The Lafayette Spanish Mission here refuses to allow a lack of walls, or ill weather for that matter, to hinder its work in Honduras.
LAFAYETTE — The Lafayette Spanish Mission here refuses to allow a lack of walls, or ill weather for that matter, to hinder its work in Honduras.
Last year the mission, as yet without its own building, bought land in Honduras in order to build a radio station as a way of providing leadership to new church plants and reaching lost souls in remote mountain villages, said Carolyn Adkisson, member at the mission where Sunday morning attendance is about 60.
“Sometimes small churches think they can’t do anything, but that’s not true,” said Director of Missions Bert Langley of the work in Honduras. “They can do a lot. A small church can do something, if they’re just sensitive to what God wants them to do.”
The mission was begun seven years ago as a Wednesday night Bible study. Two years later Armando Murillo was called as pastor, said Adkisson, who often serves as the church’s communicator.
The mission was able to support its new pastor completely, she continued. Now, as Murillo has moved on to continue missionary work in his home country of Honduras, the mission, again without a pastor, continues to provide him with support.
Murillo, 61, who began his work in Honduras years ago before coming to the United States, had already started 19 churches there, Adkisson said. Returning to Honduras has allowed him to continue that work of church planting and evangelism among the Lenca Indians.
Because many of the churches Murillo had already begun had gone over into other doctrines, he expressed a need to begin a radio station that would air solid teaching as a way of helping pastors at the new church starts and keeping their doctrine pure. In addition, the station could preach the gospel over the air to many, many mountain villages that don’t have churches, she explained.
The radio station began broadcasting in May 2006. A month later, a tornado tore down the tower, which is still down. “We’ve been actively praying and looking for how the Lord would raise it back up,” Adkisson said. The first estimate was that it would cost $7,000. While the mission has collected pledges to help meet that amount, in the meantime, a final, much more expensive estimate has come in: $11,000.
Meeting in the chapel of First Lafayette, the mission, grateful to its mother church for the facilities, continues to grow, Adkisson said.
“We have Sunday school for all ages,” she said. “We meet on Wednesday nights also for prayer time and Bible study. We have a building fund started with more than $6,000.
“Even without a pastor, we have a strong leadership of our two deacons and other leaders in our church,” she continued. “We’re carrying on. We are the Body of Christ here.”
Men interested in the position of pastor at the First Lafayette Spanish Mission should contact Steve Horn, pastor of First Baptist Lafayette at Steve.horn@fbclaf.org or 337-233-1412, for more information.