Texas Baptists join Venezuelans in nationwide evangelistic outreach

Bringing hundreds of tracts, Bibles, smiles and servant’s hearts, 86 Texas Baptist volunteers served nine days in Venezuela, supporting the efforts of local Baptists to share the gospel in their nation.

Teaming with the Convencion Nacional Bautista de Venezuela , they joined indigenous missionaries—marchistas—to reach Venezuela for Christ, concentrating on the states of Mérida, Portuguesa, Trujillo and Barinas.

The initiative focused on door-to-door evangelism in public areas and neighborhoods. Churches in each region took responsibility for follow-up visits and discipleship after people made commitments to Christ. In Mérida alone, 1,075 people made professions of faith in Christ.

Also in Mérida, some of the 86 Texans joined forces with seven Go Now summer missionaries serving in Venezuela for two months. They worked tirelessly—waking up early and going to bed late. Despite the heat and long hours of hard work, one volunteer said they adopted the philosophy: “We can rest when we go home. Let’s go!”

In one city, the crusade ended with a baptism service at the base of a waterfall. A church in the area rented a bus and hired a driver to travel up a mountain to the scenic location.

At the service, one of the Texas missionaries shared the gospel with the bus driver, and the driver prayed on the mountain to receive Christ as Lord and Savior.

For Tom Dufresne from San Angelo, one of the highlights of the week was meeting the family of a young man named Ronald.

“Ronald was one of 10 youth that worked with us every day during our door-by-door personal witnessing,” Dufresne said.

Heartbroken that his family didn’t have a relationship with Christ, Ronald invited Dufresne and his wife to his house to share the gospel with his family. His parents, sister and aunt became Christians that night.

“The smile on Ronald’s face will be burned into my memory for a very long time, as we celebrated together his family’s conversion,” Dufresne said.

At the end of the week, Ronald was one of three people baptized, with his family in attendance.

Dana Landers, a sophomore at the University of Texas at Arlington and a Go Now missionary, was struck by the importance of prayer during the evangelistic crusade.

“I felt more confident in my ability to share the gospel with the families in the houses we prayed at before entering,” she said.

The Holy Spirit guided the conversations and gave her the right words to speak, she said.

Andrea Randolph, a junior at Texas A&M University and a Go Now missionary, said: “The crusade was a week of practice, because I didn’t know how to share the Bible like that before. I learned different approaches to sharing the gospel from the marchistas and the other Texas missionaries.”

Randolph and her team spent the majority of the week sharing the gospel on university campuses and in bus terminals.

“There was a girl we met in the bus terminal that didn’t even know who God was. We had the opportunity to share about God, the consequence of sins, and then salvation. She accepted Christ,” Randolph said.

“Venezuela still needs to be reached. There are a lot of people searching. … We may think (people) have heard the gospel a million times, but they may not have. They may have heard God’s name and that’s it.”