Alabama missionaries Charlie and Robin Janney said they are not worried about being in hot water.
The couple is serving in Aguascalientes, Mexico, which means “hot water” in English. The missionaries are doing language study, researching their people group and reaching out to the community they serve.
The Janneys, who consider Calera Baptist Church their home church, also have strong ties to Trinity Baptist Church in Morgan County. They recently returned to Alabama for a visit and spoke in several churches.
Mrs. Janney shared about their work with the middle class of Aguascalientes in an effort to give their prayer network “a better feel for who these people are, their hurts, their problems, their need for a relationship with Jesus Christ as their Savior.”
The Janneys target group is located in Aguascalientes, which is in the center of Mexico, and is less than one percent Protestant Christian.
The Janneys are new to the missions field, having been appointed by the International Mission Board a little more than two years ago.
Charlie spent 12 years in ministry before responding to the call to international missions, and their oldest child, Kacie, was just four months from her 13th birthday — the cutoff age for children of newly appointed missionaries — when they were appointed. Their son, Drew, is two years younger.
After an eight-week orientation in Richmond and a year in language school, the Janneys found themselves torn between two possible assignments, finally settling on Aguascalientes and moving in May 1999.
“It was a difficult decision, but we do feel we are in the place God wants us to be,” Mrs. Janney said.
There has been “slight persecution,” according to Mrs. Janney, of Protestants in the area.
“One priest sent some youth to vandalize a Methodist church so much that the church had to build a tall metal fence to protect their building,” she said.
“Also, in other cases, rumors were spread to not have anything to do with the people who attend a small Baptist church.
“And in the small mission church we attend, the church has been denied permission to build a church on the property that the church owns,” Mrs. Janney added.
“The government doesn’t want a church on the north side of town — there is no other church on this side of town,” she said.
The Janneys said there are only three Baptist churches and two mission churches in the city, which works out only to about one church per 10,000 people. They said their objective is to plant more churches in the area.
They recently discovered there is “a considerable number” of Americans who have moved to Aguascalientes to work for American companies. One couple was active in a Baptist church in Dallas before moving to Mexico and plan to assist the Janneys.
“Isn’t it neat to see such an answered prayer? We were praying for team members, and the Lord starts opening the doors in places we never thought of,” Mrs. Janney said.
Prayer is important to the Janneys because their work in Aguascalientes is still in the early stages. They are attempting to enlist 3,000 partners who will agree to commit to pray for them and their team, along with the people they have been sent to serve.
They are also hoping some of their prayer warriors will make the trip to Aguascalientes to assist in prayer walking and distributing Bibles and tracts in their target neighborhoods.
The prayer network is still far short of its goal of 3,000 people, but the missionaries are hoping for a Royal Ambassador, Girls in Action or youth group to adopt them and help enlist more partners.
For more information or updates about the Janneys’ work in Mexico, visit their Web site at http://www.byhisgrace.com/music2.
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