After 34 years overseas, Harpers follow call to Hispanic ministry in Hoover

For the last 19 years in Quito, Ecuador, the way to finding salvation had a tangible door — and its doorbell never stopped ringing. But Donna Harper said she and her husband, Harry, were always happy to answer it. Their front door was wide open in a land where villages were closed to outsiders — and as a result, there was always someone stepping through it.
   
The Harpers, now living in McCalla on a yearlong stateside assignment with the International Mission Board (IMB) before retiring from overseas missions work, have spent the last 34 years serving among Spanish-speakers. They first served in Colombia, then among the Quichua Indians in Ecuador. “Our home in Ecuador was our missions center, and it was a very busy home with lots of people coming and going,” Donna Harper said.
   
According to Harry Harper, among a people who lived in “gated communities without gates” — meaning a person had to know an insider to have access — this type of openness was rare. 
   
Their home became a place to dispense simple medications and house Quichua college students who lived too far from their homes to commute to school. Donna Harper taught piano lessons, and Harry Harper had a shop where he helped the men with carpentry and welding.
   
For the lost Quichuans, it was an inroad to sharing the gospel. For the Christians they helped, it was a natural opportunity for discipleship.
   
“We can’t rank them (the Quichuans) as being very receptive — it is a Roman Catholic nation steeped in tradition,” Harry Harper said. “But God provided ways for us to make contacts and go into their ‘gated communities.’”
   
In one such instance, some elderly women lived in a closed community in a house that was “falling to pieces,” he said. Because of word being passed of Baptists working in other communities, they were allowed to come, assess the house’s condition and turn it into a minga, or community work project.
   
As a result, a Bible study is now being led in that community by a Quichuan Christian.
   
“We never worked independently of Christians who were already living there,” Harry Harper said. “Because of that, the satisfaction has been walking out of it and leaving the work still going on.”
   
Geographically speaking, the couple may have walked out of their work, but spiritually speaking, they haven’t gone far. In between carrying out their final IMB assignments at missions conferences across the nation, the Harpers spend their time building up Hunter Street Baptist Church’s Hispanic congregation — Iglesia Hispanoamericana de Hoover.
   
According to Harry Harper, now part-time pastor of the fledgling church, “It’s a different place, a different setting, but it’s still God’s grace meeting people’s needs.”
   
Frank Blackwell, minister of missions for Hunter Street Baptist, said, “We really believe God sent them at the right time, and we are so excited to have them here working with our Hispanic ministry.”
   
The Harpers’ call to missions is one they can’t just walk away from, they both agreed.
   
“Way back in 1968, Harry was in seminary at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and we began hearing about missions needs overseas. I was working with GAs (Girls in Action) and questioned, ‘How can I tell them to be open to God’s call to missions when I’m not?’ It was at that time that God began to speak to me, and I told him I was willing to go wherever,” Donna Harper said.
   
Thirty-four years, three children and seven grandchildren later, the Harpers have found out what “wherever” means — the Spanish-speaking community. “We feel equally at home in the Hispanic culture as we do in the American now,” she said.
   
And that comfort level is an arrow in the quiver of a church trying to reach a Hispanic community 60,000-strong in Birmingham. “We’re transitioning but we’re looking at a long-term commitment here,” Harry Harper said. “If we’re to truly reach and make an impact in this people group, we’re going to have to build relationships and that takes time.”
   
It’s time, however, that he and the Hispanic Christians who serve alongside the Harpers are willing to take. 
   
Just recently, the church reached out to a mother who arrived in Birmingham from Mexico to take care of a son injured in a construction accident.
   
“The Hispanic group chipped in to buy food for them,” he said. “We want to reach out, and we want to see those in the church mature in Christ and have a vision for His purpose in their lives.”
   
With the Harpers, the missions effort is, of course, not only focused locally but also globally. “Many who are here aren’t staying here forever, and they can still be on mission somewhere else.
   
“We’re just trying to help them where they are, help them grow as Christians — and hope that if they move, God takes them to another place where they can be used.”