MAGL Commissional Corner: New Years' Resolutions

With every New Year comes the expectation to reflect and improve. We asked a few of our MAGL students about their hopes for 2021. Here are answers from Isabel Alvarez (Pictured on left) and Melisa Barrera (Pictured on right). Isabel is graduating from the MAGL program and Melisa has just started, yet both of their answers show a heart for missions.

What are a few of your New Year’s resolutions and how do you plan to accomplish those goals?

“My New Year’s resolutions are 100% related to ministry. One of the most important ones is that I am going back to my country with a specific objective: to serve God. For that, I have two big focuses, primarily, to show the love of God to my family and to work with them directly in their spiritual growth, based on relationships and discipleship. And secondly, to get involved in my local church and continue my work with the youth ministry, and at the same time with urban missions. My expectation is to help them to build a stronger relationship with Jesus and also work one by one with them. There are still many things that need to be figured out. However, there is clarity in my purpose in my country, which makes me feel confident in my decisions.”

– Isabel Alvarez 

“To become more interested in the needs of others to see a way to support them. Be more intentional in making new friends and taking care of the friendships I already have. Be professional without being rigid and be cheerful without being lazy. Always have my personal relationship with God at the top of my priority list and consider it in everything I do, think, ask or dream. I think the best way to achieve these is to be aware of the goals, because sometimes we make a list of goals, but we forget about them and we do not pray for them”.

– Melisa Barrera 

 What can you do this year to help spread the gospel?

“I will be very intentional to spread the gospel, but in God’s ways in order to be effective. First of all, I will continue praying to know exactly what to do and who I have to relate with.  I have an action plan to start visiting some houses and just talk with people to create meaningful relationships, which will help me to be more open with the gospel. As part of the youth group, we will be more involved with the community by periodically visiting orphanages, elderly facilities, rehab centers, and homeless people to show the love of God in a very simple way, just through our presence and care.”

– Isabel Alvarez

What is an area of your life you hope to grow in?

“I think I would love to grow in trust in God. I clarify that it is not that I do not trust Him right now, but it becomes a little more difficult when you do not see anything or when everything is going from bad to worse; I would love to learn to trust like Abraham who believed in hope against hope (Romans 4:18), to trust in God’s plans for his life more than his own plan. I am learning.”

– Melisa Barrera