Larry and Judy Averitt: Service at Monte Hebrón and in Matehuala

Larry and Judy Averitt served at Monte Hebrón for twenty-five years before continuing their work alongside Pastor Jesús Acosta in Matehuala. Their later ministry carried a personal connection: Larry had reached Acosta with the gospel while serving at Monte Hebrón, about fifteen years before the couple’s work in Matehuala was recorded in 2009.[3]

Their story links years of shared service with the development of another pastor’s ministry. It includes Larry’s leadership at a youth camp, the couple’s place among Monte Hebrón’s longtime coworkers, and their subsequent assistance in a congregation led by a man Larry had helped reach.[1][2][3]

Twenty-five years at Monte Hebrón

For a quarter of a century, Larry and Judy worked within the ministry at Monte Hebrón. They were among the people Tommy Ashcraft publicly recognized in October 2005 as essential coworkers in the church and institute’s work.[2][3]

That recognition included both Larry and Judy by name. They appeared alongside fellow workers such as Javier and Eliud Carvajal, Cupertino and América García, Betty Hall, William and Lupita Martin, and Carrie and Caleb Suhl. The account emphasized the contribution of the team as a whole, rather than assigning credit solely to its leadership.[2]

The surviving recognition did not list individual duties, so it does not establish Judy’s particular responsibilities. It does establish her place alongside Larry among the people whose regular service Tommy valued and depended upon.[2]

Larry’s work with young people

One specific example of Larry’s responsibilities comes from the summer of 2004. While Tommy and Brenda were away on vacation, Larry and Javier Carvajal ran the youth camp attended by sixty-five young people.[1]

Eight of those young people surrendered their lives to full-time Christian service. The camp thus provided a setting for decisions about future ministry as well as a shared summer experience for the church’s youth.[1]

The account preserves both men’s names and their responsibility for the camp. It offers a glimpse of the leadership entrusted to Larry during his years at Monte Hebrón: helping direct an event in which young people were challenged to consider their own service to God.[1]

A lasting connection with Jesús Acosta

During his service at Monte Hebrón, Larry reached Jesús Acosta with the gospel. The July 2009 account places that encounter about fifteen years earlier, approximately in the mid-1990s. An exact date is not given.[3]

Acosta later started a church in Matehuala. By 2009, Larry and Judy were working with him there. Their association had developed from Larry’s personal evangelistic contact with Acosta into service alongside him in the church he had established.[3]

The documented roles are distinct: Acosta started the Matehuala congregation, and the Averitts subsequently worked with him. Their contribution belonged to a continuing partnership rather than to the founding of the church itself.[3]

The church’s tenth anniversary

In 2009, Tommy traveled to Matehuala and preached at the congregation’s tenth anniversary. By that visit, Larry and Judy’s work with Acosta was part of the ongoing connection between the Matehuala church and their former coworkers at Monte Hebrón.[3]

The anniversary brought together several stages of that history: Larry’s earlier witness to Acosta, Acosta’s establishment of a congregation, and the Averitts’ continued service alongside its pastor after their twenty-five years at Monte Hebrón.[3]

Larry and Judy’s place in this history rests on both the length of their service and the relationships that continued beyond it. From the coworkers recognized at Monte Hebrón to the young people at camp and the congregation in Matehuala, the surviving accounts preserve a record of shared work carried forward into another community.[1][2][3]