November 24, 1999
Mission Service Corps
honors Pinsons, hears testimony
___By Dan Martin
___Texas Baptist Communications
___EL PASO--If measured in dollars, the ministry and service of more than 1,150 Mission Service Corps volunteers serving in Texas would amount to more than $30 million a year, Sam Pearis said.
___"That is half of the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual budget," Pearis, director of Texas Mission Service Corps, told a breakfast meeting during the BGCT annual session Nov. 9 in El Paso.
___The annual breakfast honored Bill and Bobbie Pinson. Pinson is retiring as executive director of the BGCT early next year. The Pinsons were presented Mission Service Corps jackets.
___"There's a Mission Service Corps application in the pockets," Pearis said to the laughter of the volunteers.
___Pinson, in his response, said the volunteer group in Texas "has a wonderful history ... but I think we are just getting started."
___During the program, a couple and an individual gave testimonies regarding their work as volunteers.
___Gus and Gloria Reyes told of becoming involved with Mission Service Corps during a Hispanic senior camp. He is a former police officer, and she is a former secretary.
___"We thought we would be working to recruit people like us, but they matched us with a need from Kentucky. Kentucky? Where's that?" Mrs. Reyes said.
___Her husband explained that the church they went to work with thought it was too poor to provide much help.
___"We wanted to hold a 'gran festival', a great party for 500 Hispanics in Kentucky. The little church thought they couldn't do much, but we knew God was at work," he said.
___When they started, the Kentucky church helped a little with the pastor's salary and provided literature. Within a few months, the mission church was larger than the mother church and was giving 40 percent of its income to support the parent. When the Reyes' left, there were nine missions operating in that area to reach Hispanics.
___"We learned two things," Reyes said. "First, you must obey God even when it doesn't make sense to you. Second, you must trust him."
___The Reyeses' currently serve in El Paso as church planting associates.
___One of their co-workers, Jackie Miller, told participants at the breakfast about the realities of ministering in El Paso.
___With a population of 700,000, El Paso is the fourth-largest city in Texas, she said. And the combined population of an estimated 3.2 million people in El Paso/Juarez makes the area as large as Houston and twice as large as San Antonio.
___"God's work does not know borders," she added.
___Many of the people on the Juarez side of the Borderplex live in 400 "colonias," extremely poor areas where makeshift houses constructed of cardboard and wooden pallets pop up overnight. The current mindset of Baptist ministry makes these area difficult to reach, she said.
___"We must be innovative in funding churches in poor areas," Miller asserted.
___She also sought to dispel several common misunderstandings about Hispanics in Texas.
___While most Anglos assume all Hispanics speak Spanish, only about 67 percent of Texas Hispanics actually do, she said. And only about 25 percent of Texas Hispanics prefer to speak in Spanish, she added.
___Another myth is that all Hispanics are poorly educated, Miller said. Actually, 60 percent have a high school diploma, and 35 percent have completed higher education.
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