July 30, 2001

GUADALAJARA:
One mans' conversion affected town
___By Ferrell Foster
___Texas Baptist Communications
___ZAPOTLANEJO--Christian conversion does not come easily in Los Altos, the highlands surrounding Guadalajara in central Mexico.
___ But in the town of Zapotlanejo, God is using one man's slow and difficult conversion to reach a growing number of people.
___ Fausto Jauregui is pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista de Zapotlanejo. Last year, the church had four members. It now has 40, and a new building is under construction.
___ The story of Jauregui's turning to Christ is a family saga that stretches over a number of years. His story paints a vivid picture of what it means to give one's life to Christ, not just to the Catholic church, in a place where only 2 percent of the people consider themselves born-again Christians.
___ Maria, Fausto's wife, is central to the story. She was a "very Catholic" woman from a "very Catholic family," she said, beginning the tale. But something happened in the United States that changed her family. A nephew living in the States became a Christian.
___ For three years, he asked prayer for his extended family and then came home to "preach" to them, Maria remembered. He invited the family to his house for dinner, and they quickly realized something was different. Once a drunkard, the nephew now carried a Bible in his hand and listened to Christian music. "He was very different," she said.
___ When Fausto realized what the family gathering was about, he decided to go outside and play soccer. "All the men and kids left," Maria said. "The women listened."
___ No one professed faith in Christ that day, but four days later eight members of the family became Christians.
___ Maria wanted to go to church with the family, but Fausto wouldn't permit it. She prayed God would send someone to help. Four months later, Fausto's aunt came to visit his mother. The aunt once had been "a real bad woman," but two months earlier she had become a Christian and now was "so loving."
___ When Fausto saw his wife and aunt talking about the Bible, he said, "Let's go." On the way home, he told Maria she would not go back to his mother's house, that the aunt was telling "pure lies."
___ So Maria "called the aunt without his knowing and said, 'Tell me about the Bible.'" Over the coming weeks, she learned more about the Bible and Christianity by way of telephone. It became an "ongoing, expanding Bible study" that Fausto didn't know about.
___ On March 3, 1990, Fausto gave Maria permission to drive the aunt to church. Since the aunt was from another town and Maria wasn't used to attending church, they arrived about two hours early for the service. They promptly asked for another nearby church and received the address of Tercera Iglesia Bautista de Guadalajara.
___ That evening, when visiting preacher Fernando de la Mora gave the invitation, Maria and her two daughters went forward to accept Christ.
___ As Maria walked home, she felt both peace and fear. She was afraid to tell Fausto. But the youngest daughter took care of that. She walked in and said, "Daddy, we went to a really pretty church, and we accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord and now we have salvation. … Please, Daddy, let's go to that church. You can be saved, too."
___ "He got real mad against me," Maria said. For nights and days, "there were insults, threats, scoldings."
___ Tercera Bautista secretly taught Maria more from the Bible. Every Wednesday, a "young sister" in the church came to the house to disciple her while Fausto wasn't home. He did, however, suspect something was going on. "If one day I find someone from that church here, I'm going to throw them out with blows," he warned.
___ At a mechanic's shop where Fausto was working at the time, he talked to a nephew about his wife's new Christianity. He confessed that he wanted to hit her "because she was doing all this Christian stuff." The nephew said, "What she needs is a bunch of pops with a belt."
___ Fausto was working on a big truck that he had not been able to start for eight days. He put a challenge to God, "If I'm wrong, show it to me. … God, if you really exist and I'm wrong, this truck is going to start. … If I'm not wrong, then I'm going to take her by the hair and drag her to the Catholic church."
___ He told the nephew to get in the truck. It started.
___ "Even now it makes the hair stand up on my arm," Fausto said.
___ He closed the garage early and went home. He asked Maria if she really wanted to go to church.
___ "Yes," she said, "if you'll let me." He agreed, but he didn't tell her what had happened at the garage.
___ Fausto went with Maria to church the next Sunday. Not familiar with the service time, they arrived early. Fausto remembers thinking: "I'm here. Nobody's here. I'm leaving."
___ In the churchyard an older man greeted him as "hermano," or brother. "I'm not your brother," Fausto responded.
___ The man took Fausto's hand and wouldn't let go. He held Fausto until 10:30, when the service started.
___ Fausto remembers going into Tercera Bautista for the first time. "I didn't see any saints, icons. I said, 'They're really poor if they don't have any saints.'"
___ Then the guest preacher, de la Mora, made him angry. His sermon was about adultery. Fausto thought his wife had told the preacher about his life, because he was guilty of that sin.
___ Completing a visitor's card, Fausto indicated he would like a visit from the pastor. "I really wanted to get that old guy to my house and beat him up."
___ That Sunday evening, his wife and daughters went to church and Fausto sat in front of the television. Suddenly he remembered something the preacher had said, so he got up and went to church, as well.
___ He arrived just as the sermon was beginning. It was about deception, fraud and lying. Again, Fausto thought his wife had told de la Mora about him. "I really wanted to fight him."
___ The following Saturday, the pastor of Tercera, Omar Nicolas, not de la Mora, came to visit Fausto, who "had already prepared a lot of questions and arguments to defend his Catholic faith." He had filled up three full-sized pieces of paper, front and back, with questions and doubts.
___ Nicolas opened with prayer. Fausto said he was thinking, "Where am I going to hit him first?"
___ The pastor began talking about the gospel. Fausto listened, then discreetly discarded the paper. He was getting his questions answered without asking them.
___ The conversation started at 8 p.m. At 2 in the morning, Fausto prayed to commit his life to Christ.
___ The next day, March 24, 1990, the old man who had held onto Fausto the week before saluted him, "Hermano."
___ Fausto responded, "Yes, I am hermano."
___

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