New Hispanic Ministry receives prayer at South Calgary Community Church, Canada.

Antonio Lopez recently relocated to Calgary Canada to represent Hispanics for Christ in the region. He is serving on staff at South Calgary Community Church as the Pastor of their Hispanic ministry. This is in addition to SCCC’s Brazilian, Russian and English ministries they have!

In the last month, Antonio not only launched three home groups meeting around the city but last week the church launched the Hispanic worship service on Sundays. SCCC started this new ministry off with prayer and their blessing. There were about thirty people at this first service. A great start for what we hope is a movement of new Hispanic churches and leaders throughout Alberta. In Canada 1.2% of the population speaks Spanish and Calgary has over 13,000 Hispanics living in a city of 3 million. Thee are Hispanics across Canada, especially in the larger urban centers.

Pastor Steve Kellar preaching in San Salvador.

They identified two challenges they face there. The first is one of having adequate materials for teaching new believers. The second is training on how to intentionally and effectively teach new believers and create a culture of discipleship. We are able to share solutions to both of these challenges and we are very excited to do so. This has the potential to multiply beyond the first group of churches to many hundreds of churches across the country. As one of them said, there is a need to “replant” the church in El Salvador.

Pastor nicolas teaching children at camp.

Nicolas Gallo and the E.S.E.F. team recently completed a two week summer camp for children and youth in Salta, Argentina. They assembled a team of 25 leaders to help conduct their camp. During the first week of January they had 65 children attend camp. 30 children in this group received Christ!

During the second week of camp, 70 young people attended. In this group there were 20 professions of faith and 45 of them dedicated their lives to Christ. This year was such a success and the response so good they plan on holding four weeks of camp next year.

Mission team from Casa de Luz.

Back in September 2011 some members of Casa de Luz in Sacramento visited a community in Mexico and came back with a burning desire to help. For the next several months they worked incessantly to motivate people and share a vision for helping a community where the church could have a significant impact. The people of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, in Mexico have now experienced first-hand the love of Christ through the lives of believers.

What started as an idea of some individuals from Casa de Luz became a great experience for most of our church. Soon, there were people collecting school supplies, toys, bicycles and (you guessed!) soccer balls. This joy began reaching people who until now have not thought of Casa de Luz as a sending church… God had started to move in His people to be a blessing to others.

There were also some members of First Baptist Church of Elk Grove (FBC) that decided to join the adventure and became part of the team. A couple of men from FBC Men’s Ministry and others members of “the big church” became key in reaching Casa de Luz’s goal.

A group of eight men spend a whole week in San Luis RC building a stage for the church Jehova-Sama, located in one of San Luis’ poorest communities. Among cardboard houses, dusty roads and millions of needs, the team worked hard to complete the project and bring joy and pride to a community that has very little.

We were also able to minister to the spiritual needs of the people in San Luis. Some members of the team went on several occasions to visit the community. Armed with  joy and faith (and in some cases a stick because of the dogs!) we invited people to come to an evangelistic service. God moved in the hearts of the people and some even started to arrive and hour early! The service was powerful with songs, testimonies from our team and the preaching of the Gospel. At least 9 people gave their lives to the Jesus for the first time and many others returned to him in reconciliation.

It was an amazing week. We finished the project and were able to minister to many people. Even in the middle of some difficulties to get there, God showed us that he was preparing us for this. Our effort has brought glory to God. The church and the people of San Luis Rio Colorado have experienced the love of God through his people. God has changed our lives allowing us to see how much we have to be thankful for.

Casa de Luz has started a relationship with Jehova-Sama church that we hope will turn into a long time partnership in ministry. Plans to continue to work in San Luis opening new churches have already been discussed and one day we hope to see people going back to their own country serving God as missionaries.

Worship at this years retreat.

One of the clearest characteristics of this retreat was the partnerships that have been formed for the kingdom’s glory. Funding was provided by the North American Baptist Conference, short-term missions organizations were represented (Gateway Teams and E-3 Partners), and church planting strategy came from a variety of leaders including workshops taught by several Hispanic for Christ Field Coordinators.

New works started in the last year were celebrated, indigenous missions were presented to the Purépecha in Michoacán and children in the poor neighborhoods of Guanajuato. Plans were also made to send North American Teams to work along side Mexican churches to plant new churches in numerous cities.

The best part of the whole week was the encouragement gained around tables, discussing plans, sharing ideas and praying for each other. This is a luxury many pastors in Latin America seldom get. It will be exciting to see next year the fruit that comes from this retreat.

Antonio Lopez honors BTCP students.

Saturday night for completing the first and second courses in the Bible Training Center for Pastors program in Wilsonville, Oregon, USA. They each finished “Bible Study Methods and Rules of Interpretation” and “Old Testament Survey.” Some of the students are serving as pastors already and several others are being prepared to take greater roles in local church leadership.

In January 2012 HFC will offer the New Testament Survey course in the Portland area. We currently have two other BTCP sites, one in Sacramento, California and the other in Salta, Argentina. We anticipate beginning in Merida, Mexico early 2012.

Paco Damian welcoming pastors to last year's retreat.

Arrangements are being finalized and invitations have already gone out for this year’s pastor’s retreat in Querétaro, Mexico November 14-18. This will be the fifth year Fusion Ministries has hosted this wonderful opportunity for almost 100 pastors and their wives to spend a week together being equipped, challenged and encouraged in their call to plant new churches across Mexico.

Our Central Mexico Field Coordinator, Paco Damian, and his team at Fusion will once again host this conference, bringing in experienced church planters from Argentina to share their experience with new planters working across Mexico. Mexican pastors will be coming from as far north as Rosarito in Baja California and as far east as Merida in the Yucatan peninsula. They will be guaranteed a week of networking, learning, relaxing and recharging for the call they’ve received in ministry.

Each year though, there are pastors who are unable to afford the cost of travel and registration. The North American Baptist Conference has generously provided a grant to help get many there but we would love to bless more of these hard working pastors with the gift of “retreating” for a week. If you could help scholarship some of these Mexican pastors for the conference please contact HFC for more information or send a gift directly to us.

There are pictures from last year on our photos page.

ESEF Team overlooking new property in Salta, Argentina.

Less than two years ago a group of students from Palabra de Vida in Buenos Aires decided to work together in Salta in the North of Argentina. One member of this team, Nicolas Gallo, became a Hispanics for Christ Field Coordinator this last year, and he and the missions team are doing some incredible things with minimal resources and in a short period of time!

Some of the achievements of this team so far have been forming the church-planting ministry ESEF (Building on the Foundation) – then launching their six-month discipleship program (CEDA), their two-year Center for Biblical Studies, and a community care/evangelism program called Salta Life, as well as various evangelistic outreaches, campaigns and youth events. They have also started two churches and purchased land to construct a building for the ministry.

The first week in August this ministry will send a team to Venezuela to share the Gospel and work with local pastors in a jungle region known as Delta Amacuro. For a taste of what this area looks like, check out the Youtube video from a eco-tour group called Wakajara . The vision of this team is incredible.

Tony Campos leading chapel service last April at Pastors Training Center.

Last year Eduardo Buldain, Field Coordinator in Buenos Aires, started a Pastor’s Training Center to prepare leaders for planting and leading churches. Their third semester of classes has just begun, with fifteen married couples  and two singles enrolled! Eduardo and his team bought an estate in San Justo, just outside Buenos Aires, and have been remodeling the property to serve as their home and the Training Center campus. This is an incredible resource for equipping pastors to go out and plant new churches throughout Argentina and other countries in South America.

Classroom at San Justo Pastors Training Center.

Eduardo has also been very busy mentoring numerous pastors throughout the region, holding conferences and retreats designed to strengthen their families and their faith and support their ministries. He continues to teach regularly at the Word of Life Bible Institute, challenging young students to grow in their passion and commitment to serve God, His word and His work.

Pastor Juan Tun (2nd f/left) with pastors from Merida area.

In the short course of two years Juan Tun, our Field Coordinator in Merida, has gone from planting and now leading one church in Merida to leading a network of four churches in the northern Yucatan, three which he planted! Juan planted a second church in a pueblo called Huhi, and is right now laying the groundwork for a new church in a third pueblo called Hili. The fourth church is in Quintana and though it was planted by a Mexican national returning from the United States, Juan has coached and helped the church to become very successful. Juan regularly visits the leaders of these churches, organizes combined activities, and oversees teams that come to visit from the U.S. to help with evangelism.

Pray for success in Hili as Juan visits the leaders of the community and presents the idea of a new evangelical church in their village.