Back in 1985, when I was the pastor of the Eagles Nest Church in Stocksbridge near Sheffield, a young lady named Joanne Bates came to faith in Christ at Billy Graham’s “Mission Sheffield” crusade.

Joanne started attending the church and a couple of years later, while watching a television documentary of a major earthquake in Mexico, felt an overwhelming compassion for the people there and was overtaken by a strong desire to help in some way.

Just a little later I was visiting the United States, and during the trip, I got to spend time in Texas. I was staying at the home of a family who had strong links to Mexico and when I talked to them about the young lady in my church who longed to go there, husband and wife Cliff and Marcia Cavett became very excited.

For some time they had been financially supporting a bible school in Mexico, started by another Texan, Joe Fauss along with his wife Charlotte. The ministry was called “Calvary Commission” and for a number of years they had been training young people from both sides of the border to do missionary work in Mexico.

Upon learning more about Joanne, they offered to pay her way to come over to the States and if they were convinced that she had a genuine call from God would then pay for her to attend school in Mexico and go on to serve the Lord in that country. That happened and so our young English Christian flew from the U.K in late 1986,. to attend bible school at Reynosa Mexico.

About six months later, I got a letter from Joanne telling me that she had become friendly with two young men from Guadalajara Mexico. Brothers Victor and Luis Walle were also attending the bible school. She had told them about our church in Yorkshire and as a result, they expressed a desire to use the money that they had managed to save, to come over to the U.K. and spend some time with us.

I was more than happy to afford them the opportunity and early in 1987 they both arrived, freezing cold and not knowing very much English.

They ended up staying far longer than they originally intended. Victor for a year and Luis for two. By the time both of them left, they were fluent in English and returned to Mexico with a deep desire to serve the Lord in their native country.

Victor and Luis joined their older brother Arturo, who had just started a church in Guadalajara. The church in Stocksbridge, started to support that church work there financially and I continued to be their pastor albeit from a distance.

In 1988 I made my first trip to Mexico and took a team of helpers from our church in England. This was followed by more visits in 1989 and 1990.

One of the team members in 1990 was a fourteen year old young man, called William Cooke who was accompanying his parents Mike and Christine and his younger brother Matthew. They were all members or the church in Yorkshire and this was their first trip to Mexico.

While we were driving down there from the Texas, we stopped at an orphanage run by a Christian organization and spent a night there. As we got into the van the following morning to continue our trip, I noticed that William was sitting in the back and quietly sobbing. I, unfortunately misinterpreted what was happening and was a little impatient with him, thinking that he was missing home and “Whimping out”. That was not the case and to my shame the young man was not thinking of himself at all. He was touched by the need of those precious orphans and there and then felt strongly that in the future the Lord would lead him back to Mexico to become involved in caring for children just like them.

When I started my Pastorate at Clover Pass Community Church Ketchikan Alaska in 1991, the Cooke family came from England to work alongside me. I introduced the Alaskan church to the work that was going on in Guadalajara and was blessed when they adopted the church there and agreed to financially support it.

In 1995 William Cooke graduated High School and with that burden for Mexico still very strong, chose to go to train for missions work at “Calvary Commission”, the same organization that Joanne Bates attended back in 1986 and where under the Lord’s direction got the whole Mexico connection started.

In 1997 William married his high school sweetheart Katie and at the turn of the century, they left their home in Ketchikan Alaska and headed for San Marcos Mexico to start Peniel church with the view to one day starting an orphanage also.

Today in that little village of San Marcos, about one hours drive from Guadalajara, there is a church of about fifty people and the orphanage building is almost completed. The permission to run an orphanage has been granted by the Mexican government and with the help of another family from the United States, William and Katie will see it opening in the not too distant future.

In the eight or so years that William and Katie have been in Mexico, their family has grown to five with the addition of son David, and daughters Emily and Lane all born in Mexico and fluent in Spanish as of course are their parents. The whole story is a testimony to the Lord’s faithfulness and a reminder to all who have been involved with the work from the beginning that

“The day of small things” should never be despised.

Every month I will be posting the Newsletter from San Marcos and hopefully as a result, some who read it may also feel the call to help with the great work that is going on there. Some may be able to go down on a short term missions assignment. Some may be able to help through financial support. Some may be able to do both.

If anyone would like to send financial help for the church or orphanage, or find out more about how you can be involved in helping, please contact.... Clover Pass community church, 105, North Point Higgins Road, Ketchikan Alaska. 99901 Phone (907) 247 2360

God bless you.