UIM Aviation in Tepic, Mexico

UIM Aviation can meet a need to provide air support for UIM Mexico, the Mexican church, and displaced Huichol Indians in and around the city of Tepic in Nayarit, Mexico.

UIM Mexico is increasingly involved in a ministry with a Mexican pastor to Huichol Indians in the Tepic area. Together they are implementing several community development projects in various villages, one of which is a refugee settlement where Huichol Christians have fled from persecution for their faith in their home villages. Due to the poverty in which so many of the people live, the community development projects thus far have included gardening, composting, and basic hygiene seminars.

Unhindered by the poverty in which they live, many of the Huichol Indians have demonstrated a desire to know more about Christ. They have been faithfully attending and completing a theological training course administered by missionaries. They are eager to learn about God’s word and are dedicated to maturing as God’s children. They have a great desire to return to their home villages and share their new-found lives with

family and friends. Currently, most have to travel about 20 hours by ground. Many of these trips can be reduced to 20 minutes by air. If UIM Aviation partners with UIM Mexico, the local church, and the Huichol Indians, flights would allow the people to make more frequent visits to villages, spend a larger part of the day in the village, and ultimately aid in reaching more of the Huichol people for Christ.

On a recent survey trip, UIM Aviation staff met with UIM Mexico, the Mexican pastor, and several Huichol leaders. We presented our ideas to them and were received openly and favorably. Most of the surrounding airstrips we would use are registered airstrips, meaning they are officially recognized by the government. The suspicious activity in Mexico is assumed to take place on unregistered strips, which was the primary reason our flight operations in Durango had to be closed. Furthermore, Tepic is centrally located between the states of Durango and Jalisco, both of which have ongoing and developing ministries that could benefit from air support.

In order to immediately begin serving the Huichol people, we would schedule a monthly flight from our base in Chihuahua, Mexico. The trip would last about one week and cost roughly $1200. As we move toward a base in Tepic, we will plan to station two UIM families and one airplane there. All of this needs considerable prayer and we place our trust in the Lord to guide us through the decision-making process as well as provide funding.

- Pray with us as we seek to expand in Tepic, Mexico.
- Pray for UIM Mexico and the pastors who are working in this area already.
- Pray for the growth, protection, and safety of the Huichol believers.

UIM Aviation supports the ministry of Mexican missionaries

BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET

Rounding the last cliff in the heart of a narrow Mexican valley on July 17, only two or three hundred feet off the ground, Wolfgang Grotendiek set the flaps and prepared to land. The airstrip, looking alarmingly narrow and short, came up at a rush, and the wheels crunched the ground with a jerk. Trees and shrubbery flew by, and just when it looked like the runway was running out, he crested a hill and rolled easily down the rest of the airstrip.

Stepping out of the aircraft at Palmarito is like going back in time. The mountains feel vast—and very, very quiet. Even a donkey’s bray, rooster’s crow or dog’s bark hardly penetrates the silence.

People quickly appeared on the airstrip to greet the missionaries. They greeted their host with the customary abrazo and followed him down the narrow path to the simple white-washed house where they had arranged for the evening’s meeting.

As they did so, Wolfgang took off to pick up a second group of Mexican missionaries and take them to Saucillo, where they would spend the week visiting and teaching in several surrounding communities. The same day a third group, led by Pastor Alfredo Marin from a Baptist Church near the Gulf of California, drove up to Mesa Colorado to minister to a group of 15. He baptized four new believers that week.

Who are these men and women who go from village to village preaching the Gospel every month? Years ago, Alfredo Marin was a Bible School student in Guaymas on the Gulf, and Ron Hamilton, an American from Arizona, was their teacher. Hamilton wanted his students to get practical missionary experience, so he began to fund flights to get them into the mountain villages where they could share God’s Word with love and power to people who had no clue of it.

Since that time, about a dozen men and women from various coastal churches have joined the monthly trek. At an age when most men are thinking of slowing down, Job Sierra, for instance, is still trucking six hours from his home up to the mountains every month.  He then flies out to Guarijio villages in the UIM airplanes, visits the villagers, preaches and teaches all week, then reverses the journey for the trip home.

In 25 years these Mexican missionaries have seen about 40 people a year come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, a considerable cadre of believers by now. But the cadre of believers is not intact. A great many have left their villages—including the best Church leadership potential—because they could not make a living and did not want to be involved in the illegal activities by which others prosper. Hamilton says the path to starting churches in these villages has been “difficult, difficult, difficult.” So, little bands of poor believers are left without leaders and that’s what keeps these committed Mexican missionaries going out. They will not leave the people God has given them as orphans.