Country Profile: Mexico

Mexico is a tourist’s paradise: the beautiful beaches in Acapulco and Cancun are starkly contrasted by the ancient civilizations. Its national identity is reflected by the heritage of its native peoples, their colourful art, languages and festivals; the most famous Mexican festival being The Day of the Dead.

The country is positioned in North America, and it is bordered by Belize, Guatemala, the United States, and the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

The population of Mexico is around 106, 203 million people, and of that number a staggering 94 per cent of the population are Christian; Roman Catholicism is the most prominent denomination, however, this is significantly different from European Catholicism as it is a hybrid of Roman Catholic traditions and the local religious practices from the Native American ancestry.

So, how does the work of OM fit into this? Mexico was actually the first country that George Verwer, who later became the founder of OM, visited in 1957. He, along with two of his college friends, had a real spiritual burden for Mexico. After much prayer, the three friends sold some of their own possessions to raise money and they gave up their summer holiday to distribute Gospels and other Christian literature in Mexico.

Since then, OM has continued to work in Mexico and we now have 5 offices in the cities of Hermosillo, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Mexico City and Cuernavaca, all with personnel promoting OM and organising missions’ conferences and recruiting. Our main office is in Mexico City.

We have representatives in three other cities: Pachuca, Veracruz and Coatzacoalcos, in the last two cities these are the port cities where the OM Ships usually come.

OM works alongside local churches, to train local believers. We prepare them to serve in missions, and we do evangelism training with local churches as well.

We recruit believers to do short term outreaches, our main emphasis is Central America. We also encourage some people to go to our summer STT in Europe and North Africa.

We are trying to focus the ministry now into social work and relief.

We are involved in a number of projects including: