MEXICO - Open Arms
Here at Open Arms we continue to fight to keep families together. We are caring for 165 children in over 100 families at our two campuses. Because of your support these children are off the streets, out of the hands of sex traffickers and out of orphanages. You truly help us fight to keep families together.
In March when the COVID-19 crisis began, we had to close our doors to all 165 children and 60 staff. Our hearts were broken and we fell on our knees before the Lord asking him how we could fight for families in that time. He opened our eyes to the needs of the family, their needs of simple things like their daily bread. Like everywhere around the world, many people were laid off from their jobs and were unable to put food on their tables throughout the weeks. We made it our mission to make sure our children, our staff, and our communities' needs for food were met. In Australia or the United States people were struggling, but in a 3rd world country like Mexico, people were starving.
This began our weekly food distribution ministry. Weekly our team members that lived on our campuses would put together hundreds of food bags to then hand
out the following day. Not only were we handing out physical food, but spiritual nourishment as well. Each person who came for a bag of food we prayed for as well. We did this from March to June. In the end we gave out over 3,000 bags of food and over 170 people gave their lives to Christ! What satan intended for evil, God used for miraculous good!
Another incredible thing that God did through our shut down for COVID-19 was expand our global reach. Our church team did an incredible job adjusting and coming up with a game plan to still make church happen even though we were unable to do in person services. A week after the shut down we began our facebook live services. By the grace of God, our church community was able to stay plugged in and connected even though we weren’t physically together. Then as the months went on we began to realise that our numbers were growing and we were no longer only serving
our own community but people from all over Mexico, Central America, South America, & Cuba were also tuning in! This was incredible to us. We didn’t do any extra promotions or marketing to get our church reach to grow. This was God. The word of God can never be hindered, even by a global pandemic!
2020 was a hard year for everyone, but for missions we took a huge hit not being able to receive any mission teams. But we serve such an amazing God. He always provides, and we are so grateful. Because of your support we were still able to fight for families, it just looked different than previous years. Now, our doors
of our child care centres are back open, as well as our church. Thank you for your partnership, it is through partnerships like this, that Jesus' last command can still go forth, even during a world pandemic.
Daniel & Heidi Elizarraraz
