Collins Family in Mesick, MI

When I was finishing up eighth grade and getting ready to transition to high school, I had some decisions to make. For the first time in my education, I had some choice in what classes to take. I decided to take English class over the summer and get it out of the way so I could take another elective. For the life of me, I can’t remember why, but I had chosen German for my extra elective (no offense to any German lovers reading this!). Before finalizing my decision, I talked with my parents about my classes, and I told them my plans. Dad suggested that instead of taking German, I should consider taking Spanish because I would have more opportunities to use it, especially in ministry. His words were prophetic. I took his advice and signed up for Spanish instead. When I started taking Spanish in 9 th grade, the only words I already knew were taco, señorita, nachos, and probably a few numbers, which I picked up from the Mexican restaurants we ate at. So when the teacher came into...

New Year, New Goals Every new year provides another opportunity to set new goals and to grow in new ways. Last year was a great year for both of us in many ways, but by God’s grace, this year will be even better. As we made resolutions and set goals for this year, we made the usual goals of working on our physical and spiritual health. Beyond that, we set for ourselves a bigger, more audacious goal: to raise 100% of our needed missions support for Camino Global. Our desire is to be leaving for Mexico by next January, and to do that, we have set a goal to be at 100% support by the end of September. To be sure, it is a challenging goal, but we believe that this is what God wants for us, and so we have made it our goal. Ministry Presentations Over the last couple months, we have had opportunities to do large group presentations. We were able to present our ministry at our home church, Bible Baptist, in mid-December. We were also able to share our ministry with our church yo...

It’s that time of year again. Some of my closest friends and family have begun to ask me what I want for Christmas. I have never been one to ask for anything big, but this year is different. This year I am asking for something big. Every year as December rolls around, I am flooded with memories of my favorite Christmas. December 2010 was a Christmas season that changed the way I view Christmas, family, giving, receiving, and many other things. I spent that Christmas season at an orphanage. In the days leading up to Christmas I spent time sorting through a few donated toys and school supplies to try to choose individual gifts for each child. I spent time with children who were crying because they had no family to be with for Christmas. I saw children with a sparkle in their eyes, because to them, their “tios” (house parents) and the other kids were their families. Even with everything they had experienced in their short little lives, they were joyful, even in their sadness. I wat...

Who We Are We are Chris and Sarah Collins. We currently live in Traverse City, MI, where we serve at Bible Baptist Church. God brought us together because of our common love for Spanish and our desire to serve God on a Spanish speaking mission field. New Appointees We are thrilled to announce that we are now officially part of the Camino Global family! The dream that God gave us a couple years ago is starting to come true. It is hard to believe, but we are actually on our way to becoming missionaries to Mexico. We had a fabulous time in our Candidate Assessment and Orientation at the Camino headquarters in Dallas. We loved learning about the organization and how God is using Camino Global to reach Spanish speakers across the world. We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the staff and seeing their heart for God and His work among Spanish speaking people. It was a wonderful time, and we are so thankful that God has brought us to this organization. You can  learn more ...

Hi Friends! We just want to give you all a short update on our journey to Mexico. Chris and I will be traveling to Dallas, Texas this weekend to spend the next week with the staff at the Camino Global headquarters. During this next week we will be sharing our burden and vision for ministry in Puebla, Mexico, as well as learning more about the Camino Global team and how we can work together. Lord willing, at the end of next week, we will officially be missionaries with Camino Global! This is a very big step for us in our journey, and we are very excited to finally be at this point. As we have been working on our application and paperwork these past several weeks it has begun to really sink in for me that this is really happening! I continue to be amazed at God’s timing and provision for our lives. Becoming a missionary is something that has been in our hearts for many years, individually and now together as a couple. It has been such a blessing to see God’s hand in every step along the...

Thank you all so much for praying for us during our trip! We want to share with you some of the thoughts and experiences we had during our time in Puebla. One of our first impressions was how big Puebla is! Puebla is a very large and quickly growing city, with over 3 million people living there. Both of us grew up in much smaller towns, and although we’ve been in big cities before, the thought of living in such a large city was overwhelming at first. However, as we got to know people there and begin to familiarize ourselves with different neighborhoods, the size of the city became a little less overwhelming. During our time in Puebla we had the opportunity to spend time with several Camino Global missionaries. We were able to learn firsthand about many of the ministries in Puebla and hear the heart of the missionaries serving there. We really enjoyed our time of fellowship with the missionaries, and we loved seeing how unified they all are. They work really well together as a ...

Tomorrow morning, while you will probably still be sleeping, we will begin our journey to Mexico. Our first flight is scheduled just before 5:30 AM, and we will be traveling all day with two connecting flights before we get to Puebla, Mexico tomorrow evening. We found out today that the airline we are flying with (Delta) had a major glitch in their system a couple days ago with hundreds of flights canceled, and so we are hoping and praying that our flights will not be canceled or delayed tomorrow. Please pray with us for safe and timely travel and connections tomorrow, and for patience and wisdom should we have to deal with canceled or delayed flights. Please pray for our different opportunities while we are in Mexico. We will have opportunities to meet many missionaries and other contacts in the Puebla area. We will have opportunities to see a variety of ministries and places we can serve in the future. We will have opportunities to share the gospel as I (Chris) speak at an orphanage...