This summer marked the first time that Alabama Baptists were able to use Spanish-language Vacation Bible School materials from some major publishing houses.
LifeWay joined the Baptist Publishing House in El Paso, Texas, in offering Spanish-language materials with its 2003 VBS theme, Kingdom Capers.
This is one more step toward helping Alabama Baptists reach the state’s growing Hispanic population.
Autauga and Chilton Baptist associations held their first Hispanic VBSs this year, said Carlos Lemus, pastor/missionary for Hispanic work in those associations. He said they were well-received.
“Basically it helps people be aware of Hispanic work and it specifically benefits the Prattville area of Autauga County because we didn’t have any kind of Hispanic Baptist work going on there,” he said.
He said a Hispanic mission was founded with six families at Prattville recently as a direct result of a Spanish-language VBS held at New Vision Baptist Church. The mission has not decided on a name, but they meet in the facilities of New Vision.
He said Hispanic work had already existed in the form of a mission named La Mision Hispana in northern Autauga County. It has a ministry to Hispanic workers mainly in agriculture and construction trades.
Prattville’s Spanish-language VBS became bilingual at times to accommodate English-speaking attenders, Lemus said.
“As a matter of fact one of the curious things was that in Prattville we had not only Hispanics attending but we had four English-speaking Americans attending. One of the four was a teenage young lady who received Jesus,” he said.
He said some of the bilingual teachers in the Spanish-speaking VBS helped these English-speaking teens understand the lessons, and they provided them with bilingual Bibles, so they were able to follow along in them, he said.
Several members of the Hispanic mission in Chilton County — Fuente de Agua Viva — which translates to Fountain of Living Water, volunteer staffed the Spanish-language VBS held at Liberty Hill Baptist Church, Clanton.
Volunteers from English-language churches in Chilton and Autauga associations were warmly
welcomed.
“At both sites we had great responses from the churches at large in the associations. Some helped with teaching and others with crafts, snacks and transportation,” Lemus said.
He said the format of their VBS was much like an English-language VBS, but they used a curriculum from the Baptist Publishing House in El Paso, Texas, to provide more for the cultural background of Hispanics.
With Alabama’s growing Hispanic population, Lemus said he believes Spanish-language VBS will definitely increase for VBS 2004 and beyond. Alabama Baptist missions and churches offering Spanish-language Vacation Bible School is a sunrise on the landscape of Baptist life in the state.
“It is definitely in its dawn,” said Omar Hernandez, pastor of Hispanic congregations at Vaughn Forest Baptist and Eastern Hills Baptist churches in Montgomery. “I think that would be very new to the state.”
Hernandez, who came as pastor to these two churches April 16 this year said they did not have VBS this year, but are considering doing so for next year.
“Here in the city of Montgomery we are finding out that a lot of the Hispanics are here with their families, including children, so I can see that (Spanish-language VBS) happening,” he said.
“One thing we’ve been finding is that people from Mexico come from communities where they speak their own dialect, so we are going to start teaching them Spanish — to read, write and talk in Spanish,” Hernandez said.
LifeWay Christian Resources and others are beginning to publish VBS materials in Spanish, but these usually do not cover native Mexican dialects — numbering more than 100, according to Hernandez. He explained that many Hispanics in the Montgomery area come from Mexico and speak a Mexican dialect called Mixteco, widely spoken in the Mexican state of Guerrero.
Hernandez said that some of their strategies include taking the gospel into the places where Hispanics live and recreate. This approach could utilize VBS materials.
This approach could reach some of the population who might be hesitant to come to a church for VBS.
“Some Spanish missions and churches have reported having Spanish language VBS this year,” said James Blakeney, VBS promoter in the office of Sunday School with the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
Jim Jackson, director of missions for Elmore Association, said, “One of the complications to having Spanish-language VBS is that there are not large numbers of Hispanic VBS leaders trained to conduct them. Certainly the Hispanic population is there, and there are many Hispanic students in schools in the area, so there is a need.”
“We have seen moderate growth of the Hispanic population in Elmore County and our association has been directly involved with Hispanic ministry for about five years,” he added.
Blakeney said, “From the state office, we offered training in VBS leadership for Hispanics in a number of associations and it will be done again in 2004.”
Working with Blakeney in coordinating this effort is Alejandro Pajaro, director of Hispanic ministries for the Elmore Association.
Pajaro will be one of the leaders in several Hispanic training clinics to train leaders of VBS 2004. These clinics are being planned by the Sunday School office of the SBOM for early next year.
“If we can train our kids in VBS, they will always remember the stories and will be more skillful with their Bibles in the future,” Pajaro said.
Share with others: