Mexico Health Fair
Every year in cooperation with churches in Central Mexico and volunteers from Yakima, we help host an evangelistic health fair in Central Mexico. In January 2020, the teams – 40 volunteers from churches in Atotonilco, San Joaquin, and Tototlán and 9 volunteers from Yakima, WA – helped organize, set up, and facilitate the physical and spiritual health care in four locations: El Maguey, El Venado (new site), San Isidro (new site), and El Tarengo.
El Maguey
For several months, the church has had an outreach in this small community every Monday – so we held the health fair on a Monday. We saw 250 people. Every person – adult or child – attends a presentation of the Gospel in the Spiritual Health class where we explain that knowing their blood sugar or new reading glasses means little if they are not prepared for eternity. The impact of the last few months of evangelism was evident, and we left the event with several homes interested in hosting Bible studies.
El Venado
The small rancho of 285 people seemed an unlikely place for a health fair, however the church in Tototlán has an evangelistic study with a family here. We saw nearly half of the residents of El Venado attend. The impact was high and response was entirely positive to both the effort and the message. The evening preaching saw a plaza fill up with people who came to hear more and the church in Tototlán has several new contacts.
San Isidro
Two women live in this small community about 15 minutes away from the church in Tototlán where they attend services. We saw about 65 people, but very few children. We found out later that the children, who attend school in the morning, were also attending catechism classes in the afternoon. The adults were uncharacteristically attentive in Spiritual Health, sometimes asking questions or commenting. One of the two women from the community was able to be with us most of the day and was very excited about her neighbors hearing the Good News.
El Tarengo
The church in San Joaquin has a Bible study and class for children in El Tarengo where 6 people have been baptized and Bible studies are well attended. During the last day of the health fair, 219 people attended with a very high percentage of men. At the end of each Spiritual Health class, Jesús or Emigdio from San Joaquin invited people to the weekly Bible study, and evening evangelism was well attended. During the day, believers prepared meals for all of the volunteers from the Mexico churches and CrossLink – a labor of love appreciated by all.