Not too long ago, there were no Hispanic Baptist church plants in the Mobile area. Thomas Wright had been praying for years for a church planter who could change that.

“Our associational leaders understand the importance of praying for and sharing Jesus with every person in Mobile County,” said Wright, who serves as executive director of missions for Mobile Baptist Association. “We recognized the best way to reach a growing population of Hispanics is through Hispanic congregations.”

So Mobile Baptists started forming small groups for Spanish speakers through local churches and began to pray for God to send Hispanic pastors.

Along the way Brian Harper, lead church planting strategist for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, started talking with Ramón Vielza about the possibility of moving to Alabama.

Vielza, who at that time served as Hispanic catalyst for Baptists in North Carolina, had been part of a major movement in Cuba — 170 churches planted in nine years. As he talked with Harper, he began to catch a vision for what God might do in south Alabama.

Continue reading here.

This article was originally published at TheAlabamaBaptist.org.