Rio de Vida!

For more than a year and a half - since Crossroads first started renting our Annex space - I have watched a parade of humanity from the Latino community in Enterprise walk right by our door. Our offices are at the Annex, our Youth Group meets there, some small groups meet there, and we have staff meetings and also do a variety of things there on Sunday evenings. But for a solid year, one very large reality has stared back at me, saying, "Do something!", and that is the reality that the Annex is ALWAYS EMPTY on Sunday morning.

Well, no longer. A couple of months ago I was introduced through a mutual friend to Pastor Alvin Irizarry. Just call him Pastor "Izzy". Izzy is a Puerto Rican-born active duty soldier on Fort Rucker. And he had a church. A small congregation meeting in various places throughout the city for the past couple of years. I introduced him to Ron Sylvia's book, 'Starting New Churches on Purpose'. He got a copy of the Purpose Driven Church in Spanish for his wife. Jan Greggo at the NEXT Initiative sent me all the NEXT literature available in Spanish. A couple of months after our first meeting, Izzy's church is no longer a church. It is now a LAUNCH TEAM dedicated to launching large!

Today, as I pulled up to the Annex to do a bit of work left undone from the week, I ran head-on into a Rio de Vida community outreach. Literally HUNDREDS of members of that parade of humanity that God loves SO MUCH, were being fed, as Pastor Izzy and members of Rio de Vida's launch team shared God's vision for Rio de Vida, and God's heart for them: salvation through His Son Jesus Christ.

Gloria a Dios!

P.S. I know I don't have the proper grammatical nuances of the Spanish language in my typing yet, but give me time...I'll figure it out. In the mean time, lift up Pastor Izzy, his wife, and all of Rio de Vida in prayer. They are DOING the work!