Hispanics for Christ has had a part in planting 12 new Hispanic churches across the Americas over the last year. These are just the ones we can measure because many of our Field Coordinators are supporting other pastors and church planting efforts outside their direct circles. They facilitated 20 evangelism campaigns, many with teams from churches from within Latin America. These campaigns have led to 31 groups of new believers, gathering for discipleship with the goal of becoming self-sufficient churches in the next 1 to 3 years.
In addition to the actual church planting, our Field Coordinators facilitated 15 church planting/pastoral retreats in California, Mexico, Argentina, and Paraguay. There are now over 90 churches in this network today across the Americas.
In the coming year we hope to better financially support these Field Coordinators to continue doing what they have been called to do, and possibly pursue opportunities to expand into new fields in El Salvador and Cuba.
Yucatan, Mexico, Baptisms
Geoff Hartt (Director), Ricardo Ayala (F/C – Chicago) and Paco Damian (F/C – Queretaro, MX) recently joined Juan Tun (F/C – Merida, MX) for the first baptisms of a church in Quintana, Yucatan, Mexico. Pablo Borges is a well respected farmer in his community and serves as pastor of this Mayan village church.
Pastor Pablo built a baptismal tank that doubles as a reservoir for the water he uses to irrigate his chili plants. He promised God that if He would give him a successful well on the property, he would use that water to baptize new believers. God answered his prayer and we saw the first harvest of what we are sure will be an abundant crop in this village.
We met Pablo 7-8 years ago in Portland, Oregon, and discipled him there. When the time came for him to return to Mexico he went back as an indigenous church planter. We helped train and encourage him as he began a new work. Today this small church has its own chapel, bathrooms, and is completing a sanctuary building.
There are so many parts of Merida without an evangelical church and many of the villages have only a small Catholic church. We are focusing on building our relationships with other pastors in the Yucatan Peninsula and evaluating how we can better equip men to lead in the churches there. The harvest is great and the workers are still few!