Valley View Church Goes to Mexico For Vacation Bible School

Spring and summer mean mission trips. Last July 2006, the Valley View Church in East Wenatchee sent nine church members to Mezcolitos, a tiny village north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to put on a Vacation Bible School. An Adventist church has been started there, but attracting members has been slow.

The group spent the first week planning, setting up and getting ready. They had mailed wonderful drawings ahead of time and took many art supplies, crafts and lesson books about creation—our topic for the VBS—that had been translated into Spanish for the children. The group had learned five songs in Spanish, which was amazing considering that only one person going on the trip was Hispanic, and only one other person spoke a tiny bit of Spanish.

The second week, on a Sunday, we began Vacation Bible School. We were so surprised when more than 70 children from ages 4 to 17 came to register. The village of Mezcolitos is very small with only dirt roads and mostly shacks where the people live. Our church building was only 20 feet by 50 feet; the weather was astonishingly hot and humid, but the children came.

After a week with the kids and parents, 30 people asked for baptism. More than 100 children attended VBS, and more than 90 came every day. The parents and children were astounded that we would come and spend two weeks with them and put on this remarkable, fun time. God was certainly with us, and the gleaning of souls is evident. At this time, that little church has more than three classes of Sabbath School each Sabbath when before there were fewer people attending church than our little group of nine missionaries.

We have recently learned that the Catholic church there feels threatened by so many children attending the Adventist Sabbath School and church on Saturday that they have starting having their catechism classes on Saturday morning so that many of the children cannot attend the Mezcolitos Church.