VBC Hosting Pastor Vazquez and His Wife

From March 4th to the 6th, our church's elders and deacons will go down to The Shepherd's Conference at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley (home of The Master's Seminary). What is unique to this year's trip is that we will be hosting Pastor Daniel Vazquez from Dios Con Nosotros, Mexicali with us as we drive down for those three days (Wed-Fri). 

Daniel and his wife Ruth, will be hosted for that week in the Antelope Valley by my parents, Dan and Miriam Jenison. Each evening, Kathy, my wife, will drive Ruth down to meet up with the men at the Conference for dinner and the evening sessions.

For those of you who don't know, Mexican pastors don't have it easy. Not only are there many ministry difficulties with the families from the community, but the teaching ministry has its own challenges. There are no where near as many study resources and materials for the preparation as they teach the Word week in and week out. For instance, the two teaching pastors at Dios Con Nosotros are mainly only familiar with J. Vernon McGee's Commentaries. I don't believe they have all of his commentaries, but this just shows their limited resources that are available to them. McGee is traditional and very sound in his theology, yet there are SO many other commentators and study resources out there today...just not in Mexico.

All that to say, taking Pastor Vazquez with us to The Shepherd's Conference this year will be SUCH a blessing to not only his teaching ministry, but to his own spiritual life, his understanding of the Word and the preaching of the Word, and for this opportunity for extended fellowship with other strong believers. And yes, everything will be translated for him. Mauricio will be with him the whole time and every main session and many of the breakout sessions will be on the spot translated. He is learning 

English quite well.

We will all come away from the Conference with multiple books as a gift to each one who is registered. And there are enormous sales by many publishers of great books.

As Mauricio has always mentioned about the greatest need in Mexico, "They desperately need biblically sound teaching and preaching. There are so many waves of false doctrines that know no limit and their damage knows no limit. False teaching runs rampant in Mexico. The most important thing we can do for the Mexicans is to bring the Truth to them." What a great way for us to meet the needs for DCN!

Please be in prayer for the Shepherd's Conference. Pray especially for Pastor Vazquez and Ruth, that they will be blessed by their experience with us.

By the way, you'll be able to meet him the Sunday after the Conference. Say hi to him if you get the chance! He's in the middle by the way...