Primera Iglesia Bautista Libre

Here is the church building itself. It is unique as we sit on the Frontage Road of Highway 83 (the only main highway that connects the Valley) in Weslaco a town of 30,000 part of the one million people that live in the Valley. I am fairly certain we are the only log cabin church in such a location! :)
Anyway, the church was founded in 1981 with Bro. James Munsey as pastor. After he passed away in 2001 Jeff Cates took the position. He left last year to start a new mission church in Canyon, Texas, and the church called me to be its pastor.
It is fairly unique in our denomination as we function as a bilingual church. It is primarily spanish, as some 85 % of the Valley speaks Spanish in the home. However, the children grow up with English in the school and use it the majority of the time. (Actually the languages are fairly mixed with components of both used in just about every sentence) So to minister to the adults we have Spanish with some English to retain the youth. Also during the winter we gain around 20 additional "winter Texan" families that only speak English.
So 9:00 on Sunday mornings there is an English service followed by Sunday School classes for both languages and then a Spanish service at 11:00. The Sunday night and Wednesday services are usually in Spanish but depending on the crowd I do preach bilingually a decent percent of those services. (That took some getting used to. :) )
There is a great need for Hispanic churches among our denomination and especially in Texas. We have the second largest population of Hispanics with only 4 churches to minister to them, and 2 of those are pastored by the same man. Here in the Valley with around 1 million people, we have 1 church. Pray that the Lord send us workers and that we wisely train the workers that we have.