Alabama, Venezuela bond grows with visits, shared ministries

For six Venezuelan men, their ability to roll their r’s has allowed them to roll up their sleeves and get to work spreading the gospel in Alabama.
   
Five pastors from Venezuela — Edurado Torres, Adel Robayna, Alexander Montero, Rafael Diaz and David Romero — and one translator, Miguel Rodriguez, are leading revivals in Hispanic churches across the state from April 21–May 3.

“Their coming here helps to motivate Hispanics in our state,” said Reggie Quimby, coordinator of the partnership between Baptists in Alabama and Venezuela.
   
The six guests are giving a Venezuelan flair to church services and revivals in the Montgomery, Center Point, Albertville, Birmingham, Geraldine, Springville, Athens and Russellville areas. And though the visitors bring with them the ease associated with the laid-back Hispanic culture, they also bring an urgency to reach Alabama’s Hispanics with the gospel in their own language.
   
It’s a sense of purpose that has crossed cultural borders for four years through the partnership: Volunteers from Alabama and Venezuela alike have never balked at taking responsibility for making sure their Spanish-speaking brothers and sisters hear about Christ.
   
“Their being here will help strengthen the Hispanic work here, as well as be a reciprocal part of the partnership between Alabama and Venezuela,” Quimby said.
   
That partnership is of a personal nature, of course — Robayna can testify to that. His son, Annel, now attends the University of Mobile as the result of Alabama Baptist volunteers who took an interest in him.
   
And father and son were reunited in Alabama — a place of personal investments for both of them.
   
Robayna has joined the five other men visiting door-to-door during the day and speaking in churches at night, a simple investment that has led many Hispanics in Alabama to Christ during the past four years.
   
And Alabama Baptists plan to return the favor — 104 volunteers from the state will do evangelism and discipleship in Venezuela in July.
   
It’s a trade-off that pays off in souls won to Christ, Quimby said.