The
Circle of
Silence in
Mexico
By Jose Bañales,
OMS Missionary
As I drove into the city of
Querétaro, Mexico, I could not
help but think of my first prayer team
in 1990 to Mexico City. Longtime OMS missionaries
Max and Dixie Edwards had invited Audrey and me to join their last prayer team
to this city, populated with 25 million people at the time. Now, I was leading the
first OMS prayer walk team to Querétaro, a city of more than a million people, a
city within the Circle of Silence.
The Circle of Silence project has a goal to reach out with the message of the
cross to eight states in central Mexico that have a population of less than one
percent evangelical Christians.
Alexis Saucedo, the national director of Every Community for Christ (a minis-
try of OMS), is leading the way to impact the city of Querétaro. Alexis moved his
family from Mexico City to Querétaro, about three hours north of the capital, to
show his deep commitment to this ministry.
Bound by religious tradition for centuries, some people in this city have en-
gaged in witchcraft and magic for spiritual enlightenment. But Alexis shared that
in the last five to seven years, thousands of people from many states in Mexico
have migrated to Querétaro. The population has grown exponentially, with manu-
facturing plants, businesses, shopping malls, apartment buildings, and complex-
es going up all over the city. That was easy to confirm as we walked and drove
around downtown and the outskirts of Querétaro, seeing construction cranes
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