WHO WE ARE

Josef and Lina Urban are missionaries in Mexico. They have lived in Mexico since October 2007, laboring to glorify God, to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to see the lost come to a saving knowledge of Christ, and to see the Lord’s people strengthened in the faith and established in sound doctrine, that Christ may given the pre-eminence in all things.

MY JOURNEY TO MEXICO (Josef)

At the age of 18, the Lord reached down and saved me. (Read my testimony here.) It was about a year after my conversion that the desire began to burn within me to tell the lost about Jesus. I began to take the Gospel into the streets, handing out tracts, witnessing to various people in the inner city, and eventually open air preaching at parks, bus stops, and other outdoor events. Soon, the Lord led me to team up with other street ministries in the US, and I would take trips to preach the Gospel in the inner cities of various places in the country. This began a blessed time of street preaching and inner city ministry which I will never forget.

It wasn’t long until the Lord led me to unite with some other believers in the Detroit, MI area. By the sovereign and miraculous leading of God, we began to do outreaches to the ghettos of inner city Detroit. Our initial main place of ministry was a run-down park toward the center of the city that was a hotbed for gangs, drugs, violence, and hundreds of homeless people. We would cook up some hot food and call them all together, and they would stand in a line for the food. Then we would preach the Gospel to them. Then, after sending them through the line, we would walk around and talk to them personally, sharing Christ with them, praying for them, ministering to their needs, etc. We held countless open air meetings right in the middle of Detroit’s inner city.

We would spend hours in this park talking to people about Jesus, sometimes up to 6 or 8 hours a day. The Lord blessed this ministry so tremendously that this became our focus and main ministry to reach out to the homeless and inner city folk. We proceeded to reach out to them every Saturday and Sunday, and during the week as well. It was the highlight of my week to go to inner city Detroit and spend the weekend ministering to hurting, dying souls. God was so gracious in this.

This ministry opened up other doors for us in the inner city, and we eventually obtained a weekly preaching spot in the Detroit Rescue Mission, and also reached out regularly at another place in the inner city that was notorious for it’s extremely bad reputation for everything wicked. But there were hundreds of precious drug-addicts, sinners and homeless people who needed Jesus! We would set up our post in the name of the Lord of Hosts and preach the Gospel, proclaiming a Savior that delivers from sin, from addiction, from bondage, and has all power to save to the uttermost all who come to God through Him. The Lord miraculously protected us at times, and confirmed His Word with signs following.

The Lord blessed this ministry, and some of these homeless men and women came to repentance. Many would be delivered from drugs and other bondages, sometimes even instantly when they cried out to the Lord to save them. We began to cast out demons in the name of Jesus. The Holy Spirit was strong at times. Some healings were taking place. The Lord was confirming His Word. There are many wonderful testimonies I could share about some of the glorious things the Lord did at this time. But the most glorious of all was the fact that a few genuinely appeared to be converted, and that God did a wonderful work of grace in my own soul during this time and prepared me for a walk of faith into full-time ministry. This inner city ministry in Detroit lasted for about 2 years.

 Eventually, it opened the door for a (very) brief conference ministry around the US. It was during this time that I met and married my wife, Lina. The first time we really met was when we preached together to a drunkard on the streets of Pittsburg, PA during a certain outreach, and this drunkard came to an apparent repentance and cried out to the Lord to save him while on his knees right on the streets. Glory be to God. What a wonderful way to meet your spouse, through God’s confirmation of bringing a sinner to repentance! About 5 months after this, we were married.

It was during our honeymoon, as we were staying at a hotel across the border into Mexico, that I had some sort of “vision” from the Lord about preaching in Mexico, and a strong inward voice compelling me to go. But not being one to blindly follow dreams and visions, I continued to pray about it constantly for the next 6 months, seeking the Lord as to His perfect will and timing. Soon, the Lord released us in the Spirit to go, released me from ministry in Detroit so strongly that I could not stay without being in sin, and we packed up our tiny little car with all our belongings and drove cross-country to southern California to make preparations to move to Mexico.

We had a little less than $2000 to get us there and help us make preparations to begin supporting ourselves to minister. However, we were robbed of all the money just before leaving. And on top of this, our little car broke down and would cost more to fix than what it was worth! We were stuck in southern California. But within a couple days, both of us found a job that paid extremely good, and were able to raise enough money in 2 months to buy us a different vehicle and move to Mexico and support us for the next number of months! So after I took a 2-week trip to London, England to preach to the Muslims during Ramadan, we made the move into Mexico and began to preach the Gospel. This was in October 2007, and we have lived and ministered in Mexico ever since, and by the grace of God have seen some truly wonderful things.

I could not even begin to testify of God’s faithfulness in all things since stepping out in faith and obeying the Great Commission. From miraculous financial provision to miraculous demonstration of the Gospel, God has truly glorified His name and I am utterly humbled to be a tiny, tiny, part of what He’s doing in the world. 

“Not unto us, O LORD, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake.” -Psalms 115:1