Stretching 150 miles east from San Diego and Tijuana on the Pacific coast to Yuma and San Luis Rio Colorado, the Western Region of the border is the most populated section of the U.S./Mexico boundary. Over four million people live in Tijuana alone, and over eight million Hispanics dwell in Southern California south of Los Angeles! The cost of living in Southern California is extremely high, requiring a church planter working there to receive nearly $250,000 in annual salary just to survive! As with other parts of the border, there is a tremendous flow of people crossing the border daily, with as many of 60,000 people crossing from Tijuana to San Diego each day to go to work. There is quite a contrast in climates as well, from a pleasant ocean climate of the coast to the scorching 120° heat of the Sonoran desert around Mexicali and Yuma.

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Gary and Carol Nantt began their career with Mission to the World in November, 1977, serving in South Korea until 1992. Soon after, they went to language school and joined BEAMM in 1995, serving first in Ciudad Juárez for four a half years, then moving to Tijuana in 2000. But the Nantt’s cross-cultural mission career didn’t really begin in 1977. At age six, Gary knew he would be a preacher even though the doctors said he would never be able to talk well.  Immediately after graduation from Sacramento State, he was drafted and served in the 2nd Medical Battalion in Korea 1968-1969.  After being discharged, he worked in the underwriting department of Equitable Life.  Carol's father was in the Air Force, so their family moved frequently.  She attended elementary school in Puerto Rico, junior high in Mobile, AL, most of high school in Charleston, SC and graduated from high school in Newfoundland, Canada. She attended Florence State for two years until her father was sent to Fairfield, CA, where she first attended the University of California Davis and then Sacramento State where she met Gary. During the time that he worked for Equitable Life, Gary was a member of the Gideon's International, studied EE, was the southwest coordinator for Here's Life Atlanta and did some volunteer church planting activities with PEF.  That was when he finally answered God's call to be a preacher. He entered Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS in June 1975 with the idea of evangelism/church planting.