On February 2-3, we were blessed to have Matt and Starr Arnold share with our secondary students during Missions Emphasis Week. Matt and Starr have served with Ethnos 360 as tribal missionaries in Mexico since 1992. Matt shared how he came to Christ in Southern California as a 15-year-old, which resulted in an amazing transformation. Within a few years, he went from a life of drinking and drugs to a Bible school to become a tribal missionary. Starr grew up as a missionary kid whose parents served with New Tribes Mission in Bolivia and Mexico. She accepted Christ as her Savior while still a small child and committed her life to missionary work as a teenager.
Matt used Colossians 1:13 to show the students how "[God] has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." He explained how we were His enemy but have become His children through the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross for those who put their trust in Him. But not only are we His children, but we have become His friends - He tells us what He is doing and why just as a friend does. And then, finally, we became His servants - a part of what He is doing to fulfill the Great Commission.
Together, the Arnolds responded to the Great Commission by going to Mexico in 1998 to serve among the Tepehuan people in the mountains of north-central Mexico. For the Tepehuan, alcohol abuse, which often leads to physical abuse, coupled with their animistic belief system, had enslaved them for centuries. The Tepehuan language, which is extremely difficult, took the Arnolds 7 years to learn. Still, God used the testimony of their lives to help prepare the Tepehuan for the gospel so that when Matt could finally begin teaching, many were ready to respond. The work among the Tepehuan has been difficult, but the Lord has blessed these efforts with a New Testament in their language and a growing church.