Early yesterday morning I wrote about our plans to visit with the Iglesia de Cristo de Park Plaza. Today I can share more details and information.
The occasion of our visit with the church was the fourth anniversary of the establishment of the Park Plaza Hispanic congregation. Four years ago, the church began with four people at the first service. Yesterday saw the largest crowd ever with a total of 64 present–46 adults in the worship assembly and 18 children. The church was obviously encouraged and excited. I spoke about the importance of the church and God’s plan for the church, especially focusing on Ephesians. Most of those of attend are bilingual, at least to some degree. This makes the work different than mission work in many Spanish-speaking countries. I taught the Bible class in Spanish with periodic brief explanations in English.
As I began the sermon, I asked how many spoke only Spanish or had a strong preference for Spanish, and there were about 8 or 10 persons who raised their hands. Doing the same thing regarding English, there were about 6 present who spoke only English. I preached using paragraph by paragraph translation, first in Spanish since that is the primary focus, and then in English for those who were present to lend support. My point was that the church is the place where people can find and drink deeply from the fountain of living water which is Christ.
The church has a vision for reaching Tulsa and for reaching the world with the gospel. They are getting ready to send out a missionary. Jason Tenison will work with the Talanga church in Honduras. Francisco and Millie Davila serve as a lead ministry couple and are graduates of the Baxter CELO (extension) program. Jason will graduate in December. Carlos and Lucy have applied to the program, which is helping develop leadership and missionary-spirited people in the US as well as in Latin American countries. There were at least two first-time visitors present yesterday. (In fact, Francisco and Millie are relatively new Christians.)
After services, I had the opportunity to reconnect with Mike and Teresa Hawkins. Mike serves as a deacon in the English-speaking church, with responsibilities in Central American missions. Afterward, the church shared a celebration meal–I especially liked the avocado salad (I could identify the avocado pieces, green olives, onion, cherry tomatoes, leaf lettuce). Also excellent was the Mexican chicken soup served with tortillas. Members of the deaf church shared the celebration, so that were were probably about 150 present for the meal.
Last evening I received a gracious email from Francisco expressing his hope for more opportunities such as we shared. I ask my blog readers to join in prayer on behalf of this work, and countless similar works around the world, as we reach out to touch as many souls as possible with the gospel of Jesus.