Cancun Project is Moving Forward

I am writing this post on the flight back to San Diego from Cancun, Mexico. Gayla and I spent a week here working on our plans for building a campus on 12 acres that has been donated to Amor. Monday, January 14th, we arrived in Cancun and were joined by All Nations Seminary President, John Lee, who flew in from his Seminary in Juarez, Mexico.













Gayla(left), Gilberto(center), John Lee(right)

Gilberto, our Cancun benefactor, met us at the Cancun airport and we proceeded to spend the next two days discussing and working through our vision for a campus set in the heart of the Yucatan jungle, yet just 12 miles from the world renouned, Cancun International Airport. This was a first being that neither Gayla and nor John Lee have had the opportunity to meet Gilberto much less see our Cancun project in person.

We visited the actual campus site after a short one and a half mile bouncy ride through the jungle on the newly cleared path. I say path because it’s the only way I know how to describe the barely cleared dirt, mud, and limestone course we take through the heavily overgrown jungle vegetation surrounding us at all times. Once we finally reached the entrance to the campus we could see a cleared area in the jungle ahead of us with a lone tree still standing in the middle. This tree has a lot of significance to us. Why the workers who bulldozed the 2 acres before us that is designated for the campus parking lot, no one knows. All we know is that every time we have visited this campus the tree draws our attention and from the start has been were we stand and pray for God’s blessing and guidance for this endeavor. We have come to call this our “prayer tree” and seeing it standing proudly in the middle of this jungle clearing seems to remind us that God is continually watching over the campus. We are also mindful that this tree signifies the prayers of all his people who are lifting this campus up to his Glory.



















The Campus Prayer Tree

As our meetings came to a conclusion on Wednesday as John Lee quickly caught a flight to Puebla, Mexico, we all came to the same conclusion that God had exciting plans for this campus. John Lee is going ahead and starting an extension of All Nations Seminary in Cancun. The campus will now take on a broader context of being a place for training and educating many facets of Christians leaders and servants. This may include separate but cooperative entities on the campus such as the Seminary, a short term mission training facility, a team training establishment run by the Center for Courageous Enterprise, and an Appropriate Technology Center.

The seminary is a vital part of this ministry considering how John Lee again expressed how seminaries all over Mexico are struggling to survive with many closed their doors. Fuller Theological Seminary has recognized All Nations Seminary as one of the most successful models of a seminary in Mexico. Gayla and I will be spending nearly a week in February at the All Nations Seminary in Juarez, Mexico to continue working on the plans for our future partnership in the jungles of the Yucatan.