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“Do You Truly Love Me More Than These?”(John21:15)

We praise Jesus who took away our sins and death and granted us new life and hope. We thank God for blessing our Easter Conference abundantly. It was held from April 5th to 8th at Teotihuacan Retreat Center, which is surrounded by a beautiful lake.   236 people attended ( 24 from Acatlan UBF, 10 from Cuautitlan, 34 from Iztacala, 8 from Morelia, 4 from Santo Thomas and 3 from Queretaro). 14 children had their own conference at the same conference site. In total, 250 attended the conference. The theme of the conference was ‘’Love Is…’’

A message on Genesis chapter 1 by M. Daniel Baik (Cuautitlan UBF) and another on Genesis chapter 3 by Shep. Alejandro L. laid the foundation for the faith in God’s creation and the primitive gospel. Life testimonies by Ana Caren (Queretaro), Jorge (Iztacala), Erika (Iztacala) and David (C.U), Rosalba (CU) opened the hearts of our Bible students in the evening.

On the second day, Shep. Alejandro H. (Luke 15, 16), Shep. Fabian (John4) and Shep. Ricardo (Luke 15b) delivered heart-moving messages. Especially, the message on John chapter 4 gave an amazing testimony on how our Lord Jesus restored the life of one miserable soul through loving conversations. Lucio, Jazmin, Melina and Adriana presented their symposiums on “Mere Christianity” (written by C.S. Lewis) M. Maria Park guided them in their preparations. During the intermission, we could also enjoy watching beautiful Mexican dance performance by our prayer mothers, the mothers of our growing leaders.

On the third day, Shep.Fermin (Mark 15), Shep. David L. from Iztacala (John21), and Shep. Enrique from Acatlan (Mark 13) delivered very powerful messages. The message on John 21 demonstrated the love of the risen Lord Jesus, who takes care of all the mess we make and restores us to be shepherds of his flock. We also listened to the Bible testimonies by 8 new attendants. They confessed their wounds caused by poverty, lust, drug and broken families; they praised Jesus who healed them as they approached his cross just as they were.

In that evening, we had a beautiful and exciting festival. Our orchestra team performed beautiful music pieces and Shep. Monica from Morelia also let us taste a short yet heart-moving opera. Each chapter ( C.U, Iztacala and Acatlan) performed beautiful Mexican dances. M. Maria Park served a skit based on John 21. It described the love of Jesus working in our daily life so vividly and moved our hearts. Even though M. Maria was busy working at a Korean consulate full-time, she rendered glory to God by fully utilizing her talents in writing as she served trio drama, symposiums and skit wholeheartedly. We finished the festival with a campfire.

On the last day, Shep. Serafin from Morelia (Romans 1:17) and Shep. Carlos (Romans 1:21) presented the conclusion of our conference through their messages; how the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel of the cross and how passionately we must spread this gospel. We prayed that we could live up to this high calling.
Songs of praises and special songs served effectively, leading us to open our hearts and preparing us to receive the word of God throughout the conference.

This conference was directed by M. David Hong. He and Mexican shepherds gathered every week in order to pray together and make programs appealing to Mexican Bible students. We could see that God had blessed their labor through this beautiful graceful conference.

We thank you for all your prayers.  

Report by Sarah Hwang