Langham Live February 2026 with Alejandra Ortiz, a Langham Scholar from Mexico
Event Transcript
Good evening, everyone. Really good to be with you. My name’s Simon Foulds. I’m the development manager for Langham in the UK and Ireland and I’ve missed this. It’s been a while since I’ve been on. I think the last one was perhaps the end of November. So it’s good to be back and seeing friendly faces and we can just share about Langham and pray together about Langham.
And it’s great this evening to introduce you to Alejandra Ortiz who is in Mexico. Good evening. Well, I keep saying good evening, good morning. Really good for you to be here. Just share with us whereabouts you are.
Yeah, hi. I’m very happy to be with you all this mostly evening for you and morning for me. I’m in Tijuana, Mexico. So Tijuana, which is in the northwest of Mexico, literally bordering the Pacific Ocean and San Diego, California. So it’s a 3 million people city in the north of Mexico.
Excellent. And has that always been home or that kind of area, or have you moved around?
Mostly, yes, except for a year, a little bit more than a year we spent in Canada when I finished my master’s. But it’s where my mom was born. My dad migrated in 1948. So it’s home for me. It’s been home.
Wonderful. And just tell us about your family, your immediate family, who you have there or should be there.
Yes, I’m married to Abdiel for 11 years, going on to 12 years. And we have two daughters. Abdiel is also on staff with the Mexican Student Movement affiliated IFES. Our daughters are Erandi, who is eight, and Ayari, who just turned five. So both girls, and they’re both in school right now.
So you got the house to yourself at the moment?
Yes, my husband went and is doing some things and so I’m by myself right now.
Very good. And we’ll go back in a bit. But just to put into context that you are studying at the moment, you’ve got a Langham scholarship and you’re doing that through OCMS, I think?
Yes, that’s right. Through the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies.
Excellent. Well, we’ll come back to that. We’ve stepped quite a way forward there. But just to put everybody in context, just so you shared that home for you and family. Does the faith go through generations as well? Is that…?
No, actually. Well, my husband, yes, his parents became Christians through the grandparents and they went to a Pentecostal church. But in my case, I grew up Catholic, most of my family is Catholic. It was in my teenage years, when I was 15, that a couple of teachers in my high school were sharing the gospel with us. They had become Christians through the student movement, through Bible studies in the university. When they shared the gospel with me, they invited me to do Bible studies. Initially, I was reticent around 13 and 14, but after I turned 15 I said yes. That’s how I also immediately became involved with the Mexican student movement and through Bible studies in high school and then university. I became a Christ follower at 15 and my dad closely after he also became a Christian. My mom took a couple of years. So now the whole family, my immediate family from my parents’ side, they share faith.
So after you came to faith and that was obviously quite, you know, those sort of teenage years, you’re thinking about career and starting to think education. Did that shape what you did, education-wise?
Straight away, very much actually. I think I at a point felt the call to do mission. Also, what was very formative was the fact that I was already involved in student ministry and that felt as mission. I understood that mission was everything we did with our whole lives. I was very committed to that. Then I thought I wanted to do theology because I also had a lot of questions and wanted to walk alongside others. I got good advice from staff and friends saying, “Go to university, do ministry there and once you finish you can pursue your questions through a master’s.” So I thought, that sounds like something I can do. I studied history as my bachelor’s, which has been really formative for my own life and also my theological reflections and ministry itself. Then I did my master’s a couple of years later in theology.
And was that all within Mexico, studying local to home?
Yes, yeah. I stayed in Mexico. That was one of the things I felt God was inviting me to do, even though it didn’t make much sense because my parents wanted me to go abroad. I felt like no, I think I’m actually invited to stay and do my studies here in Mexico.
Very good. So after the master’s you’ve mentioned, your work was already involved with IFES. Did that continue then after you’d finished studying?
Yes, I did my master’s through Regent College and I started by distance education for three years, doing courses through summers and distance, then we had to live there for a year because some courses were residential. I had a sabbatical from student ministry after eight years. We were there for a year, and I finished and came back to work with the Mexican Student Movement. After that, I was invited to work with IFES Global.
I’ll come back to that if you like, but I think I need to ask, so when did the word Langham come into all of this? When did you first hear that word?
I think I actually heard it when I was still before my master’s. People were encouraging me within IFES to do theological studies, they said you could apply for a Langham Scholarship, but then said that was only for PhDs. I already knew about Langham through Langham Preaching and through some people who had connections between IFES and Langham because of networks around that. I also knew about Langham because of John Stott.
Very good. So your studies at the moment, whereabouts are you in those studies?
I’m in my third year. I started in 2023, in September, then transferred to OCMS. You start with a proposal and officially become part of the MPhil stage once your proposal is refined, and then you go into the PhD stage once you prove you can do PhD research. I entered in September 2023, was in the MPhil stage by early 2024, and in December 2025 I did the transfer panel from MPhil to PhD stage. So I’m starting the PhD stage, working on writing the thesis and preparing for some oral history interviews.
That sounds like a lot of work. Tell us about your thesis. What are you studying?
I’m looking into the contributions of women who were pioneers or who started the student movements with IFES at the university level in Latin America. IFES is the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. In Latin America, there’s a lot about the men who pioneered the movements, who were friends with John Stott, but little about the women. From letters and journals, it’s obvious women were partnering and doing amazing work, but there hasn’t been research about their contribution to the ethos and culture of IFES in Latin America. That’s what I’m looking into.
Excellent. And once that’s completed and you’ve graduated, what’s the hope that will achieve back at home for you?
Well, doing church history and women’s history has been formational for me. The information is encouraging and challenging. In student ministry, I have chances to teach about this. I’m committed to continue working with IFES after I graduate; they’re my sending institution. One of the reasons I went into the PhD was because I felt it was God’s invitation and because I needed to think, analyze, and discern better for the church and for student ministry, especially about challenges. That’s what I hope and pray for.
Here in the UK, the phrase used in recent years is “quiet revival,” with a younger generation coming to faith. Is that echoed in Mexico as well? What are you seeing in student faith growth?
I think in Mexico and Latin America, there’s been growth in faith for decades. The challenges have changed from when I was at university more than 20 years ago. There’s interest and desire among students to learn more about the gospel while differentiating themselves from nominal Catholicism in which they were raised. So there’s been steady growth in student ministry and among young people.
You mentioned that challenges have changed. What were the challenges 20 years ago compared to now? What questions are students asking?
When I was at university, one main challenge was moving from a modernist to a postmodernist paradigm. Questions came from that reality. Now, students are no longer struggling with questions about truth in that way. It’s more about “does this make sense?” and “how does this story sound?” and “is this a story I can be part of?” Other values drive the questions. I find it exciting to see how our Christian faith responds to those.
Very interesting. What’s high on the agenda at IFES now? Any projects coming up?
There are a couple of things. I’m heading the World Assembly program for 2027. IFES has a World Assembly every four years, and I’m leading the program team for the upcoming assembly in Dublin, Ireland. It will get busier next year. Also, I was recently appointed to a new role that I really like—the Secretary for Research and Global Conversations for IFES. It’s a new role created for me to continue with IFES while finishing my PhD and contributing to the World Assembly. I can slowly develop what this role looks like.
Regarding the World Assembly, what kind of numbers and representation do you expect?
Usually around a thousand people attend, with representatives from about 160 countries. The last assembly was in Indonesia. It’s one of the most representative events. I’ve been involved in several assemblies. It’s a unique and beautiful event but also a challenge to lead a program team that ensures all IFES regions feel included and their unique contributions are seen.
We look forward to it. Mark in Northern Ireland will be keen to hear how that progresses and how we can support you.
Yes, I’d look forward to welcoming people here in the next couple of years.
You gave us some prayer points earlier. Since you’ve emailed them, can we touch on some? Also, Mexico has been in the news recently. How safe are you now and how close is the situation? What can we pray about?
Mexico has been in the news because of the power of drug cartels in the country, which has been ongoing for decades but the last 20 years it’s become a harder reality. Many parts of society are connected to or affected by drug cartels. To me, it’s the context I’ve grown up in, so it doesn’t feel scandalous, but it can be hard to accept as normal. The church often sees and works around it similarly. Events over the weekend highlight how complex it is. It’s easy to say “it is what it is,” but as Christians, we need to reflect on what the kingdom of God looks like in this context and what churches are uniquely invited to do.
Is your family okay in the current situation?
Yes. We followed instructions not to take our girls to school on Monday, but everything normalised by Tuesday.
Thank you for sharing. It’s a reminder to consider what circumstances we might have normalised in our own contexts, even if less dangerous. And we have your prayer points here in the chat. Are there any you want to delve into?
Yes, one is about the family’s rhythms. We returned from a three to four-month residency in the UK last year, and this year we started with different rhythms and things we want to continue. We want to discern how God is inviting us in this context. My eldest is eight, and I’m glad for months with less travel to pay attention to things. Pray for wisdom to raise them, for their personal encounters with Jesus, and to be able to follow Him with their own convictions. This is a new stage in the family.
You’ve touched on something we haven’t asked about: how Langham pastorally cares for you and your family, especially with the different cultures and time zones.
Langham’s support has been really good. I meet regularly with some Langham people. When we were in Oxford, Danny Crother visited and connected us with other Langham scholar families from Colombia, which we really enjoyed. It was a beautiful chance to feel part of a wider family. In a couple of months, I’ll be joining the North American scholars gathering. The prayers, encouragement, and personal connections have been ways we have felt supported by Langham.
Thank you, Alejandra, for sharing your story and insights with us tonight. We’ll continue to pray for you, your family, your studies, and the work you’re doing with IFES and Langham.