How does one describe the process of leaving everything you know, your family, your culture…your country? How does one describe this when doing it for God? Even more in a world like ours, which doubts so much about that God. But it is precisely God: how directly and supernaturally he moved, that for us as a family, it was a matter of obedience.

This journey began the year 2018, back in our beautiful Colombia in South America. Around that time we had been youth pastors for more than 20 years and we were asking the Lord what was going to be the purpose of our lives and how to follow his will for our lives for the next season. I started having dreams in which our family was being interviewed for the American Visa. In this dream we should visit a family we knew who lived in Minnesota. It wasn’t something we had in our mind, but the dream kept repeating itself and my husband Fernando started having dreams too with the same content: traveling to Minnesota. After talking about it and praying, we asked the Lord to give us a word of confirmation and he did. We decided to go on with whatever it took to pursue this dream. We didn’t really know at the moment what the Lord wanted us to do. We just knew that if the visa was given to us, Minnesota would be our destination for a visit. It was in the Lord’s hands to show us what he wanted from after that. 

We made that first trip wondering what the Lord wanted. During the month-long trip we discovered a deep love for this land, and people who wanted to find ways to bless this land, like Pastor Miguel Aviles. It was this connection that confirmed to us that there was a purpose to fulfill and we returned home with a seed planted in our hearts.  

The pandemic arrived, and Minneapolis experienced a tragic death and riots in the city. It seemed that there was so much pain, trauma, and need in many of the hearts of this city. To many preparing to move to Minneapolis it could have been something that added fear or anxiety to the journey, but for us it was precisely understanding that if our hands could be there to be part of what God was doing in the city, we would be there. We continued placing this in God’s hands and if he would open the doors we would continue with his plans. As it may happen many times when you pursue a dream, there were difficulties and the pandemic made everything more complicated. We continued praying and preparing to be missionaries to Minnesota. We met Pastor Peter Wohler and were introduced to Source MN. Along with Pastor Miguel Aviles and his wife Rocio, we prayed together, dreamed together and set on our hearts to start this incredible adventure for God! 

During the summer of 2021 we were able to come to Minneapolis for a month and serve along with Source MN this community and city. We got to see the pain, the need, but also the smiles and hope of the people receiving food and resources. Their gratitude when we were able to pray together was such an impulse to confirm how God loves this place and how much we long to spread his Good News here. We returned to Colombia and we continued making pastoral calls to people who, while receiving food, also requested prayer. We had beautiful times seeing their lives be touched. The pandemic made things very difficult, but we believed that if the Lord was behind all of this, he would open the doors and we continued working in the distance. 

In 2022, we received a Religious Visa and permission to continue with this dream as a family in Minneapolis. We knew it didn’t mean an easy path, but an open door to put our hands on the work for God’s Kingdom. We finally arrived in August 2022! Since then it has been a journey of dreaming about planting a church for the Spanish speaking community, helping to provide food to the families of the city, working with women in different needs in the women’s drop-in center, teaching ESL classes for our Spanish speaking people who don’t understand the language, praying, eating together and teaching God’s word. We are working on beginning a church plant with the name of Viña la Fuente, in which we dream about sharing the good news of the Gospel with Spanish speakers and building a family and a community that brings new life and hope for the city.

The journey is just beginning. There are many tasks ahead. But our prayer is that Jesus is always our companion, our center, our engine, our strength, and the one who receives all the glory! We love Him, he is worth it all. Our lives, fruits to come, and future are in our Father’s hands.