Iglesia Hermosa and Faro de Esperanza

Iglesia Hermosa in Rosamorada is led by Pastor Amado and his wife Lourdes. They have been part of Cofradia United for 11 years and also lead the Restoration House for Drug Addicts called, Faro de Esperanza (Lighthouse of Hope).

 

They currently have one resident named Leonel. He is 15 years old and just recently became influenced by his friends to start doing drugs. Leonel is from Cofradia and has participated in the youth group and we have a good relationship with him. His mother abandoned him a number of years ago and has been living by himself since.

 

This is a one-year program and he has been there for three weeks now. He is doing really well as he is learning scripture, studying what it means to be free in Christ, and Pastor Amado has him helping in the mechanic shop as well.

 

Please pray for Leonel. He is joined by two others who are studying along with him, but live at home. The Restoration House's finances depend on the family of the person who is a resident, but many times they are not able to meet the requirements. We have a supplemental program that pays for their inscription $400 US Dollars as well as 50% scholarships towards their monthly tuition of $200.

 

Please consider partnering with our supplemental program at the Restoration House to secure Leonel's one year stay. The total amount needed for a resident for one year is $2,800. Thank you for your sponsorship today.

 

Learning Mechanics

 

 

Sharing the opening Scripture at Church.

Here is a video Pastor Amado made sharing his vision for the future...

 

 

Gateway Fellowship Students STM

Gateway Fellowship Student Ministry from Poulsbo, Washington, made there way to Cofradía for a week in April. They had three focuses: 1) Global Eyeglass Ministry, 2) Vacation Bible School, and 3) Painting some rooms at the Cofradia church, the base, and Restoration Center in Rosamorada.

GLOBAL EYEGLASS MINISTRY (GEM)

If you've not heard of this ministry, check it out. The team spent 5 days of doing 4 hour eye clinics to help people who needed glasses. While this is a big need in remote places like ours, it also brought about some excellent opportunities for close personal contact to pray with 160 people (including a few of our staff) who were seen during that time. There were some people I knew, but have not had opportunity to minister to them. Others I did not know and it was great to be able to have that contact. We had Sunday service the day after they finished and for the first time in long time we had to pull out extra chairs! So many newcomers got to hear the gospel that day!

Vacation Bible School (VBS)

The team also did a three-day VBS with the children. Something that we have been wanting to do for a long time. Not as many children came out as we expected, but it was great to be able to have the children for those three days.

Work Project: Painting

We had some work to do at the base and at the church. The team split up into two groups and took turns between the GEM clinic and work project. We appreciated their help and it was the first time we were able to head out to Pastor Amado's Restoration Clinic with a team to help him. He was really excited and grateful for the help!

Thank you to the Gateway Team! You did an excellent job and it was a blessing to have you!!

Restoration House in Rosamorada

This is a report from late-summer of 2023 about Pastor Amado and the work he and his team are doing in Rosamorada, Nayarit. 

His church's name is La Iglesia Hermosa Casa de Oración (Beautiful Church House of Prayer) and they have activities Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and main service on Sunday. 

His Restoration House is called Lighthouse of Hope. This is a drug rehabilitation center that focuses on restoring the individual along with their family for a whole year. He expresses a need here for room and board scholarships for the young people who want to get off drugs. Most of the time, the family is unable to help and pay for this. It only costs about $200 us dollars a month for them to stay. It is a one year program, but because of the nature of a voluntary stay, most do not make it past 6 months. Join with us to help save someone's life out of the darkness of drugs. If you feel led, please indicate your contribution for "Cofradia United: Restoration House" and follow the instructions here.

MISSIONS OPPORTUNITIES

COFRADIA UNITED, USA

SHORT-TERM MISSIONS (Contact us)

• Bless a family by changing their life and build them a home
• Bless a whole congregation by helping them build their meeting place
• Bless a community through Evangelistic Outreaches, Kid's Clubs, or a specifically focused ministry.

INTERNSHIPS (Under development) 

LONG-TERM MISSIONS (See "On the field need" below)

FINANCIAL PARTNERSHIP (See more details here or give now)

MISSIONS OPPORTUNITIES

COFRADIA UNITED MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL

We have needs for our US base non-profit as well as on the field in Nayarit, Mexico.

US based non-profit needs:

Bookkeeper/Treasurer This is an urgent need as we are inheriting an already functioning non-profit. Our friends at Family Renewal Ministries who have been overseeing our Pastors and Projects Ministry Funds are handing us their non-profit, but we need someone stateside to do our books. If you're interested, please do not hesitate on contacting Steve for more information.

On the field needs in Nayarit, Mexico:

Here is a list of different ministry opportunities we have in COFRADIA UNITED. Some "positions" can be overlapped, but these are the ones that are most needed and are in no particular order.

Our heart is to Raise Up Leaders in Rural Mexico. That means that we, as missionaries, are discipling believers to be followers of Christ and willing to lead and take ownership of the ministry.

VISION: 

The unified body of Christ working together (Romans 15:5-7) “…be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus…with one mind and one mouth glorify God…receive one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.”

MISSION: 

Raising up Leaders in Rural Mexico (2 Timothy 2:2) “And the things you have heard (me teach) among many witnesses, the same commit to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”

All "positions" require:

-A genuine love for God and people

-A consistent, growing relationship with the Heavenly Father

-Grasping the vision and mission of the ministry

-Working under the supervision of the Mission Base Director

-Using and continually developing leadership skills

-Financially supported through a donor support team for personal fundraising (no paid positions)

-Consistent communication (monthly) with that donor support team

Please contact Steve here for more information.

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Mission Base Director Assistant

-Shadow the Mission Base Director

-Be willing to offer general counseling, teaching, conference speaking, and mentoring.

-Be available to local Lead Pastors, who form part of this ministry, for pastoral care and mentorship 

-Over-all Ministry Oversight and Supervision in Director’s Absence

-Spanish Speaking Required

Property Manager

-Live on Mission Base

-Keep grounds clean and looking good

-Keep buildings clean and looking good

-Oversee vehicle maintenance and usage

-Oversee/Fulfill maintenance responsibilities (water, gas, electricity, etc.)

-Oversee properties in other locations alongside locals

-Teach/train others to do what you do on the mission base

-Spanish Speaking Highly Recommended

Short-Term Missions Host

-Ability to communicate well with and in front of people

-Recruit and prepare stateside teams for a 7 or 10 day mission trip

-Work along side the Short-Term Mission Coordinator for stateside preparations

-Come along side the vision of the local church on the field

-Be responsible for hosting and leading short-term missions teams on the field

-Make hotel/travel arrangements on the field for the teams

-Spanish Speaking Required

-Stipend Available

Projects Manager

-Ability to work along side locals teaching them skills and learning from theirs

-Ability to prepare accurate project budgets

-Ability to communicate project proposals with current and potential partners

-Ability to coordinate and fulfill the steps to complete a construction project

-Facilitate and delegate responsibilities among locals and guests

-Be responsible with Mission Base tools

-Construction skills necessary

-Spanish Speaking Required

Sound Technician

-Oversee the local Church’s sound system’s maintenance and usage

-Teach others to run sound and maintain system

-Coordinate the use of the sound system for outreaches

-Spanish Speaking Required

Videographer

-Oversee the local Church’s Livestream services

-Oversee the local Church’s in-house projections

-Make video productions for promotional use and reports

-Teach others to make videos

-Fundraising skills highly recommended

-Spanish Speaking Required

Student Ministry Volunteer

-Serve the Student Ministry Pastor

-Coordinate events alongside Pastor

-Lead bible studies, games, conversations

-Fundraising skills highly recommended

-Spanish Speaking Required

Children’s Ministry Volunteer

-Serve the Children’s Ministry Pastor

-Coordinate events alongside Pastor

-Ability to lead bible stories, games, crafts

-Fundraising skills highly recommended

-Spanish Speaking Required

Rehabilitation Center Assistant (Rosamorada, Nayarit)

-Single Male

-Live at the Restoration House

-Serve the Director of the Restoration House for drug and alcohol addicts with humility and transparency

-Grasp the vision of the Restoration House

-Have a love and calling to Drug and Alcohol addicts

-Be willing to adapt and follow the in-house rules, showing an example

-Respect the schedule and work towards completing the goals

-Spanish Speaking Required

JULY 2022 MINISTRY UPDATE

 This month's update features...

• A busy month!
• Pictures with captions
• Cofradía Kitchen Kids
  
• Restoration House news
• Links to more
• July's Agenda
• Ministry Opportunities for you
• How to Pray
• How to Give

Here is a link to the July 2022 Ministry Update...

Thank you so much for your partnership. We continue to remember you in our prayers.

GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD FOR HE IS GOOD;

HIS LOVE ENDURES FOREVER

Pastors' Perspectives 2022-2

These are bi-anual reports where our Cofradia United Pastors share what the Lord is doing in their areas and how you can pray for them. Thank you for your partnership as we continue to see the Kingdom of God advance.

You can directly contribute to one or all by following the instructions at our Donate To Cofradia Ministries page. Please include the pastor's name so the donation will get to the right person. 100% of your gift is transferred to them.

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Pastors Gregorio (Goyo) Hernández and Matilde (Mati)

Lead Pastors of Centro Cristiano la Cofradía United

Cofradia de Cuyutlán, Nayarit

Warmest greetings to all of you who, through your prayers and financial assistance, support us in the progress of the ministry of Cofradía Christian Center. During the first six months of 2022, we have focused on the theme “Time to Go Fishing,” and we have seen very good results so far. During Sunday services, we have been encouraging one another to visit with the townspeople as well as with our brothers and sisters in Christ, although we have focused primarily on investing in our leadership by leading them through the course The Balance between Faith and Grace. We met together every Wednesday morning at 6:00 a.m. over the past twenty weeks to grow in our understanding of how grace and faith work together to produce life and encourage us to rest in God. As a result, I have observed noticeable and consistent growth in those who have participated, which has been a great blessing.

We are offering this same course in our leadership school. It began on June 14 and will end on October 11. 

At the end of 2022, on December 15–17, we will host the Freedom in Christ seminar. This course has proven very effective in helping people understand their true identity in Christ.

We had planned to implement the Cofradía Kitchen in other locations, but that has not come to fruition yet. Thank you for your prayers that we will be able to get this going.

Thank you to all of you who partner with us to ensure that the ministry of Centro Cristiano continues moving forward. Thank you for your generosity!

 

Pastors Goyo and Mati

Cofradía de Cuyutlan

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Pastors Horacio Garzón and María

Indigenous Ministries

Centro Cristiano Arrayanes Facilitators

Cofradia de Cuyutlán, Nayarit

Hello! Brothers and sisters, it is with great pleasure and joy that I take up my pen to write a little about how grateful I am for your financial support. Thank you!!

I also want to share with you a glimpse into what we’re doing in the Lord. Know, brothers and sisters, that we are well, thank the Lord. Kenia is still at university preparing to become a nurse. I give thanks to God that He continues to teach us through a discipleship class every Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. 

I am also praying that God will use me in a service project that is intended to bless people who have been incarcerated in the past because of drug trafficking. They have lost their youth and their health and find themselves alone, their lives devoid of affection, compassion, physical provision (roof, food, medicine). And of course, I do not overlook their greatest need: to be saved by Jesus Christ.

I am moved to embark on this project by Matthew 11:28, in which the Lord offers relief and peace for those who are tired and trodden down by the world. For that reason we welcome the disabled, drug addicts, alcoholics, and anyone who is heavy-laden and tired.

Brothers and sister, this endeavor is broad in vision and of great significance which consists of this message of relief and peace in order to bless serving and being served. Thank you!

Receive warmest greetings for Maria and Kenia along with my most sincere gratitude. Thank you, brothers and sisters!

Horacio Garzón Orozco

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Pastor Amado Verdin and Lourdes

Lead Pastors of Casa de Oración, La Hermosa

Director of Restoration Center, El Faro de Esperanza

Rosamorada, Nayarit

Greetings;

The Leadership is growing in our church through our training courses, the goal of which is that they live in their true freedom and produce fruit.

 On Mondays we have been ministering to a family from here in Rosamorada.

Tuesdays we have been hosting a marriage course.

Wednesdays we have a Discipleship class for the congregation and on Thursdays, we have a discipleship course for the youth as well as a general prayer and intercession meeting. The youth are being discipled using the course The New You and The Holy Spirit.

We are making plans to begin offering marriage counseling on Fridays in the town of Las Pilas and on Saturdays our youth meet in Cofradía.

Sundays are our main service where everyone meets together.

A teacher training course was provided so that we are able to host a vacation Bible school this summer.

We celebrated our eights anniversary as a church, enjoying the fellowship of sister churches and the preaching of our fellow pastor, Gregorio.

We also celebrated Mother’s Day with all the mothers in our church.

Work continues in our rehabilitation ministry, The Lighthouse. We are working through the course Freedom in Christ with our current resident, along with his family. We are also providing them with marriage counseling and the marriage course from Victor and Gloria Richards.

Regarding our rehabilitation ministry, we are in need of a new six-burner stove, a larger refrigerator, three complete bunkbed sets, and kitchen cookware (pots and pans). Regarding property, we continue looking for property in the right location. There have been discussions with the Commissioner and some of the town counsels as we try to figure out the best option for the project of building our facility.

Thank you,

Pastor Amado

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Pastors Ruben Perez and Valeria

Lead Pastors of Restauración y Vida Nueva

Church Plant Pastor in Mazatan, Nayarit

Las Varas, Nayarit

Hello!

 

We are the ministry Restoration and Life in Las Varas. These past six months have not been easy in our lives. One of my children, Ruben Jr., was diagnosed with cancer. He is the oldest, at 21 years old and is living with his Aunt in Houston, Texas. We have experienced the hand of God and the spiritual and financial support of our friends and pastors in this season. Our son is going through a very complicated process, just as we are. His cancer is stage three. We ask for your prayers for our lives and for his. We continue in the ministry, continuing to do what God has called us to do on His behalf and trusting that He is already working a miracle in the life of our son. Blessings to you and thank you for your support.

 

Pastors Ruben and Valeria

Las Varas

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Pastor Alan Orozco

Lead Pastor of Comunidad Aliento de Vida

Tepic, Nayarit

Hello!

 

I am Freddy Alan Contreras Magallanes, pastor of Breath of Life Community Church in the San Cayetano neighborhood of Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico.

 

In planting this church, we first plan to begin meeting in homes where we may share a message from God’s Word intended specifically for that home and seek ways of spending time together and support those families, including helping with whatever is necessary to be able to meet in that home, be it food, financial support, support for physical ailments, and, most importantly, spiritual support.

 

We seek to follow the example of the first apostles in Acts 2:44–45. That is part of the mission we currently have before us as a church, which is that every person have a place to meet together where they may come to recognize that they are free, that they are loved, and that it is God Himself who sustains the work and to whom we have unfettered access. As it says in Acts 17:24, He is “the God who made the world and everything in it.”

 

Currently, we are renting a large house in which we hold our Sunday services, and our youth group meetings are held at the home of one of the brothers.

 

I will be getting married on October 28 of this year to my fiance, Elizabeth Carolina Reyes Serafín, who is a strong and essential part of this ministry that God has created.

 

Thank you,

Alan Contreras

Tepic, Nayarit

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Pastors Rodrigo Romero and Annel

Cordero y Leon
Culiacán, Sinaloa

Greetings to all who may read this.

We are the pastors Rodrigo Romero (32 years old) and Annel Sánchez (33 years old). We have been married six years, and we have served the Lord since our adolescence. We are a missionary couple. I, Rodrigo, am from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and my wife, Annel, is from La Cruz, Mexico. Currently, we pastor a congregation in the city of Culiacán, Sinaloa, where we have served since August 2019. We began with great excitement and expectation, and although the COVID-19 pandemic prohibited the normal activities of the church, the Lord helped us to comprehend His purposes. We could learn to be a church free of the trappings of routine, programmed gatherings or a physical building. We could do things like taking food to hospitals or to migrant passengers on the train. 

We have returned to our regular activities and services, and we have joined the missionary movement in the mountains of Nayarit, preaching the gospel to a small unreached indigenous people group,los “Cuares”, in two towns: Ojo de Agua and Guacamayas. Our intention is to eventually expand into the rest of the towns with the Word of God.

Our vision and longing as a church is to plant congregations in each city of the state of Sinaloa in Mexico. Currently we gather in the carport of the house we rent; there we have both our fellowship and teaching. Our dream is to have our own place to meet with more space for welcoming people in and a vehicle equipped for our missionary trips. Recently we became part of Cofradía United and are pleased to have mentors and family blessing us with their love, support, and wise counsel. The expectation we have in God’s plan is big, and we pray for the power to understand his desire and submit to it. To serve Christ is our entire life! Thank you for joining us. “The Lion and the Lamb” congregation is here to serve you in whatever way the gospel requires of us (2 Timothy 4:1-8)!

Pastors Rodrigo and Annel