Located just south of France near the Bay of Biscay, Bilbao is in the heart of Basque country.
The Basques, a people group in the western Pyrenees Mountains, have traditionally remained isolated from the rest of the country. They even speak their own Basque language.
Baptist work started in the Basque area about 30 years ago when a Cuban missionary came to Spain, according to Julio Diaz, pastor of Bilbao Baptist Church.
The missionary first attempted to start a church in Bilbao but determined the area was too difficult, so he moved to a smaller area outside Bilbao called Basauri and began a church.
The missionary then returned to Bilbao and built a small chapel. Several pastors came and went over the years, just enough to keep the small Baptist work alive.
But when Diaz and his family arrived in the area in 1976, they came ready to put down roots.
Coming from a nine-year pastorate at the Baptist church in Castellon, the 20 members attending the Bilbao church seemed small.
“It was a difficult time, especially for my son, who came from a larger, more organized church with more youth,” said Diaz, who also served as the interim pastor of the Basauri church.
For a while, the struggle only got worse. “For two or three years, often times I would preach just to my family, because no one else came,” he said. “There were also problems because sometimes the Spanish Baptist Convention wouldn’t send money when it was supposed to,” he noted.
Finally, after realizing the work was just not growing, Diaz said he tried a new strategy of distributing literature, tracts and pamphlets. “I began to establish cell groups in different places,” he said.
“We began to see new people converted to Christ, and the church began to grow,” he said. “We even had to build a baptistery to baptize the members,” he noted.
“We had a lot of different activities and would go to different villages to distribute literature and make contacts,” Diaz explained. “That was how we began to grow and how we started our third mission point in the fishing village of Burmao.”
The work began in Burmao, which is the “most Basque,” of the area, when a woman saw Diaz on television and became interested in hearing the gospel. She asked a friend of hers to call him. Diaz visited the woman and shared the gospel, and a Baptist work began.
Diaz led Bible studies in homes in Burmao until they got permission to use a public building. They moved around several times until they were able to build a chapel.
Church leaders are now seeking to extend the work farther into other areas around Bilbao.
As they continue to grow, Alabama Baptists, namely groups from First Baptist, Selma, encouraged them along their journey. A group from Mobile also worked with the church.
“The groups visited, distributed literature and did puppets and clowns in the plaza,” Diaz said.
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