Talanga: Church Planting in Honduras (Part Three)

Ezequiel Palma and Eduin Alvarado have a lot in common. Ten years ago, they were co-workers in a German factory manufacturing high-end, wooden interiors for luxury cars. Now, the former is a graduate and the latter is a current student of The Seminary for Expository Preaching (SEPE), who are co-laboring in a church plant in Talanga, HN, called Iglesia Bautista Hechos. Their story is the third in a series highlighting God’s work around Honduras through biblically equipped pastors.

Eduin came to saving faith at 15 years of age, after his father – himself a Baptist pastor – delivered the gospel message that would pierce his heart.

Ezequiel’s father was also a pastor in a Pentecostal church, but his life before salvation was defined by denial and despair of God. His daughter had been born with a cleft lip and palate, causing a seed of bitterness to grow in his heart.

“One day,” Ezequiel says, “a conviction just came to my mind that only God had the solution for my life, and that day I got out of bed to pray, and I believe that was the moment God used to bring me to His feet.”

Ezequiel and Edwin were called to their seminary studies in similar ways.

Both were invited to hear expository preaching at MEDA and SEPE events. Both had work considerations, in terms of making the decision as a family to depend on the Lord for their finances and make the adjustments necessary to attend seminary modules. And most of all, both were convinced of their need to learn how to accurately preach the Scriptures.

For Ezequiel, the deciding moment came upon hearing the commencement speaker at SEPE’s 2012 graduation ceremony.

“He preached Revelation, ‘The Only Worthy One,’” he says, at which point he determined, “I want to enroll and study, and from there I began to make arrangements.”

For Eduin, that realization came about three years ago.

“God placed something on my heart, that I really needed to learn the Scriptures,” he says, “how to be able to divide a passage and be able to teach the church.”

Ezequiel graduated from SEPE in 2018, and this month, Eduin is starting his third year.

They are currently pastoring a church plant together in the urban center of a largely agricultural municipality called Talanga. Ezequiel began this work in 2017, before even graduating from seminary, and Eduin came alongside him just months after enrolling in SEPE, having more than 20 years of prior experience in pastoral ministry.

“For me,” Eduin says, “one of the most rewarding parts [of ministry] is knowing the Scriptures.”

“And it is because of the seminary. I give God the glory for that, that the seminary has taught me how to rightly divide the Scriptures for the benefit of others, not only in the form of evangelism, but also now in terms of preaching in the church.”

As they battle daily against the spiritual forces of darkness in Talanga – in the form of rampant addiction, theft, Catholicism, witchcraft, and homosexuality – they stand as examples of what it looks like to be salt and light in a corrupt society, by means of evangelism, worship services, small groups, leadership training, and children’s ministry.

“The most rewarding part of ministry is when I see the benefit that God has wrought in my life,” Ezequiel says, “namely allowing me to see His Word from another perspective, allowing me to see how God works in people’s lives and how it changes their lives as God goes about shaping men, shaping women, families.”

“For me, this has been really tremendous, and if I were to think about how God has worked even more closely in my family – for example, my parents, my wife – they have changed their perspective of the Bible from being closer to someone who is involved in their life, to the ministry.”

  • Pray for the church plant to grow and for God to bring along men to be qualified elders, as well as that He would continue to work in the lives of those He has already raised up, that they would be able to grow in that sense.
  • Pray that God would open the doors for Iglesia Bautista Hechos to take God’s Word to a dark world, and that God would be merciful to their community, drawing His chosen ones to Himself.
  • Pray for Ezequiel and Eduin to have the wisdom and understanding to be able to faithfully carry out the work of ministry.

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