Posted: 7/23/04
Churches minister to isolated Mexican Indians
By Ferrell Foster
Texas Baptist Communications
GUAGUACHIQUE, Mexico–Three Texas churches have their mission eyes looking steadily southward, and they've banded together to reach a people group that years ago fled to the isolation of Mexico's mountains.
The Tarahumara Indians live high in the Sierra Madre Mountains a day's drive south of El Paso. Many of them never have heard of Jesus Christ.
They worship multiple gods and hold a wide variety of spiritual beliefs that include some hints of Christianity but nothing of personal salvation available through the life and death of Christ.
| Denise Cox of Bacon Heights Baptist Church in Lubbock assists a Tarahumara man in the village of Guanguachique with reading glasses. (Rex Campbell Photo) |
“It is a different world,” said Tony Garza, a member of First Baptist Church in San Marcos, who has ministered to the Tarahumara people.
Since a smattering of Texas Baptists started reaching out to them a few years ago, about 100 of 50,000 to 70,000 Tarahumara have become Christians, Garza estimated.
Bacon Heights Baptist Church in Lubbock and the First
Baptist churches in San Marcos and Athens are leading the missions effort.
In early June, 40 people from those three churches and First Baptist Church of New Braunfels spent several days with the Tarahumara people.
Steve Akin has been minister of music at all three of the lead churches, and he now is at Athens. The churches asked him to act as informal coordinator of the effort.
Akin first learned of the Tarahumara while at Bacon Heights Church several years ago. He contacted Garza at San Marcos and Alan Johnson, and the three of them contacted Southern Baptist missionary Ron Witt in Chihuahua, Mexico.
He, in turn, led them to a Mexican Baptist pastor, Ernesto Santiago, who lived in Creel, Mexico, and ministered to the Tarahumara.
Through Santiago's guidance, Akin and Garza began taking small groups of Baptist volunteers to minister in the mountains.
When Akin moved to Athens, his concern for the Tarahumara people remained behind at Bacon Heights and spread to the Baptists in Athens, as well.
“Steven is the one who got all of this started,” said Brad Pettiet of Bacon Heights. “And it's infectious.”
Bacon Heights became involved because “there wasn't anybody else working with this people group within the Southern Baptist Convention,” Pettiet said.
And, at a practical level, volunteers who cannot take longer, more expensive trips overseas–including teenagers–can participate in Mexico missions.
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| A Tarahumara woman and child in Guaguachique village were among the people with whom Texas Baptist volunteers sought to demonstrate God's love. (Rex Campbell Photo) |
The Lubbock church eventually began to support and financially sponsor Santiago, and the goal is to establish churches in the scattered villages and to train indigenous pastors.
Ministry to the Tarahumara seems to draw these Texas Baptists southward as surely as a magnet draws metal.
The Tarahumara seem to come from a time long forgotten by Americans just a few hundred miles to the north. Women sit unmoving for hours in the sun, staring with the steady gaze of a statue, Garza said.
The Texas group divided and worked in four villages–Samachique, Pamachi, Baborigame and Guaguachique. They provided a variety of services–eye exams and glasses, medical treatment, dental work, construction materials and manpower for a school bathhouse, haircuts, a Vacation Bible School and hot meals for everyone.
The villages vary in size, but they basically are gathering places for the people who walk in from the surrounding mountainsides and the caves where many of them live.
The 18-mile drive on a rugged road from Samachique to Pamachi requires three hours. There, the road ends. It gives way to foot trails.
The Tarahumara Indians have lived there for hundreds of years. Their ancestors fled from pillaging armies to the isolation of the high country of the Sierra Madres, Garza said.
They are not accustomed to outsiders. At first, they kept their distance. But the ministries and the food brought them closer. A drama illustrating the history of God's relationship with humanity and the “Jesus” film conveyed the message behind the Baptists' ministry.
The Texas Baptists wanted to offer a spiritual invitation. But Mayra Rivera, a Mexican missionary nurse who lives in Pamachi, advised otherwise.
“Among the Tarahumara, you have to do your discipleship before they ever get to that point, because they don't understand anything,” said Margaret Gowan, a retired missionary and member of First Baptist Church in Athens.
Rivera has planted her life among the Tarahumara. She lives alone in a two-room building that has no electricity. One room is her clinic.
“Her dedication and commitment to what she's doing and what the Lord has called her to do just overwhelmed me,” Gowan said. “It reminded me of how the Lord can get a hold of a person's life.”
He certainly has gotten hold of Texas Baptists from three churches. They saw a need and moved to meet it.
“We just began out of ignorance,” Akin said. “In our ignorance, God has worked. The Lord has blessed our efforts, and we're excited about the future.”
As they've worked and learned, they've involved others.
“My dream and my prayer for the Tarahumara people is that Texas Baptists will combine with the Baptists of Mexico in a more coordinated effort than ever before to tell these people about Christ,” Akin said.
“I hope and pray that Texas Baptists will use their vast resources” to reach these people.
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