The congregants at Valley Praise UMC in Harlingen walked, cycled, pushed strollers, and drove 10.5 miles to their new campus on October 29. Waiting at the former site of Santa Rosa UMC, volunteers prepared a community pancake breakfast. This is the church’s second pilgrimage to a new campus in two years. 

Valley Praise started as a New Church Start in 2010. They have expanded their campus twice now. They started at a local elementary school, and then moved to a building on Jefferson in 2014. Over 100 people attended that pilgrimage in December 2014. Since then, they have added two licensed local pastors and three worship services. They later found the former Santa Rosa UMC to be implemented as Valley Praise Santa Rosa Campus. 

“Our vision is to develop our Harlingen Campus into the epicenter from which sites may be connected to,” said Senior Pastor Rev. Aaron Saenz. “As far as necessity, we believe that it is our call and our mission to grow and reach more and new people with and for the Gospel of Christ.  In our eyes, expansion is about us living into the necessary call of Christ.”