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Editor’s Note: Joe Hendrigsman will be speaking at the upcoming Vision Conference at HBF. Joe and his wife Amy are missionaries to Oaxaca, Mexico, where they planted Grace Baptist Church. Learn a bit about Joe in this Q&A interview.

Q. How did God take you to Mexico?

A. I was born into a pastor’s home and raised in Christian family. I accepted the Lord as my savior at age 5. We moved around, one of the moves took us to Philadelphia, Pa. My father pastored there, but the church went through a split. About that time, a missionary to Mexico came through, and my father felt he needed to go to Mexico as a missionary. We moved to border town of McAllen, Texas. I was 16 years old at the time, and the first time I crossed the border at 16 I fell in love with sights, sounds of Mexico. My love for Mexico never left.

After high school, I went to Bible College. Then fast-forward to 2000-01, God began working in my heart about missions. God wouldn’t give me peace, take that out of my mind. I began studying Mexico, and looking at places where missionaries were not located. Two places stood out, the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. In 2006-07, made my first trip to Oaxaca City, the capital. I was amazed by city and culture, and by different people groups.

In 2012, I married Amy and told her I don’t know God’s timing, but I know he wants us to go to Oaxaca as missionaries. Then in 2014, we came to Oaxaca and spent about 10 days here and then in February 2015, we quit our jobs and moved here for 4 months. After those 4 months, we returned to states, raised support and returned in November 2016.

Q. Without giving away all of what you plan to speak on, what can people expect to hear during the Vision Conference?

A. Theme of the conference is Faith, so I want to talk about our faith. Want to talk about God’s faith and our faithfulness to Him. Sometimes we can’t see it and can’t see what he’s doing. When we keep his faith, the plan he has for us and to use us.

Q. What is one thing about yourself that people would not know or find surprising?

A. I’m a pretty boring guy. I do have an incredible love for the Swedish Fish candy.

Q. What is the connection to HBF?

A. Our sending church is Grace Baptist in Lee’s Summit. I had reached out to your Associate Pastor, Randy Foster. The fact that Randy emailed me when he was in Nepal, wanting to meet with me said a lot. That was pretty amazing that he would take time while on a mission trip to respond to me.

He invited us to come visit, it might have been late 2015. On a Wednesday night, he shared our ministry and allowed me to share a bit about what God had put on my heart. Then we came back for a Bible Conference, and had a great time putting Scripture together. Then we attended a Vision Conference in 2016. We really fell in love with the people of HBF, your pastors and the conference.

Q. What can we be in prayer for you about?

A. If they could be in prayer for wisdom in leading the ministry here. The Ministry has taken off very fast. So that’s a blessing and a challenge at the same time. If they could be in prayer for our culture adaptation. We are learning new things about the culture every day.

Pray for our church here. The people will need to continue to grow spiritually. Pray for our church people. God’s doing some great things in spite of who we are. Definitely the ministry.