Hispanics lead among the 13 different language/culture groups identified by the associational and cooperative missions office (ACM) of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
Richard Alford, associate in charge of language missions in the ACM office, explained that besides groups such as Hispanics, Koreans and Vietnamese, included among the 13 groups are Messianic Jews and Native Americans. Though most of these last two groups speak English fluently, their strong cultures and traditions – which stem from different languages – differ from those found in mainstream Baptist churches.
“What we want to do is to provide an avenue for them (all language groups) to come to know Christ and worship God in the best way they can. If they can be culturally assimilated where they can feel comfortable linguistically and culturally (in a mainstream Baptist congregation), then we’ll do that,” Alford said.
But often the various language groups are more comfortable worshiping in their native languages, so Baptists are active in helping form language churches.
The emphasis that Alabama Baptists are giving to Hispanic ministry is consistent with the growth of Hispanics among Alabama’s population at large.
People of Hispanic or Latin descent accounted for 1.7 percent of Alabama’s population of 4,447,100 in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The total percentage of foreign-born residents of Alabama, in the bureau’s supplemental survey for 2000 is 2.3 percent, so apparently Hispanics outnumber other language/culture groups when considering the state totals, though in certain pockets of the state, they do not.
The bureau’s 2000 survey places Alabama’s total foreign-born population at 98,119. Alabama ranked 13th nationally in the rate of foreign-born change (increase) between 1960 and 2000 (see chart, page 3).
To help Baptist churches better serve and enable Hispanics, the North Alabama Baptist Hispanic Ministry Coalition formed in 1998, according to Dianne Lowe, corporate secretary of the coalition.
Lowe said one of its strengths from the beginning was that, “It was not people who were not in the trenches who thought it up. Each of the counties that came together was experiencing an exploding Hispanic population. We decided that if we came together we would be able to better minister to the Hispanic population,” she said. “It was unique and kind of a first for Alabama.”
“It is a coalition of the 14 Baptist associations in the quarter of the state that is above Interstate 20 and east of Interstate 65,” said John Long, director of missions for Madison Baptist Association.
Long, who serves on the coalition’s board, said the Baptist associations that comprise the coalition are: Cherokee, DeKalb, East Cullman, Etowah, Friendship, Limestone, Lookout Mountain, Madison, Marshall, Morgan, Sand Mountain, St. Clair, Tennessee River and West Cullman.
“The coalition was begun to advance the kingdom of Christ among the Hispanics in north Alabama and to teach the faith and practice of the Southern Baptist denomination, and to be catalytic in starting new Baptist churches and ministries,” Long said.
“The coalition was brought together because at the time it was started, none of the associations had enough Hispanics to form full churches. Also, they didn’t have the funding to do what needed to be done,” he said.
The coalition director, Juan Tovias, resigned in 2001 to become pastor of one of the Hispanic churches in north Alabama, so the coalition is seeking a new director. Serving as interim director is Don Reese, a retired international missionary of Marshall County.
Alford said Baptists are considering putting together similar Hispanic coalitions in central and south Alabama counties where there is the largest population of Hispanics.
The reasons Hispanics move to Alabama vary, but most come to join family or find work opportunities. According to Ebenezer De Sousa, a Crawford Baptist Church member and volunteer in the Hispanic mission there, about 95 percent of Hispanics in the Mobile area work in the nursery/horticulture industry.
Hispanics are among the people involved in language ministry in the Mobile Baptist Association in Mobile County. There are seven language congregations within the international ministries of the association, representing Arabic, Cambodian, Chinese, Hispanic, Korean, Laotian and Vietnamese, according to information from Aias de Souza, director of international ministries.
For the most part, Baptist Hispanics attend church in their own language congregations that are active parts of local Baptist associations. But teaching English as a second language is something several Baptist churches or associations do.
“Learning English is going to the store and asking for things — it’s survival,” said Alicia Little, who teaches English to Hispanics at Crawford Baptist Church. “It builds confidence and helps them in so many other ways.”
De Sousa said sharing the message of Jesus is an early and vital part of the English teaching at Crawford.
Crawford offers English language classes, fellowship, Sunday School and morning and evening church services to Hispanics within its mainstream church activities center.
“There are new faces nearly every week, so we’re always giving them the opportunity to accept Christ, but we also want to help them grow in Christ,” said Crawford member and volunteer with the Hispanic mission, Danny Reed.
At a once-a-month Hispanic festival, which utilizes the entire church activities center, 40–70 Hispanics attend for fellowship, recreation and food that many of them prepare.
“Of course, when the (mainstream) church has fellowships, we’re all in there with them,” Reed said.
He said that when the Hispanic mission group decides to go out to eat, they like Chinese cuisine.
Marcelino Marqez from Veracruz, Mexico, lives and works in the Mobile area and worships and fellowships at the Crawford Hispanic mission. He first came to the United States in 1999 and has lived in Alabama for two years. His family remains in Mexico, and his work in the nursery/horticulture industry enables him to send financial help to them, but he said that he has been able to go back only once in about three years to see them, he said.
Marqez, who has accepted Christ, enjoys all aspects of the Hispanic mission at Crawford and has been a part of it for two years.
Rafael Vasquez, who is from Quetzaltenango in Guatemala, said he likes all the ministry activities for Hispanics at Crawford. “Everything here is very good,” he said.
Vasquez became a Christian in Guatemala and sought a place in Alabama where he could grow in Christ and fellowship with other Hispanic Christians.
Anita Stokley, a Crawford Church volunteer, said about 10 volunteers from the congregation are active on a regular basis with the Hispanic ministry, which began about five years ago. Crawford Sunday School classes and church members support the Hispanic ministry in various ways.
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