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“What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ”(Philippians 3:8)

I thank God for blessing this summer Bible conference. The conference was held in a retreat center located closely to a beautiful lake, near Pyramids from July 21 through 24. The title of this conference was “That I May Gain Christ” and 164 people attended altogether (11 from Acatlan, 1 from Santo Tomas, 4 from Queretaro, 7 from Cuautitlan, 7 from Morelia, 2 from Saltillo, 2 from Irapuato, and 131 from C.U. Since this conference would be held only 3 months after the Easter conference, we prepared this conference, targeting growing disciples unlike past years. Most attendants from other pioneering chapters were also growing disciples or leaders of their ministries. So each passage was picked with them in mind. The following are the names of the messengers.

Throughout July, it was rainy with storms in Mexico City. So we earnestly prayed that it might stop raining and God might grant beautiful weather during the conference. God worked precisely according to our prayers. Even though it usually rains more heavily in the conference area, God blew away the clouds to other places and blessed us with beautiful weather. Every time I looked up the clear blue sky and the bright Sun and saw the surface of the lake shining like silver at the conference, I gave thanks to the creator God, clapping with joy like a little child.

S.Gerardo (Samuel17), S. Candidate Alejandro(Matthew 7:13,14), S. Juliana from Cuautitlan(Romans6), S.Ivan(John21), S.Fermin(Psalm1:1-6), S.Fabian(Luke7:11-17), M. Andres Park, S. Jaime, M. Isaias Roh from Santo Tomas(1Cor15), S. Enrique from Acatlan(Rom10), S. Miguel(Philippians3)

Each passage was not easy to prepare because they didn’t have action but words, but God’s word worked powerfully as he raised up each messenger in accordance with their faith.

Especially as S. Fabian delivered his message titled “Young Man, Get Up!” with the deep compassion on young intellectuals, I felt like the Spirit of God kindled the passion in the heart of each attendant. The problem of this era is that many young men and women are living like the dead with their potentials unlocked and without any hope and vision. But Jesus raised up a young man confined in the coffin of death and by doing so he showed the possibility to solve the problem of death and of this generation. He testified powerfully that Jesus raised him up through his powerful word from the coffin of lust, drug and momentary pleasure and enabled him to live as a shepherd to serve those with similar problems.

Shep. Juliana is a precious pioneering coworker in Cuautitlan UBF. She testified the grace of God who enables us to die to sin through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and to offer ourselves to him as his faithful servants. She has finished her medical studies and is preparing for her residency. She confessed that she failed in her studies when she lived as a slave to sin, but God gave her victory academically and helped her to pass the medical licensing exam when she lived as the servant of God. She has been living in the Bible house with sister Marisol, co-working with M. Daniel and Sarah Baik.

As a new program, 12 growing disciples prepared symposiums on “Great Men of Faith” and “Pilgrim’s Progress”. God used M. Esther Hong and M. Maria Park for this very preciously. The symposiums on Pilgrim’s Progress vividly described the necessity for us to struggle to the point of shedding blood until we, men of faith enter the kingdom of heaven. We also learned that we can enter the kingdom of God-the kingdom of victory and glory-only through absolute attitude toward the word of God, faith and sacrifice. Each disciple’s personal testimony was also full of grace. Just like soldiers risking their own life in the battle field, they were struggling against their own sins and the sins of their Bible students, while overcoming persecutions and temptations from school, work, and family. For example, S. Jazmin is very beautiful like a princess and works as an assistant at the professor’s office at chemistry department in UNAM. She has to travel a lot with other faculties for research experiments. Every time they planned a trip including Sundays, she refused to join them to attend Sunday worship service. Because of this, she had to take much disadvantage. However, they came to see her faithfulness and stopped planning a trip including Sundays, respecting her devotion to God. Moreover, they entrusted her with the finance of the lab. She has been serving many Bible students faithfully.

One thing I’m specially thankful to God for is that even new comers received much grace and wrote sincere testimonies even though this conference was mainly for growing disciples. Among them, sister Ana Caren from Queretaro and sister Marisol from Cuautitlan shared their testimonies with the whole congregation. It was much grace to see these young women growing as mothers of faith in their pioneering ministries.

In the festival at the third night, we rendered glory to God through beautiful orchestra performance, Mexican dance, hip-hop dance by the 2^nd gents and skits. These were prepared by M. Pablo. As he did for last Easter conference, he served this conference wholeheartedly with many creative ideas.

Through the closing message by S. Miguel, we could make firm decisions to consider everything rubbish in order to gain Christ no matter how challenging this generation was getting, by holding on to the word of God and continually serving campus discipleship ministry in Mexico, Latin America and the whole world. We also earnestly prayed for the summer Bible conference in Costa Rica and the Bible school in Peru, which will be held from July 27^th.

Thank you so much for your prayer

Mexico,
Sarah Hwang