10 Years in the Making

LightShine has been working among the Tarahumara for over ten years! What started as a minivan, parked on a street corner, with pots of food and a low budget program for children, has grown into so much more than that! There are all sorts of programs that serve the community:

• Colonia LightShine is our original program for children and teenagers! Currently working in four different Colonias – Tarahumara settlements – and hoping to grow to 5 or 6 during the year 2020. The Colonia LightShine feeds the children twice a week, followed by a Bible study and a social-emotional class. Moms are welcome to get involved in helping prepare the meals, and have a Bible Study after the food is served!

• Bajoní A’ Nawá is an outreach to those who have fallen into drug and substance abuse. Every week, members of LightShine and El Alfarero Church get together to serve and minister to those who have fallen into this trap.

• U Turn for Christ is an international Christ-centered discipleship program dealing with men who are seeking restoration from drug and alcohol addiction through Jesus Christ. The program is based entirely on the Word of God, the Bible, and all counsel originates from it.
• The Joshua Program is the following step to the Colonia LightShine program for children. Teenagers who are committed to Christ, and want to take their faith to the next step are intensively discipled until they graduate High-School, at which point LightShine will pay for their College Education with the commitment of them coming back to serve their community.

• El Alfarero Church is the Tarahumara Church that was born from the Colonia LightShine program. Conformed by a number of smaller home-churches through out the city, led by Pastor Rogelio García, it has become a living, thriving, and growing Church, reaching out to the larger Tarahumara Community.
• Familia LightShine is our ground breaking Christian Foster Care program in northern Mexico: Finding, training, and certifying Christian families to receive the Fatherless, and overseeing the Foster process! Familia LightShine is the first program within the LightShine family that has gone national, currently helping the state of Sonora establish a similar program, and opening office in the state of Durango!

As we look back to the days of packing pots of food in the back of the minivan, and as we look at the ecosystem of programs that LightShine has grown into today; we can only thank the Lord, for it is Him who has brought us this far, and it is Him who will continue to lead us forward.