Ministry to give thousands of Bibles, discipleship materials to immigrant community in Texas
An evangelical Christian ministry centered on training church leaders and witnessing to communities worldwide will be helping to distribute thousands of Bibles and discipleship literature to immigrants in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area.
The Bible League International, a nonprofit ministry based in Crete, Illinois, announced plans to reach out to migrant communities and others in the major Texas city as part of the International Day of the Bible observance, which falls on Nov. 21.
Harold Trujillo, regional training director for BLI, told The Christian Post that he believes the DFW metropolitan area is "a key place to work" to evangelize "different ethnic groups."
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"To reach out to those people who really are in need of help and in need of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ, and especially some of those people who travel from different countries, Dallas has become one of the hubs in the southern belt where the people [are] coming across," Trujillo explained.
"Our mission is to engage them with the Bible and use the local churches. And we train the local churches, and we equip them, and we provide them with the materials they need to reach them."
Trujillo estimates that the group will be distributing around 500 copies of the Bible for adults, plus more for children, specifically the Easy-to-Read Version. The group will also distribute around 2,500 evangelistic materials and 2,500 discipleship materials, plus more materials for youth.
BLI will coordinate its efforts with two predominantly Hispanic local congregations, Centro Evangelistico Hispano Church in Mesquite and IDD Life Fellowship en Español in Hurst. They will each host outreach training events on Nov. 11 and Nov. 13, respectively.
Trujillo stressed the importance of working with the "two key churches," noting that "this is a matter of building relationships" and "keeping that relationship alive."
Such relationship-building had started in 2019 but was complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns that hit churches and other non-government entities.
"In order for us to reconnect with them, we started making some meetings with the pastor of this group to [figure] out what their needs are, how we can fulfill the needs of the church in the midst of this pandemic," said Trujillo.
"Most of them, they went to seminary, like me," he added. "Nobody teaches in seminary how to build a church during a pandemic."
Trujillo noted that the goal with the training and having the outreach coincide with the International Day of the Bible is "to make the Bible the most important thing in their life."
According to a recent study by New American Economy, the Dallas-Fort Worth area had approximately 1.46 million immigrant residents in 2019, comprising nearly 20% of the metro area's population.
