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Most religious schools in Mexico charge $50 to $500 per month. Likewise, public school students face registration, uniform, supply, and maintenance costs that strain family budgets. But Gabriela Mistral charges nothing. Area families, which earn an average salary of $40 a week at maquiladoras—factories near the Mexico-U.S. border that make products for the United States—can now receive a free education.

The school relies on contributions from American churches, organizations, and individuals to meet its monthly operating costs. Its non-salaried teachers live from donation to donation. "My heart is here, for the children here and what they need," said Oralia Lechuga, 32, one of the first teachers. "Though I don't get paid economically, I get paid with spiritual fruit of God. I believe that God will pay me later."

Padilla's church uses the school not only to educate, but also to evangelize the community. "This is the way God has shown us to work for him so people will be evangelized," said Lechuga. "The Word of God is going to be preached in the world in different ways, and this school is the way God wants us to preach it here."

More than 60 percent of Padilla's students come from non-Christian households, sent to Gabriela Mistral because the school enjoys a reputation for respecting and caring for students. Two-thirds become Christians before graduation. In addition, more than 60 families have come to faith in the past eight years, a significant number when most area churches have 10 families or fewer amidst the area's cultural Catholicism.

"It's a miracle of God how he changed my life," said community member Erica Torres, 30, "and everything began there at the school." Torres had cried every day for two years after her father was killed by a drunk driver. Trying to escape her sadness and pain, she relocated to Kilometro 29, enrolling her daughter Keirim in Padilla's free school. Every day, Torres asked her first-grade daughter what she had learned in school. Every day, Keirim told her about God.

"God prepared the way through Keirim and the school for God to enter our house," said Torres. First Keirim came to faith, then Torres, then her sister Zicri, then her husband, Cesar, an alcoholic, and finally his parents. One year later, Torres became a teacher at the school.

"The children are an opportunity for God to enter these families," said Torres. "For Mexicans, children mean a lot. Parents can reject other people telling them about God, but they cannot reject their own kids. The kids are like little soldiers."

Teachers at Gabriela Mistral report that students often prefer Bible study over math or history. Many ask if they can fast and pray for their parents and families. "We are planting seeds in the children," said Elizabeth Del Toro, 40, principal of Libertador, another Christian school in Juarez. "They're learning Bible stories, learning to pray for their problems, and they are bringing those things home." She tells the story of a fourth-grade student who wanted to be a drug dealer, but said to his teacher at the end of the year, "I want to be a man who will do good for Mexico. I don't want to be a drug dealer anymore."

Outside observers attest to the evangelistic success of these Christian schools. "People respond when the church is involved not only spiritually in a community, but also in other aspects," said Ken Dahlager, director of Latin America ChildCare, an Assemblies of God ministry that supports schools like Gabriela Mistral throughout Latin America.

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December 2005, Vol. 49, No. 12