Submitted by philip on
By Brian Blackwell, Marketing Director
BALL – Henrry Calazacon arrived in Central Louisiana recently with a message of thanksgiving and hope nearly 2,500 miles from the rainforest in Ecuador.
“So whatever language we speak, as long as we live in Christ, that points us to the way we should live,” Calazacon said during a presentation at Kingsville Baptist Church through interpreter David Garza, a Hispanic pastor in Pineville who with his wife Lydia worked as a missionary from 2001-2008 in Ecuador.
“Our mission is to come and share the good news of Christ who saves us from the sins we have. That is the most important decision anyone came make in this life.”
Calazacon and his wife, Diana, were at Kingsville Baptist to share their testimony and culture with the congregation, who along with others from the area participate each year in week-long missions trips in various reservations of the Tsa’chila Nation where they live. The first from his tribe to visit the United States, Calazacon is among just 2,400 remaining from the Tsa’chilas, who live on seven villages near Santo Domingo, Ecuador.
Since Kingsville Baptist Pastor Bart Walker and his wife began traveling to the nation in 2002, six of the seven villages have been reached through Vacation Bible Schools.
Next year the final reservation they have yet to reach has invited Kingsville Baptist and its partner, the Louisiana College Caskey School of Divinity, for a visit.
Walker said details are not finalized. While there the teams hope to conduct their usual daily Vacation Bible Schools in the area schools.
“We usually have the students make a craft to go along with the story we tell them and that craft will hang in their family’s living room,” Walker said. “It’s a great way to bring Christ in their homes.”
Walker credits Calazacon with helping to reach the other villages with the gospel. Though Walker – who was pastor of Parkview Baptist Church in Natchez, Miss., at the time – first met Calazacon during a 2002 missions trip to the nation, Calazacon did not accept Christ until a return missions trip there the day before Thanksgiving 2005.
Calazacon and three others were baptized on Thanksgiving Day that year. Since then, 40 of the Tsa’chilas have accepted Christ as their personal Savior and Lord.
“Our spiritual family is growing,” said Calazacon, who added that those who live on the reservations are open to hearing the gospel.
Walker said he considers the Calazacons like family. He cites a pre-missions trip visit in 2010, when he and a fellow missionary became extremely ill and the people there treated their sickness.
“They sat with us for the two days we were sick and made sure we were okay,” Walker said. “That is a very special memory.”
Calazacon’s mother even offered Walker a piece of property to live with her other children.
“His mother has adopted me,” Walker said. “I call her my mother. It’s amazing that she allowed me to come and live there if I wanted.”
Caskey Divinity Dean Jason Hiles said the interest among the Caskey School of Divinity has increased steadily since his first missions trip among the Tsa’chila in 2010. He said ministry efforts have progressed from evangelism to discipleship of the Tsa’chilas. The eventual goal is for some of the Tsachilas to plant churches within the villages.
Hiles said that while ministry there can be tiring and difficult, those momentary trials pale in comparison to the end result.
“At points as we work with the Tsa’chila we literally catch a glimpse of the great worship service of the last day when we will hear the praises of Christ Jesus rising up from every nation and tribe and offered in every tongue, including the Tsa’fiki tongue of the Tsa’chila people,” Hiles said. “I am exceedingly grateful for God’s grace in allowing a redeemed sinner such as myself the opportunity to see him save those who lived for so many years in darkness before the light of the gospel dawned in their hearts.”