Mexico (MNN)–It’s four o’clock on Wednesday afternoon–time for English class.
Independent missionaries Jesse and Jenny Navarro are busy driving through the isolated villages, picking up their students. Many of them come from an alternative junior high school, but there’s another group that just desperately wants to learn English.
Before long, there are twenty-seven kids gathered in the living room. They’re dusty, hot and thirsty. Today is the Mexican observance of Mothers’ Day, a national holiday in the country. Many stores are closed and hotels are full to overflowing with those coming home to visit Mom. That’s what makes this group’s dedication even more interesting. They’re meeting despite cancelled classes in school and the celebrations taking place all over the country.
Daughter Jessica Navarro sometimes teaches this class. She gave her opinion as to why they value the classes so much. “There’s so much poverty, so much tradition involved, that they’re stuck.”
Learning English can be a way out of the mountains, into a good-paying job and out of the poverty plaguing so many of the families in Guaymas.
Jessica explains that what their family is doing is so much more than a way of escaping the poverty of the person. The ministry is a way of gaining spiritual wealth. It’s more than the ABC’s of literacy.
The stories they use have a message. “Christian Resources,” she goes on to say, “has given us the material to help the kids see their letters, help them to read, sometimes we have worksheets from the books that they provide, to give to them.” It’s a simple approach to literacy. Jessica says, “We way the name out loud in English, they say it in Spanish, and they get to know it better.”
It’s a partnership with CRI, in a co-mission of at least a decade. The team this week brought clothes, food, toiletries and printed resources to aid the Navarros in their heart for these people.
Because they’re a distribution center, they’re constantly in need of food, clothing and evangelical Spanish literature donations.
However, that means they need help. Jessica says the sorting, inventory and distribution of the clothing that comes their way is a full-time job in and of itself. That, along with food needs, literacy training, prayer, compassion helps, an orphanage and a medical clinic, is why she came home to help her parents in the calling of their hearts.
The echo of their work can be felt for miles from their homestead, an imprint, in the shape of love.
