For over ten years something has been cooking, and this Sunday we are going to get a taste.
Mario Benavides and Mark Buckley met 10 years ago in Ecuador. At the time, Mark Buckley was the senior pastor at Living Streams Church and Mario was an elder at Iglesia Verbo Manosca church. They both describe their meeting as a significant moment in the Spirit. (For Christians, “in the Spirit” is a phrase referencing the fact that God is Spirit and the physical world He made has a spiritual component to it. As Christians, we are taught to acknowledge and give priority to the spiritual components.) All they did was meet and pray, but both Mario and Mark felt something of spiritual significant had taken place.
As the relationship between our churches grew, Mario shared with Mark about the vision God had given to him and his wife to plant a church in the U.S.A. Mark was excited to hear it. He was excited because he had seen Mario in action and knew his capabilities and his capacity. He was excited because Mario’s wife shared the vision, and the pair would need to be united for it to come to pass. Mark was also excited because he loves church planting and had always wanted to see Living Streams plant a church for Spanish speakers in Phoenix. Mark shared all this with me (David) and I began to pray and process.
In the same span of time, Living Streams has been growing in relationship with two churches in Ecuador, Mario’s church in Quito, Ecuador and an Arco church in Cuenca. A number of Living Streams people have been down to serve in those churches and Pastor Kurt is continuing to foster deep partnership in ministry with them as well. We currently have two of our long term missionaries planted in the church in Cuenca for the next two years and others planning to visit Cuenca during that time.
Planting a church in the U.S.A. is a massive undertaking for Mario, his wife, and two sons. Mario is a businessman and has all his business dealings in Ecuador. And though his kids speak perfect English, he is still working on his, and his wife Sylvana speaks very little. There is also the problem of immigration. But where God guides, He provides. Sylvana is confident God is guiding her family to plant a church with Living Streams in Phoenix, Arizona.
One night, my wife and I were staying with Mario’s family in Ecuador. We were sitting in their living room at the end of a good day, watching the sky turn from blue to gray to black over the lush mountains that reached high into the sky around Quito. My wife was chatting with Mario’s boys about Led Zeppelin and fast food restaurants. Mario and I were listening and laughing. The whole time we had been there, Sylvana was a bit quiet and seemed even more reserved because she doesn’t speak much English. Now, she boldly motioned for all of us to pay attention to her.
Sylvana told her oldest son to translate for her. She told us that she and Mario had felt a call to plant a church in the U.S.A for a long time, and that there had been many opportunities for them to go. Yet, for some reason, moving to Phoenix and partnering with Living Streams was the first opportunity she felt the Spirit in. The sense she was describing sounded a lot like the sense Mark and Mario described in their prayer meeting all those years earlier.
Living Streams has always wanted to creatively expand God’s kingdom and we think planting churches is a great way to do it. We have seen our church grow to 1000 adults on a Sunday morning. We have been praying about what Jesus wants to do next. Around 2019 we started to talk about the next 1000 people Jesus would to bring in. For whatever reason, we started praying that the next 1000 would be mostly Spanish speakers and from South Phoenix. We even prayed some of those next 1000 would be homeless. When we heard about Mario and Sylvana’s hope and vision for planting a church in Phoenix with Living Streams, we were very interested. The more we have met with Mario and Sylvana, the more we sense the Spirit bringing something significant to pass.
Getting Mario a religious worker’s visa was the biggest challenge to the realization of this church planting vision. I’m happy to announce—thanks to the diligence of Arthur Le and Tammy Valdez—Mario received his R-9 visa last month. We are overjoyed to announce that he and his family will be here in August and will start a Spanish-speaking version of Living Streams sometime in September. We are also excited because Mario will be preaching at our church services this Sunday and we’ll get a taste of what’s to come. Hallelujah and Let’s Go Jesus!!!!!!!!
Dios le bendiga,
David