and their new friend to resume their migration northward.

Spiritual Pilgrimage

Arriving finally at Williams, Arizona, the Mercado family settled into their new environment with young Leonardo serving as an altar boy in the Roman Catholic Church. In time, a young Anglo neighbor boy who befriended Leonardo began inviting him to visit his Methodist Sunday School. Despite Leonardo’s objections and insistence that he couldn’t go there, that neighbor pal kept on, week by week, persisting in inviting him. Finally Leonardo went, he heard the gospel of salvation, and he received Christ as his very own personal Savior. That was the beginning of the spiritual pilgrimage that would eventually lead him to the Spanish-American Theological Seminary of Los Angeles, California, where somewhere around 1923 or 1924 he became one of the school’s first graduates.

Early Ministry

While still a seminary student, one day Leonardo and his father were walking down one of the main streets of San Pedro when they heard the strains of a gospel song. Following the sound of the music, they arrived at an old-fashioned gospel street meeting and there was an earnest and attractive young lady playing the little portable organ. Leonardo whispered to his father, “Dad, I’m going to marry that young lady.” Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t miss the Sunday evening service on June 22!

Our Operation Renewed Hope Boot Camp team will be reporting about their trip. Judging by their pictures, they have a great deal to report! They returned to us on Saturday, exhausted but exhilarated.

As you will hear in their report, there is a good deal of excitement about future ORH trips. One of the team members announced, “we are ready to go to Cambodia!”

In their report on Sunday evening, you will hear their testimonies and see an audio-visual presentation about their adventures. I would like to warn you in advance that you will be envious!

Operation Renewed Hope is planning more boot camps of this kind in the future. This is essential preparation for team members since many of the trips take the Gospel of Jesus Christ and desperately needed medical teams to remote regions of the world. When you are that far away from civilization and cell phones, you simply learn to rely on your own skills.

We are excited to see how the Lord will use these team members in the future!

Please pray for our team. They made it safely to The Wilds. They will be receiving training in how to participate in future medical relief efforts both at home and abroad. Survival skills, safety measures, medical relief techniques, etc. will all be taught during this week. We are hoping that they will be able to instruct the members of our congregation in the skills that they learn.