Joshua Maria Garcia, a member of St. Martin’s Church in Providence, Rhode Island, attended Missio for the first time this year and describes the experience life changing for him. Organized jointly by the Diocese of Honduras and GEMN, the annual global mission conference was held at the end of April in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’s second largest city. Here’s Joshua’s testimony:
Joining GEMN and attending Missio 2025 have been life changing for me, teaching me more about myself, my vocation, and being Christian and human. Missio, GEMN and the contacts I’ve made and nurtured over the past few months have powerfully broadened my perspective on mission work, reminding me that mission begins with the ongoing conversion of my own heart. Only then can I effectively serve as an evangelist in my own community and the world.GEMN is fueling restorative mission work, the spread of the Gospel through humble action, using words when necessary. GEMN’s host-led approach and reverence for local religious leadership reverses our church’s legacy of colonial missions. I believe that GEMN calls Christians to a mission of surrender to God and service to the vulnerable, not as helpless outsiders, but as people with their own talents, resources, vision and faith, fellow human beings with whom we are in communion.Our work is not to spread our own cultural vision of Christianity, but to recognize that Christ transcends culture, showing up in surprising ways everywhere we go. I look forward to a continuing and deepening relationship with GEMN.
Joshua also attended the Mission Formation Program that was held on the day before Missio opened. He plans on enrolling in the School of Theology at the University of the South at Sewanee in the fall. He writes the Substack newsletter Sacramentalia.