Cultural festival provides churches in Valley occasion to share the gospel

BROWNSVILLE—The main streets of Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville filled with more than 20,000 people, flavorful food, festive music and brightly-colored floats during Charro Days, a weeklong festival celebrating the heritage between the sister cities. And a group of 55 church members gathered to celebrate the hope of Christ and to share it with those they encountered that day.

Church members attach information about Brownsville-area Baptist churches to Texas Hope CDs before distributing them during Charro Days. More than 55 people from eight churches in Brownsville and Matamoros, Mexico, came to the events in their cities to help spread the gospel to families who attended the festival. (PHOTOS/Josue Valerio)

The event, held since 1938, ends with a parade on the last day of the festival that begins in Brownsville and travels across the Texas-Mexico border into Matamoros.  Children and families dress in traditional Mexican attire, while others participate in activities like jalapeño-eating contests or a sombrero fest.

The activities gave church members opportunities to interact with their community and hand out more than more than 4,000 compact discs that include the Gospel of John in Spanish and English and the option to download the New Testament in more than 300 languages for free. Each disc had a note printed in Spanish attached, listing the churches involved and inviting people to worship with the church families.

“The goal is to get churches involved in evangelism,” said Osvaldo Lerma, a Texas Baptist River Ministry coordinator and pastor of Iglesia Bautista Filadelphia in Brownsville.

Charro Days brought families from throughout South Texas to Brownsville—and its sister city across the Rio Grande—and provided an occasion when Baptists from area churches could share the gospel. (PHOTOS/Josue Valerio)

“If this will help or spark the vision to get out and share, then that would be a great blessing. That is our hope that we would help churches mobilize in the city.”

The effort was part of Texas Hope 2010, a challenge to Texas Baptists to pray for the lost, care for the hurting and hungry, and share the gospel.

“This is the call of every Christian to go and spread the gospel,” Osvaldo said. “I saw this as a great opportunity to reach as many people as possible that will be in one location just waiting for the parade to happen. I thought it would be a good way to present them the gospel and tell them about a church they can come to.”

For Josue Valerio, Texas Baptists’ director of missions mobilization, participating in Charro Days not only was sentimental since he had attended the parade as a young boy, but it was also invigorating as he saw churches engage their community with the gospel.

“Other churches were managing food stands and parking lots, but our group was the only one sharing the word of God,” Valerio said. “It gave the Baptist churches visibility, and the people who participated ideas of what they can do to reach their community.”

Baptists walked the streets of Brownsville—and its sister south of the border, Matamoros—distributing Texas Hope 2010 CDs during Charro Days festivities. (PHOTOS/Josue Valerio)

After receiving the CD, several people asked about the churches while others were eager to know more about the project and gospel.

“I think God was at work there,” Valerio said. “I think it brings hope to people. They are all here celebrating something good, but this is something that brings hope, something they can celebrate whether they live on the Mexico or Texas side of the border.”

The churches involved already are making plans to host a float next year, allowing the group to distribute CDs or other church information as they walk down the parade route.

“I hope that they can capture a vision for missions and evangelism and see that God has called some of them to go out and be missionaries and spark something in their hearts,” Lerma said.

Through efforts like the CD distribution at Charro Days, River Ministry coordinators hope to see additional churches started to further reach the residents in the Rio Grande Valley with the love of Christ.