“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
                                                Deuteronomy 6:5

Our calling is to serve God through Mercy and Evangelism. We believe that both go hand in hand. It is because of God’s mercy that we want to share His unconditional love and message of salvation through mission work and evangelism. We want to reach and minister to as many people as possible by caring for their physical, medical or midwifery needs and thus open the door to build relationships and share God’s love with them.

OUR HISTORY

We met in the El Paso, TX/Juarez, Mexico area as we individually answered God’s call to missions. Edwin’s involvement came as a result of a mission trip to Juarez in 1992. Shelley’s began after she attended a mission conference in Atlanta that same year.

We both joined Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and attended separate Discipleship Training Schools in El Paso. We both assisted at their Children’s Home in Juarez, and helped coordinate their short term missions program. We were married in El Paso in 1995. We were also involved with the Northeast (El Paso) Vineyard Church, and with the Mercy in Action missions’ school, participating in weekly health care and medical outreaches to Juarez.

In 1999 we left the mission field shortly after Shelley’s mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, and spent the following five years in Georgia. Then we spent nearly a year in the Philippines, where Shelley did her midwifery training with the Christian missionary organization Mercy in Action (www.mercyinaction.com). She also did some training with the Newlife International School of Midwifery (www.midwifeschool.org), a very efficient and competent midwife training school. While in the Philippines,  we were able to pioneer a birthing center in the city of Tabuk and work with members of the indigenous But-But tribe.

We moved to Loveland, Colorado, in April 2005 to serve as assistant youth pastors at Faith Evangelical Church, then to Samachique, Mexico, in August 2006.

We have 3 beautiful daughters; Joy who was born in Mexico, Abby who was delivered by midwife friends in New Mexico, and Evelyn who was born in Georgia with midwife friends.
            You can write to us at:
            Edwin@riveraministries.org
            Shelley@riveraministries.org