Spanish Baptists may have found friends for a lifetime. Although the Alabama-Spain partnership officially ended Dec. 31, 1999, several Alabama Baptists said they plan to continue cultivating relationships they developed.
Southside Baptist Church, Gadsden, is one group that intends to extend their partnership. A team of four women recently returned from the first of several activities planned for this year.
The team spent 10 days teaching various aspects of women’s ministry at Lanzarote Baptist Church on the Canary Islands, a province of Spain located in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the coast of Morocco.
It is not a one-sided partnership either, the Southside women said.
“They helped us as well,” said Alison Snyder, mother of three preschoolers, who helps with the preschool department at Southside Baptist. “We learned as much as we helped.
“It is the closest I have ever felt to God,” she said. “I felt God’s presence from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.”
Carolyn Adams agreed.
“Words can’t explain it. I am definitely a different person,” said Adams, who teaches Girls in Action to second-graders on Wednesday nights. “My mind, heart, soul and spirit have never been this clear. Ill go again if I can.”
Southside developed a partnership with Lanzarote Baptist Church when the Alabama-Spain partnership began Jan. 1, 1996, and has sent three teams to work with the church.
He first trip was mainly for assessing the situation, with a group traveling there to find out how the two churches could work together. The second trip included the college and career group and an evangelistic campaign.
The third, and most recent, experience brought four women together to teach about prayer, prayer walking, discipleship, tithing and family involvement in the church. The team also held an overnight women’s retreat.
One issue facing the women of the church is how to involve their family in church without having their children ridiculed at school.
Protestants are still considered cultic in many areas of Spain. The population is predominantly Catholic, and only in the last 20 years have Protestants not faced persecution in Spain.
Snyder encouraged one young woman to study and read her Bible along with prayer in order to answer questions from her children and peers. “I also told them, ‘Trust in the Lord and you will be blessed,” she said.
“We also taught them a lot about prayer and praying out loud,” Snyder said.
Virginia Ingram, choir member and member of the Woman’s Missionary Union at Southside, led the discussions on prayer.
Adams added that the team stressed the importance of an accountability partner and how they can benefit from sharing with each other.
“We got into the personal lives of the people,” Adams said. “And we shared ours.”
The team also helped start a women’s “Coffee and More” session, in which women gather for coffee and discuss a topic pertinent to them, such as stress, osteoporosis, depression, health and nutrition. The sessions will be used to attract women and hopefully be a way to reach them for the gospel.
Each of the missions trips has had positive results, said Mitzi Gibbs, preschool and children’s minister at Southside Baptist.
“We gave them puppets during our first trip, and they were able to get on TV with them,” said Gibbs, who participated in each of the three trips. Fliers handed out by the college group during the second trip brought in new believers, she said, nothing they met new members of the church during this trip who were there because of the fliers.
Gibbs said she has seen the church members grow over the past few years.
“They are definitely transitioning,” said Gibbs, who also participated in the Alabama-Hawaii partnership through Baptist Campus Ministries summer missions projects. “I was there (at Lanzarote Baptist) when only 15 members were meeting in a small house. Now there are 40 members, and they have to hold two services.”
She also noted that more than 100 people are influenced by the church. “The church is known in the community,” she said.
The church has gone from one cell group to four or five all over the island.
A quiet Cuban girl Gibbs met on her first trip was leading the music during Gibbs’ most recent trip.
Lanzarote Baptist is a church trying to discover its personality. With a blend of languages, people, nationalities, denominations and political upbringings, Lanzarote’s worships style is one in progress.
“The challenges we face over worship styles in the United States are nothing compared to what Lanzarote is attempting to blend,” Gibbs said.
Currently the church has an English service on Sunday morning and a Spanish service on Sunday nights, with special combined services throughout the year.
The church may have two services, but they are one body of Christ and must continue to work together by teaching English to the Spanish speakers and Spanish to the English speakers.
With Southern Baptist missionaries Joe and Charie Vasquez leading the church, membership is growing. But they are only two people trying to encourage and reach all of the island, Gibbs said. “We have a responsibility to help. And our church has realized that we do have that responsibility.
Along with the experience focused on women’s ministry, Gibbs said men’s ministry and family ministry are also being considered as themes for upcoming missions trips. Teacher training is also needed, she added.
The choir from Southside also is considering a trip in 2001.
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