RICHMOND, Va. (BP) – National Hispanic Baptist leaders met with leaders at the International Mission Board’s main offices in Richmond to discuss ways for involving more Hispanic Baptists in worldwide missions.

“Southern Baptists first began mission work in Latin America 140 years ago through the International Mission Board,” IMB President Paul Chitwood said in a later interview. “Today, Hispanics provide leadership in churches and denominational entities and ministries across the SBC.”

Chitwood and Jeff Ginn, IMB’s vice president of mobilization, met with Bruno Molina, executive director of the National Hispanic Baptist Network (NHBN); Eloy Rodriguez, president of the NHBN; Annel Robayna, IMB’s Hispanic church mobilization strategist; and other leaders from the NHBN to strategize ways to mobilize Hispanic Baptists to reach the nations for Christ. This historic meeting took place at IMB on March 10.

The NHBN is “committed to realizing our vision that all the peoples of the earth would know of God’s redeeming love in Christ,” Molina said at the meeting, adding that the group is “fully committed to collaborating with the IMB to identify and recruit Hispanics to serve in the international mission field.”

“We emphasize the importance of giving though the Cooperative Program,” he continued, “and we exist to connect in mission, contribute and share resources, celebrate what God is doing among us and facilitate communication and collaboration between Hispanic pastors and the entities of the SBC, its president and the Executive Committee.”

Mobilizing Hispanics and other ethnicities and equipping them for ministry are an important function of the IMB, Chitwood said.

“With the growing number of Hispanic Southern Baptists, IMB hopes to see more Hispanics not only providing leadership in our convention but also answering the call to the take the Gospel to the nations,” he said. “IMB’s partnership with the National Baptist Hispanic Network is crucial to raising awareness among our Hispanic churches about opportunities to send their missionaries through the IMB to address lostness as the world’s greatest problem.”

The meeting also included a tour of the IMB facilities led by Chris Derry, IMB’s director of church and campus engagement. He guided the NHBN team to meet IMB staff, shared the history of the IMB and exposed them to the many resources the IMB has to help Hispanic believers pray, give, go and send people on mission.

Perhaps the most important moment of the gathering was when the NHBN team met members of the IMB prayer team. The prayer team, which prays for the lost, missionaries and Christian leaders worldwide, also prayed for NHBN leadership. “Prayer is the most important part of all we do,” Derry said.

Rodríguez, pastor of Idlewild en Español in Tampa, Fla., said praying is not only crucial, but as a father with a son serving on the mission field with IMB, it’s personal.

“It is very important to my wife and I to pray for missionaries,” Rodríguez said, “not only because of our personal relationship with Jesus Christ and His mandate, but we relate and pray for other parents who are also blessed for having grown children serving abroad.”

Robayna, who first became interested in missions on a short-term trip and now serves with IMB, expressed hope for growth in the number of Hispanic missionaries.

“There are 65 Hispanic missionaries serving worldwide, which is only 2 percent of the missionaries sent by the IMB,” he said. “The challenge is to send more. There are 3,200 Hispanic churches in the SBC, and the goal is for them to pray, give, go on short- or long-term mission trips, and to send more Hispanics to the field.”

Hispanic individuals interested in reaching unengaged and unreached people groups for Christ should contact Annel Robayna at [email protected] in Spanish.

(EDITOR ‘S NOTE – Clara Molina, a member of the National Hispanic Baptist Network, is a speaker and author of  ¡Oh no! My husband is the pastor!,  and in English,  Oh no! I Married the Pastor!  and  A Legacy of Wisdom . She has an MA in Christian School Education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) and a Ph.D. from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (MBTS).