Sureste Presbyterian Theological Seminary - April 2021 Update
Tabasco, Mexico
Dear friends,
My name is Francelia. I am married to Christopher McReynolds. We live in Del Rio, Texas located five minutes from the border city of Cd. Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico. I was born in Mexico City in 1977 but moved to Villahermosa, Tabasco in 1985. There, at age 21 while I was still in college, the Lord saved me at an evangelistic campaign on March 28, 1998. I then started my walk in the Presbyterian Church.
My husband and I have volunteered with Chrysalis International as directors of the AMO Program® in Mexico since 2014. We call the ministry AMO Mexico and it continues to grow steadily. Sent through The Antioch Partners, our ministry reaches parents and churches throughout Mexico.
AMO is an acronym in Spanish for Feed My Lambs or Apacienta Mis Ovejas. The program is both a Christian worldview training for adults and an enriched, principle-based curriculum for children and youth, developed in 2002 by Chrysalis International. It was designed as a holistic afterschool program for the Church to bring fresh hope to the many at-risk children around the world.
Dozens of Presbyterian churches across Mexico and two Presbyterian seminaries are involved. We have helped recruit and mentor twenty-eight highly qualified regional trainers, all volunteers who see God’s transformation of hearts and minds raising the standards of education and discipleship that impact all of society. Hundreds of families across the country are experiencing God’s vision for life. Our role is to train parents, Christian education teachers, pastors, missionaries, school teachers, and anyone who would love to teach children and young adults.
I am amazed by God’s grace, thankful for where I am, and thankful for The Outreach Foundation for playing such an important part in the story – God’s story. Here is how I was called to do what I am doing today, thanks to sponsors like The Outreach Foundation.
After the Lord saved me, he called me at age 24 to be a missionary through the Bible verse, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:14). My pastor at the time told me that before becoming a full-time missionary I should go to seminary. God then led me to Seminario Presbiteriano del Sureste (Outreach partner Sureste Presbyterian Theological Seminary) to study theology.
I studied at Sureste for two years when Rev. Huascar de la Cruz, the director at the time, told me of a possible opportunity to study for a master’s degree in Arts and Religion at a seminary in the United States. We started the process, and I was accepted with a full scholarship to Westminster Theological Seminary at Glenside, Pennsylvania, in 2006.
The Outreach Foundation helped me with part of my living expenses during those years in addition to my presbytery and church support. After finishing my degree in 2009 I went back, as planned, to Tabasco to become a full-time professor at Sureste. However, the Lord had a broader plan, because, after just six months of teaching there, He called me to work at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Mexico (INPM) as the executive secretary of Christian Education and professor at the Theological Seminary in Mexico City.
Leaving my family, moving back to Mexico City, and leaving Sureste were not easy decisions to make. However, it became clear to me that I should go when it was explained that no reformed educational materials were being produced for children by the Presbyterian Church in Mexico. This was my calling. I became the main curriculum writer for INPM while recruiting and directing additional writers from our churches across the country. In addition to the children’s curriculums, we produced materials for youth and adults.
Various churches and seminaries began inviting me to teach about the importance of biblical Christian education for our children and youth, which was a weakness in many of our churches. I was also a guest professor in some of our other Presbyterian seminaries like R. Kempers in Chiapas and extension campuses of the Seminary of Mexico in Oaxaca, Tabasco, and Michoacán. Currently, we partner with several theological Presbyterian seminaries including San Pablo in Mérida, Sureste in Tabasco, Lucas in Chiapas, and Lord willing the seminary in Mexicali, Baja California Norte, to train their seminary students to use AMO in their settings.
The INPM Minister of Education and I were also in charge of developing plans or projects where American missionaries were involved to serve the Presbyterian Church in Mexico. In 2010 this, providentially, led me to meet my husband when he came to the central offices to introduce the AMO Program as a tool to educate children biblically and holistically. I never thought, at the time, that missionary would become my husband.
While serving the last two years of my term at INPM, my husband and I began seeking the Lord’s guidance for what should follow. The answer was AMO. I became the first Mexican AMO trainer in 2013. After finishing my term with the General Assembly in 2014, I became a full-time missionary along with my husband to extend the AMO program all over Mexico. We now have twenty-eight AMO trainers in over eighteen states in Mexico to provide holistic education for the family, the church, and the schools for healing, restoration of families, and transformation of society.
I am so thankful that I am finally able to show my gratitude to The Outreach Foundation for sponsorship during my time as a seminary student at Westminster and give glory to Our Heavenly, Faithful Father for His calling in my life and the life of my husband to serve in Mexico and now also at the border.
May the Lord continue to use all to do His will for His Kingdom here on earth.
In Christ,
Francelia McReynolds
Read more about Sureste Presbyterian Theological Seminary HERE.
THE NEED
The Outreach Foundation is seeking gifts totaling $25,000 for scholarships and operating costs for Sureste Presbyterian Theological Seminary. You may make a gift HERE or by sending a check to our office.