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MCALLEN—Volunteers hung plastics bags with gospel tracts and invitations to Easter services and an evangelistic rally on 108,000 doors in the McAllen area of the Rio Grande Valley March 12-16 during spring break for most Texas schools.
“It was very exciting is all I can say,” said Jack Harris, SBTC associate for personal and event evangelism. “That’s the gospel in English and Spanish going to all those homes.”
Harris said the outreach far exceeded initial expectations. It was preceded by seven informational luncheons over six months. Initially, the SBTC provided 50,000 door hangers to churches. But when churches began asking for more, the total ended up being 108,000—with all distributed by 18 church groups taking to the streets in McAllen and surrounding towns.
Through encounters on the streets and nightly outreach events, dozens of salvation decisions were recorded, Harris said. (No tallies were available at press time.)
The door hangers included tickets to an evangelistic rally that was scheduled for April 1 featuring the strength and power demonstrations of Team Impact.
Harris said this year’s mission was able to reach more homes with the gospel message than last year’s in Laredo, where over several weeks about 50,000 homes received gospel tracts, information on a local Southern Baptist church and tickets to a Team Impact event where more than 700 people registered salvation decisions.
This year, Cornerstone Baptist Church and Baptist Temple in McAllen, and Primera Iglesia Poder De Dios helped lead the outreach among the 12 local churches and teams from six other congregations around the state that traveled to McAllen.
David Galvan, pastor of New Life Baptist Church in Dallas, said he took about 50 people from his church to McAllen, about 40 of whom traveled on a coach bus. The group included several families with children.
The group distributed door hangers and witnessed when possible from about 9 a.m.-1 p.m. daily, broke for lunch, then went back out for about 90 minutes in the afternoon, Galvan said.
They were able to lead several people to Christ, he added.
“The joy to me is that I had a number of people who did their first mission trip. Also, we encourage people to take their children. So I had several families that included a father, mother and the children. Of course the children were on the street as well passing out materials.”
One family brought four children, he said.
As the group shared testimonies on the way home, Galvan said several people mentioned the blessing of getting to know other church members more deeply. Others cited the life-altering experience of a first mission trip.
Galvan said Pastor Armando Vera and the members at Primera Iglesia Poder De Dios, which hosted the Dallas group, couldn’t have been more gracious, and disaster relief shower units were a morale boost for the group each evening.
Poder De Dios held block parties on Thursday and Friday nights, giving away half a dozen bicycles and about a dozen soccer balls to draw a crowd to see clowns and other entertainment. Each night the gospel was presented, with several people making salvation decisions nightly.
One of those was a 7-year-old boy, Andres Diaz, who came with his mother from Galvan’s church.
Galvan said Diaz was at first frightened by the clowns, but after some coaxing from his mother, he warmed up to them. By the end of the night, he was taking pictures with them. Diaz is the adopted son of one of the church members, Galvan said.
One of those clowns used a multi-colored prop to share the gospel, noting that, “‘If you will open your heart to Jesus, you will never be rejected again.’ Our little missionary got saved,” Galvan added.
Galvan said as the clown shared his story of redemption, it was obvious the message resonated with Diaz.
To top it off, a teenager who won one of the bikes decided to give it to Diaz.
Loui Canchola, pastor at Cornerstone Baptist Church in McAllen and SBTC vice president, said the week was “an amazing time.” His church distributed about one-tenth, or just over 10,000, of the door hangers.
“We are so grateful for mission teams that came down to the Valley from throughout Texas as well as our local churches that teamed together to get the word out,” Canchola said. “It was wonderful to see kingdom teamwork in action and we are looking forward to what God is going to do through Team Impact to reach the Valley for Christ on April 1.”
