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To an outsider, Armonía Ministries looks like a remarkable example of local leadership in some of Mexico's poorest communities—a network of schools, medical clinics, and community centers led by community members themselves. And it is. But Armonía ("Harmony") is also a cross-cultural mission—not just because it welcomes short- and long-term volunteers from churches in the United States and Europe, but because its founders had to learn to cross daunting class and cultural barriers. Saul (pronounced sah-OOL) and Pilar Cruz founded Armonía in 1987 just as Saul, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology, was rising to prominence as a national leader in World Vision Mexico. As he describes in this interview with Christian Vision Project editorial director Andy Crouch, Armonía's story is one of unlearning many of his assumptions about success and significance.

It's a story that holds many lessons for anyone who would cross barriers of education and privilege—anyone who is asking the Christian Vision Project's question for 2007: What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God's mission in the world?

In 1985 there were about a thousand Protestant churches—for a city that was estimated at that time somewhat over 8 million people—with an average of 60 members.

We took a socioeconomic map of Mexico City. At that time, 8 percent of the residents of Mexico City were wealthy, some of the wealthiest people in the world, in fact. Then 17 percent, at that time, were middle class; 75 percent were poor, most of them surviving on less than a dollar a day.

Then on this map that highlighted areas by income, we located the churches. Of 1,000 churches, 890 were located in middle-class neighorhoods. A few were among the wealthy—mostly serving not Mexicans but expatriates. Nearly all the rest were at the borders between poor and middle class neighborhoods. Almost none were located within poor neighborhoods.

So you had vast areas of Mexico City without any evangelical Protestant presence.

But I did discover a large church in one of the worst neighborhoods—a neighborhood without water, without paved roads, with very little electricity. This is it, I thought, the kind of church that mobilizes its resources to serve in a place where those resources are really needed. So I visited the pastor.

Walking into the compound, we found a paradise: green grass, sprinkled water, and nice cars. The pastor received me with great joy, took me to his office, and offered me coffee. He kept a very nice office!

I asked him how in the world his church had ended up here. I was expecting him to say, "I saw the need. I saw that we could have an effect."

He said, "You know, land is cheap here. If you protect the cars, you can have plenty of good parking spaces!"

Now, I must say that if you come to the United States, the picture is not so different. Many churches are little islands that really do not get involved with the neighbors. They don't realize that they can have an effect in the transformation of society.

My wife has always been my partner, my chief intercessor. When we got married, we had made a commitment to work among the poor. When I was making very good money and my career as a psychologist was taking off, we had left it all behind to start a school for disabled children in a poor community. But the more I got involved in my work with World Vision a few years later, the more distant she became.

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