“All of a sudden there he was in our Sunday evening meeting,” recalled Jim Haley in their 1998 prayer letter. “All I knew was he seemed very interested in what I was saying. His name was Juan.”
Jim’s account continued: “For several months I had been frustrated. I was seeking to get some of our Hispanic brothers to do an 18-lesson ‘Abundant Life Course.’ The lessons are for new believers. These brothers weren’t new believers! They’d known the basics for years! …they just weren’t interested. They were good at visitation evangelism, but not follow-up teaching.” Then Juan arrived.
After attending for a couple of weeks, Juan brought his brother Jaime. Soon a close bond was established that would bring unexpected impact with native Mayan people from Mexico, those known as the Greeks of the New World.
Like so many from Southeastern Mexico, Juan and Jaime’s mother tongue is Mayan. The people from the Yucatan Peninsula are renowned for their hard and faithful labor. This family had been believers for nearly 20 years. But living temporarily in the USA in search of finances for their extended family, their limited religious training had little effect on their lives.
Almost immediately, Juan committed himself to weekly studies with Pastor Haley. Despite his limited Spanish vocabulary, Juan grew spiritually and began to minister in the congregation. Today of the 40 members of Iglesia Hispana Bautista (part of Northeast Baptist in Portland), more than a dozen are from the Yucatan Peninsula.
Juan quickly proceeded from the “Abundant Life” course to the first of the six-volume “Life of Christ” pastoral theology course. By the end of the second course, Jim discovered that Juan had a wife, teenaged daughter and two adolescent sons in Mexico. Therefore he encouraged Juan to return home. Juan desired to go back, but his call to take this teaching to his people increased the need to be better prepared to serve them. He insisted on finishing the third course before returning to Mexico. Then he was willing to leave his two brothers to continue their preparation before returning themselves.
Family resources had been limited to training only one son, Jaime, who began learning Spanish at 15. Now Jaime has finished a dozen theological courses, and is teaching many of these to others. He has studied piano, guitar and finished his GED in English. Today he’s attending Community College working for an A.A. in nursing so he can return to Yucatan with a profession to support himself and his family as he ministers as a bi-vocational pastor.
When Juan returned to his homeland, he began to share what he had learned with his family and evangelize unbelievers. Juan’s ministry birthed a new congregation.
In appreciation for the training received over the past decade, led by the Mayan community, the Iglesia Hispana Bautista determined to send Jim and Carolyn Haley to Yucatan to encourage Juan. They carefully planned and invested sacrificially in the trip. Finally in October, the Haleys found themselves in Yucatan just in time to be met by Hurricane Wilma. Instead of ministering only to Juan’s congregation and another nearby independent Baptist congregation, a total of four churches showed up. Despite necessary modification of plans, they were able to train 75 local leaders, and with Juan, baptize 16 in a pool constructed for the occasion (not in the Wilma storm surge).
Finally to come full circle, these four churches desire affiliation with CB Mexico through MTTA missionaries. Imagine God’s grace! Jim Haley entered the CB family through salvation at North Baptist. North Baptist gave birth to Northeast Baptist. Both churches supported the Haleys in Argentina with CB International (WorldVenture). Since retiring from Argentina, Jim and Carolyn have ministered to Hispanics (including the Mayans) at Northeast. This Northeast Baptist Hispanic congregation sent the Haleys to minister to their extended families in Yucatan, Mexico. And finally, to complete the circle, these Mayan congregations are asking to join the CB Covenant Community.
