BIENVENIDOS A LA IGLESIA DE ST. MARK’S

Donde las familias pueden fortalecer su relación con Jesús y con las personas a través de las diversas formas de adoración, ministerios y servicios que celebran el amor de Dios. Somos miembros de la Iglesia Evangélica Luterana en América (ELCA).

Te esperamos todos los DominEscuelita Dominicalgos, nuestro Servicio Adoración comienza a partir de:

11:15 am
Servicio en Español

10:20 AM    
Escuelita Dominical (Nursery)

También contamos con servicio de guarderia durante el servicio.

DIRECCIÓN:
580 Hilltop Drive | Chula Vista, California 91910
Teléfono de oficina: 619-427-5515 | e-mail: office.stmarkscv@gmail.com 

Horario: Martes, Miércoles y Jueves de 9:00 a.m. a 1:00 p.m. 

ABOUT PASTOR ALICIA

Dear brothers and sisters of St Mark’s, whom I love.
I give thanks to God for you, every time I think about you, your deep faith and perseverance.

Someone from the 9am service asked me a question the other Sunday, and I realized that many of you do not know much about me. For this reason, I am sharing some of my story with you. The following is mainly about my family and faith journey.

My name is Alicia Saenz, I was born and raised in Mexico, in a little town called Anahuac, in the State of Chihuahua, by the border that joins the State of Texas. As a child I didn’t go to church, the reason for this is a long story. My mom’s father was a devoted Roman Catholic, it was about the year 1910, people were
not allowed to have a Bible, but my grandfather had a Bible which he used to read to my mother. My grandpa also used to have newspapers sent to him. He used to receive the New York Times newspaper, The Heraldo of Mexico newspaper and a European newspaper. He used to read books about everything, he was a very well-read person and the way he lived was different for a Mexican man of his time. He was kind, loving, supportive to his wife and children, not a “macho”. My grandfather (Jesus Fernandez) used to bake bread at 5:00 am and cook oatmeal and eggs for his wife and children, then he would wake them up with the sound of the mandolin, which he played very well. Jesus Fernandez was also compassionate and would strive for justice for all. He would write to the Mexican President about irregularities that were happening and he had situations corrected for the poor, the ones with no voice. Of course, the abusers did not like this and they had him killed. Before he died, my grandfather had seen many bad things happening in the church, for this reason, he stopped going to church and also, he had my mom promise him that she would not go to any church until she was an adult, had read the Bible and found a church where everything talked about was based on the Bible only. (Was he a Lutheran and didn’t know it?) This is the reason I grew up with no church. We used to go to church once in a while to a baptism or a wedding only.

My father was an orphan, his mother died giving birth to his brother when my dad was only two years old and his father passed away when he was about five years old. Nevertheless, my father was very responsible, didn’t drink,  and was very patient and loving. When I was about nine years old, he helped me to understand math and fractions so that math was always easy for me. He used to work at a factory in my hometown, the factory makes paper out of wood. He also used to rent a field where he grew corn some years and beans some other years. When I was about nine years old my father had an accident and lost his left hand. Nobody would employ him with just one hand. It was so hard for him, but he learned to do everything with one hand. He even invented a special way to tie his work boots. Because we had ten kids in the family (seven boys and three girls), the little bit of money given to my dad for the accident was gone very fast. My parents tried to build their own business with a chicken farm. We had fifteen hundred chickens all the time. Chickens grow and are ready to be sold in six weeks from yellow tiny chicks to big, beautiful chickens, like the ones we buy in the market here in the USA (in fact the food we used to feed them was from the USA), but with so many kids to feed and some already in the University, the business did not sustain itself and the family expenses. That is when my mom had to come to the USA to work. She came with a passport. It was terribly hard for her and for us. My father had to join her some years later and we had to leave our big, beautiful home in Chihuahua and came to live in Tijuana, so that my parents could visit with us on the weekend.

I graduated in Tijuana as a Professional Technician in International Trade, but did not speak a word of English, which I needed to be able to get a good job in the field. I came to USA in 1985 to stay with my parents for some time. At the time, my parents were already legal USA residents and had rented their own apartment. I just wanted to learn English, or so I thought, but God had other plans for me, and as you know God’s plans are always good. Some years later, my mom was about 56 years old and was still searching for a church that would only preach the truth of the Bible, but she doesn’t drive, she had moved and was looking for a church near her house. She had seen two churches very close to her house, she stepped on the corner of Clairemont Mesa Boulevard and Clairemont Drive, there were two churches there, one on each side of the street. She had told us she didn’t know what Christian denomination they were and saw only Anglos in there, but she needed a church, so she decided to attend church anyways and worship God, even if she didn’t understand. She decided on one of the two churches, and attended the service, and came to find out that a Pastor who speaks Spanish had just arrived at the church, and there was a little group worshiping in Spanish. The church on the corner was the church she had been looking for. She realized that the service and the sermon were totally based on Scripture, and the Pastor’s sermon was about justification by faith. That church is Clairemont Lutheran Church in San Diego. Once she found it, she kept inviting all my family to come, but since we were raised without church we didn’t want to go. My mom asked me if I could help Clairemont Lutheran Church with some food for their annual anniversary celebration, I agreed and met the Pastor and his wife. The year after that I did the same thing, but this time I delivered the food to the church myself and stayed for the celebration because I realized that the Hispanics needed help, as they didn’t understand any English. I felt comfortable with them, so I went to one of the services, and for the first time in a church I heard something I had only heard from my mom, I heard about a God of love. Then after I went home and thought about the word and the sermon I had heard, I realized that I had found the God of love that my mom had talked to me about when I was a child. Growing up in a Roman Catholic society I knew God punishes and if you are not good you go to hell. But there at Clairemont Lutheran Church the Pastor talked about a God who doesn’t want people to suffer, a God who made people to be happy and wants the best for us. I kept going to church and I got the strength to do many things I had to do at the time to be able to live a better life.

After a few years a new Pastor came in and taught us that you must have a personal relationship with God, with Jesus, and with Bible Study, prayer and worshiping. I entered in that relationship, it was a higher level of experiencing the love of God in my life. Then God made me see the need of the love of God around me, the suffering of the people trying to earn their own salvation with good works, penitence, lighting candles, masses for their loved ones who had already departed, and such, and I thought: “someone has to tell them, someone has to teach them”. Right after that thought I heard and felt inside like a voice inside me that said: “That one is you”. Meanwhile our Pastor had seen the server in me and a few others, plus I was already helping with children’s classes at my church.

In 2004 started taking classes with PALLMM which stands for “Preparing Adult Lay Leaders for Mission and Ministry”. I graduated from the PALLMM program in 2008.

In 2008 I was granted a Synodical License for Word and Sacrament and was accepted to serve and start a Spanish Ministry at Lemon Grove Lutheran Church in the east of the San Diego Area. I served at Lemon Grove from August 2008 to September 2011.  It was a blessing and a joy to bring the good news to people in that area and to share the mission with the Anglo part of the congregation.

In September 2011 the ministry had to move from Lemon Grove, and St. Mark’s Lutheran Church opened their doors and their hearts to our Hispanic Ministry and to the Hispanics in the Chula Vista Community, and thus became one Congregation in two languages, bilingual and cross-cultural.

Since 2011 to present I have been serving at St. Mark’s in Chula Vista, CA. I am blessed and honored to serve at St. Mark’s. Many people had come to know God through our Ministry for the Glory of God. These people had come to know God, the true God, the God of love, patience, forgiveness, and free justification by the Grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and though on Sunday we speak English at 9:00 am and Spanish at 11:15 am. At St. Mark’s, we all have come to be one congregation. We all have been filled with the Holly Spirit and speak the same language, the language of God’s love and service to others with joy. “Celebrating God’s love and forgiveness, we serve others”.
May God bless you all.
Your sister in Christ,
Alicia Saenz.