“When I talk about this, it’s like a dream. I can’t even believe it myself. The whole journey—how it started to what is happening now—it’s incredible,” says Juana Reyes de Valdez (MDiv ’22). When Juanita first started leading a small group in Los Angeles, California at hermana Tere’s house, she never imagined that those Bible studies would lead her to establish and lead Ministerio Por Fe (Ministry by Faith), which today has holistically impacted hundreds of people in the towns of Matancillas, La Granja, and La Paz in Jalisco, Mexico.
Juanita grew up in a family involved in ministry. Her parents were missionaries in their native city of Nayarit and often welcomed other missionaries into their home. When she was 15, Juanita emigrated to Los Angeles, and there, one of her cousins became her spiritual mentor and is currently the pastor of the church Juanita attends. Presently, her sister and brother also exercise pastoral roles. So, for Juanita, getting involved as a lay leader in her faith community and within her denomination (ABCOFLASH) was nothing out of the ordinary.
In 2012, she started to lead a small group with other women, coworkers, and neighbors, to study the Bible every Tuesday. She had been discipling a new convert, Tere, who offered her house as a meeting place for the Bible study. Juanita, hermana Tere, and other ladies met every Tuesday. And every Tuesday, hermana Tere would call her niece Rosario, who was going through a difficult time, and leave the phone on speaker so she could also hear Juanita during the small group. For a year, Juanita and hermana Tere discipled Rosario over the phone—calling long distance from Los Angeles to Mexico.
ROSLYN M. HERNÁNDEZ is diversity, equity, and inclusion manager and content producer at Fuller Youth Institute.
SARAÍ ELGUEZABAL is a visual artist and photographer based in San Diego, California. Find more of her work at instagram.com/selguezabal.
“When I talk about this, it’s like a dream. I can’t even believe it myself. The whole journey—how it started to what is happening now—it’s incredible,” says Juana Reyes de Valdez (MDiv ’22). When Juanita first started leading a small group in Los Angeles, California at hermana Tere’s house, she never imagined that those Bible studies would lead her to establish and lead Ministerio Por Fe (Ministry by Faith), which today has holistically impacted hundreds of people in the towns of Matancillas, La Granja, and La Paz in Jalisco, Mexico.
Juanita grew up in a family involved in ministry. Her parents were missionaries in their native city of Nayarit and often welcomed other missionaries into their home. When she was 15, Juanita emigrated to Los Angeles, and there, one of her cousins became her spiritual mentor and is currently the pastor of the church Juanita attends. Presently, her sister and brother also exercise pastoral roles. So, for Juanita, getting involved as a lay leader in her faith community and within her denomination (ABCOFLASH) was nothing out of the ordinary.
In 2012, she started to lead a small group with other women, coworkers, and neighbors, to study the Bible every Tuesday. She had been discipling a new convert, Tere, who offered her house as a meeting place for the Bible study. Juanita, hermana Tere, and other ladies met every Tuesday. And every Tuesday, hermana Tere would call her niece Rosario, who was going through a difficult time, and leave the phone on speaker so she could also hear Juanita during the small group. For a year, Juanita and hermana Tere discipled Rosario over the phone—calling long distance from Los Angeles to Mexico.
ROSLYN M. HERNÁNDEZ is diversity, equity, and inclusion manager and content producer at Fuller Youth Institute.
SARAÍ ELGUEZABAL is a visual artist and photographer based in San Diego, California. Find more of her work at instagram.com/selguezabal.
At the time, Rosario was Catholic and had served as the prayer leader in the town of Matancillas in the state of Jalisco. But when Rosario began asking more questions about the Bible, the town priest told her that she should not read the Bible and expelled her from the local parish. Upon arriving home in tears, her husband Pablo encouraged her to read the Bible at home to her family. Rosario, Pablo, and their four daughters began reading the Bible in their home, and in a short time, almost 30 people left the parish and began meeting under Rosario’s leadership.
In 2013, Juanita and Rosario met in person for the first time. Juanita, who’d continued receiving training and leading her small group in Los Angeles, obtained permanent US residency and planned to visit her relatives in Nayarit. During that trip, she sent Bibles and discipleship materials to Rosario and began praying for God to send missionaries to Matancillas, where Rosaria was—a town over 300 miles away from where her relatives resided. Juanita first thought to send support for Rosario. She had not imagined going to support the mission herself. It was her friend Judith who asked her what she was going to do about the group of people gathering with Rosario. “Honestly,” she says, “I didn’t realize how God had already confirmed and affirmed my calling.”
In June of 2013, Juanita decided to follow the call to missions, and what would eventually become Ministerio Por Fe was born. Juanita, her husband Blas, and her friend Judith traveled to Matancillas, bringing donations of backpacks, school supplies, children’s clothing, baptismal robes. They also brought a tent, since the congregation gathered under a tree. The group had grown to 40 people, and 27 of them were ready to be baptized.
One afternoon, while Juanita was preaching at Rosario’s house where they had set up the tent, her husband, Blas, was at the entrance and saw a man checking out what was taking place. As Blas greeted him with a hug and invited him to come in, he noticed that the man had a gun under his jacket. Blas led him to sit in the back and stayed with him. The man began to listen to the word of God as Juanita was preaching. When Juanita made the altar call, a crowd of people began gathering at the front. When the man stood up, Blas thought he was going to harm Juanita. But, when the man got to the front, he knelt down and surrendered his life to Christ. That’s how hermano Ramiro came to know Jesus. Two years later, hermano Ramiro helped build a sanctuary in Matancillas. Later, he shared that the town’s Catholic religious leaders had sent him to harm them, but a very strong voice that burned within him stopped him from doing so.
Juanita asks herself, “How did I end up arriving to these distant and unknown lands?” Upon reflection, she says, “It was the grace of God. And I assume that it was God’s calling on my life.” In Matancillas, La Granja, and La Paz, the climate is dry. The land is arid and rocky, full of cacti and agave. “The place is desert-like, but the harvest is plentiful, and the hearts are fertile ground for the gospel.”
In 2018, Juanita’s friends, Lexa and Judith, encouraged her to enroll at Fuller to pursue a master’s degree. Juanita had accepted her calling to become a missionary, but at Fuller she would learn more about leadership and what it means to lead and empower an integral mission. Integral Mission is holistic, personal, communal, and socioeconomically responsible, she learned; the church’s mission to the world, as René Padilla teaches, goes far beyond verbal evangelism. And beyond receiving theological education and training, Juanita found her character forged as a missional leader: “Fuller gave me so much because it taught me to be disciplined, to create structures, and promote mentorship and leadership training. It equipped me in everything necessary to bringing about the integral mission. That’s why I am so grateful.”
“The goal is to bring about a complete integration of mental, physical, spiritual, and educational health. We want to implement a comprehensive approach because there is a great need,” says Juanita. Because she trains and empowers others to lead the integral mission, communities are being transformed. Matancillas was once an isolated and desolate village. In 80% of families, fathers migrate to the United States, and women stay behind to play the roles of both mother and father. Among the remaining men, most work as construction workers. One of the objectives of Ministerio Por Fe has been to create job opportunities and support community development. But first, they had to build trust within the community. To get to know the communities, they began with organizing festivals for over 500 children. In addition to supplying backpacks and school supplies, they are also training young people in all three communities to provide tutoring for school children. They have also provided education on family planning and training to equip mothers to be employed in local occupations.
Ministerio Por Fe has plans for the future in the areas of education and healthcare. Of the children that Juanita met when she first arrived in Matancillas, three of them are about to graduate from college—one as a teacher, another as a nurse, and the other as an engineer. These young people now have more opportunities to help develop their community instead of moving away to a city. There are plans to build a recreational campus. They are also sponsoring several young people’s studies at Marcos Witt’s music school, Canción (Song) in Aguascalientes. The plan is to train and equip the next generation to start and run music schools in the communities of Matancillas, La Granja, and La Paz. In terms of healthcare, a project in the works includes bringing doctors to provide community service.
It’s been ten years since Juanita, Blas, and Judith first visited Matancillas. Since then, Ministerio por Fe has grown, and nowadays, they make four trips a year to support the ministries and communities in Matancilla, La Granja, and La Paz. Juanita feels privileged in getting to witness people join their program. She says, “We named our mission Ministerio Por Fe (Ministry by Faith) because we walk by faith, and by faith, we do all things. I see people come who are hurt by life, wounded by their background, and affected by economic hardship. Seeing God transform lives is like medicine for the soul.”
+ Learn more about Ministerio Por Fe at ministerioporfe.com OR ministerioporfe.org.
Chuck Van Engen (MDiv ’73) shares about his lifelong commitment to walking with and forming leaders for the Latin American church.
