Adult ministry update: erika guedez
by Elaine Reimers, Adult Ministry Director
It has been a busy last few months in the Adult Ministry department at Mission Adelante. For those of you who are a bit newer to Mission Adelante, the Adult Ministry department consists of three weekly programs and church on Sunday evenings. The three programs are Latino ESL on Thursdays, Citizenship on Tuesdays, and Refugee ESL on Mondays. Between the three weekly programs, we have 58 amazing and dedicated volunteers and 102 determined students! Thank you, God, for all of them, because it is an honor and a pleasure to serve alongside our beloved volunteers in a place where our immigrant community has the opportunity to learn what they need to know to improve their lives educationally, mentally, and spiritually.
The highlight of this update is that the Adult Ministry staff team, consisting of Erika Guedez and me, is small (and growing in more ways than one) and mighty! I have to admit, after finding out that we were planning to hire a Community Integration Manager who would be working with me regularly, my first thought was not one of excitement. I had doubts and questions, and I was unsure of what it would be like to work as a team after basically two years of flying solo. Although for completely different reasons, I believe this has been a challenging transition for both Erika and me.
The people who know me personally know that I can be very sensitive to what I call “noise pollution” and that I thoroughly enjoy my alone time. Cubicle life is not easy for me (thank God for noise-canceling headphones! haha). Don’t get me wrong, I love my fellow staff brothers and sisters in Christ and all, and I have been told how bubbly I am (and genuinely so) on program nights. Seeing my volunteers and students arriving for class just does it for me! Even so, I am genuinely grateful for the couple of days between my programs when I can shut down, reboot, and recharge to be ready for the next one.
Erika, on the other hand, seems ALWAYS to be ready to rock-’n’-roll with a beaming smile, empowering and wise words of encouragement for everyone, and a perfectly pressurized hug! From what I see, her biggest challenge has been learning English while communicating with her English-speaking volunteers. But let me tell you all something, she is CRUSHING it in this and all areas! I am incredibly proud of how she just keeps pressing and showing up despite how her previous day turned out or how she felt about it. Erika has made great strides at Mission Adelante in her first six months as Community Integration Manager!
She has courageously caught the baton that was gently tossed to her. If she felt anything like I did when I inherited the Latino ESL program back in 2023, she might say the baton was ¨thrown at her¨ (Haha! Love you, Erika!) She made the catch look easy, though, and is now leading, in my opinion, the most meaningful and beautiful Citizenship trimester that I have ever seen. She has met with several English-speaking volunteers one-on-one and clearly survived to tell the tale because she is sitting in the cubicle next to me as I write! She has connected with and helped students outside of programs. She has planned and brought to fruition a Valentine´s Day party in Citizenship, including volunteers and students. She has led the Citizenship huddles at New Volunteer Orientation and All Volunteer Huddle. She has facilitated prayer time at church and sings her heart out on the worship team. All that to say that I am blessed that she is my right-hand ministry partner! Really, what more could I ask for?
After about six months of this privilege of training and mentoring Erika, I have come to enjoy the gift of collaboration and synergism, and I have learned this is also the environment in which she thrives most. I have also realized that I have learned just as much from her as she would say she has learned from me. Please pray for Erika and me that God would allow us to continue growing together in this season of everything new. That we would trust Him as we plan for and dream about what God´s will is for adult ministry at Mission Adelante. Pray that He would give us wisdom and discernment as we navigate the choppy waters that are the climate around immigrants in the U.S. currently. Ask Him to give us just the right amount of boldness and tenacity to be effective for His Kingdom despite our feelings of inadequacy in the face of what is transpiring.
Although we do our best to guide our students and fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to self-sufficiency as they adapt to life in the United States, we desperately need Jesus to continue showing us His way to do it! Ultimately, the hope is that by loving people from all places, we will ignite the flame in them so they can take it and share it with people from all places, too
Key Dates in 2026
Trimester 1
Come and See Nights: March 2nd-5th, 6:30-8:30pm
Visit us during program times, learn more about our ministry, and watch our leaders in action! Sign up for Come and See Nights here.
Join us for Un Lugar en La Mesa, a culinary fundraising event, happening on Friday, March 27th at 5pm.
Click here to learn more and sign up.