By Hugo Torres

Pastor Hugo has served part-time as our Spanish-speaking pastor but recently came on full-time as our Local Outreach Spanish-Speaking Pastor. Hear more from him as he enters this new full-time position.

How do you feel coming on full-time at Evergreen?

First, I want to say thank you to our church family for having received me and my family with arms wide open. After seventeen years of being a tent maker (bi-vocational pastor), the Lord in his grace has opened a great and effective door for full time ministry here at Evergreen. This opportunity fills my heart fully with praises and thanksgiving to God.

Also, being always a solo pastor and now joining a great team of pastors and staff it gives me a sense and a place of belonging where everyone shares responsibilities for one common goal: Discipleship.  

Please share your responsibilities now being full-time at Evergreen

My main responsibility as pastor of local outreach is to lead in the execution of the vision of our church, with a special attention on evangelizing and edifying (making disciples) our local community of Avocado Heights. This means that I am responsible for developing and implementing strategies for the church’s local community’s discipleship, building up leaders for local outreach ministries, develop a Spanish speaking ministry as part of Evergreen Baptist Church, and help to incorporate the Spanish speaking group into the larger communal life of the congregation.

Besides the local outreach ministry, I am also responsible for overseeing and supervising our church’s facilities care under the oversight of the pastor of administration.

Please share how that has impacted your responsibilities at your previous church in La Habra

I think the greatest impact this has had is not being able to be there every Lord’s Day service to preach, since Sundays are generally a mandatory office day for our church staff and be available to meet upon request. Along with this, the other impact this has had is that I need to schedule guest speakers for every Sunday of the month to preach in La Habra congregation except the last Sunday when I am there to preach. Also, because I am not there every Sunday, there is the need to be one day a week in La Habra to attend whatever needs there are and be available to the members to meet upon request. Thanks to the flexibility on my schedule, I can do this by working remotely from La Habra office on Thursdays.  

What are you most excited about now being the full-time Local Outreach pastor at Evergreen?

I must be honest about it, there is so much work to do ahead of us. For instance, developing a Spanish speaking ministry at Evergreen and integrating the Spanish speaking body into the larger community life of the church is a big task that will demand hard work and bring its own challenges. However because I know that this is God’s work and not mine, I am excited to see how the Lord will use Evergreen church to make it happen.

How can we be praying for you and your family?

Coming to Evergreen church is a new chapter in my life and the life of my family, please pray for this transition process from La Habra congregation to Evergreen congregation to provide for the right man to take over at La Habra church and that the Lord use this transition to disciple every member of my family including myself. You can also pray for Jackie’s health that the Lord provides a good treatment for her stomach issues.

By Jim Kagawa

The following is a testimony by Jim Kagawa shared on Discipleship Sunday, September 17, 2021.

Dear brothers and sisters, it is an honor to thank and welcome you on behalf of our brothers and sisters at the Monday night Spanish Bible study, 7pm in the Café.  

Pastor Hugo welcomes everyone, Spanish and non-Spanish speakers alike.

You may recall in Pastor Hugo’s personal address to us as Evergreen church, he shared from Revelation chapter 7, the Apostle John’s vision of the church’s eternal home serving Our Lord in His Kingdom

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all the tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb (who is Christ), and they cried out with a loud voice, saying,

 “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

We have been blessed to have a small glimpse of Our Heavenly Father’s Kingdom in Revelation at our Spanish Bible study with members from several nations – El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Japan and the U.S. and several languages – Spanish, English and Japanese.

Pastor Hugo has taken the time to accommodate non-Spanish speaking members like myself, my wife Mari and brother Hide with Microsoft Translator so we can receive simultaneous translation from Spanish into our native languages on our smartphones.

And these past two weeks, Pastor Hugo has led us on the topic of “The Assurance of Salvation” with study guides prepared in English and Japanese.

During Bible study where volunteers read scripture, you’ll often hear a brother respond with a reverent, “AMEN”, before he reads.

Prayer time is Holy Spirit filled, heartfelt, and often with tears of joy and pain, and shared responses of “Hallelujahs” and “Amens”. We pray for each other and our families, the Pastoral leadership of Evergreen and for you, the congregation.

The Bible study is blessed with two prayer warriors in his joy-filled wife Jacquie, and our dear brother in Christ, Eduardo “Eddie” Juarez. 

Last Monday evening, I asked the Spanish-speaking members what message they would like me to say to all of you brothers and sisters.  

They said, “Please thank them for opening up the church and giving us a place and opportunity to gather and study the Bible.” 

And from Glendes and Negli, mothers of young children, Genesis and Naomi, they expressed their hope, that someday, their English speaking children can study, worship and fellowship together with ours.

You know… I remember Pastor Mako a few months ago during outdoor service, sharing that as he biked into Evergreen from home, God gave him this thought. It was something like,

“Would the local community miss Evergreen church if we disappeared?”

At our Spanish Bible study, I think there are several brothers and sisters in the local community that would miss us.

We ask that you continue to pray for us and please come if you can.

Gloria a Dios en las alturas.
Glory to God in the highest.
Thank you and God bless you.

John 17:20-23 Jesus’ prayer before going to the cross, for His disciples to be reaching out to us:

“I am not asking on behalf of these alone, but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one; just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

The glory which You have given Me I also have given to them, so that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and You loved them, just as You loved Me.”

by Pastor Hugo Torres

When the early church in Jerusalem began to grow in number of disciples, a problem arose in the daily distribution of food between Greek-speaking Jewish widows and Aramaic-speaking Jewish widows. The apostles wisely proposed to the community of disciples to choose seven men of good reputation, filled with the Spirit and wisdom to entrust them with the responsibility of serving the tables and thus, the twelve devoted themselves fully to prayer and the ministry of the word (Acts 6:1-7).

While these activities continue and will remain paramount in the lives of pastors for the sake of their ministry, they are also paramount in the lives of believers for their growth and service. We find right here in the book of Acts, the apostles and all the believers who had received his word, constantly studying the Scriptures, having fellowship, observing the sacraments and praying together (Acts 2:42).

Based on the evangelistic scope of the apostles (Acts 1:8) and the new life of believers in Jerusalem, a Bible study in Spanish began in our church in March every Monday at 7:00 pm at the Café focusing on two activities: the teaching of the Word of God and prayer. I believe that these two activities are vital for the Christian, just as the two wings of a bird are vital for it to fly. But if the bird is missing one of the two wings, it will be impossible for him to fly.

God has been working since the beginning of this bible study adding new people and maturing them in their faith. It started with only one married couple that I myself already knew from La Puente.  After a few months, the attendance at the study has grown to an average of 10 to 13 people every Monday. Only one person is not a believer, while the rest are believers with different levels of maturity and paths of life. They are mostly locals from Avocado Heights and La Puente, but there are also a few that come from Glendale.

I am teaching the book of Acts, but with a focus on prayer. This means that we are studying all the passages where we see believers praying. By doing so, the group learns in the context of each passage the different aspects (worship, thanksgiving, petition, intercession, affirmation, question) and postures (meditation, Scripture saturation, listening, watching, waiting) of prayer in the life of the Christian. We take time to pray together applying what we have learned about prayer during the study and end with a time of fellowship sharing a snack now that the pandemic restrictions have been lifted.

It is a blessing to see what the Lord is doing and how the group is being edified and unified in the word and love of Christ, as our church continues to reach out to the community with the gospel and build bridges of friendship. My prayer is that God will continue to add more people to this Spanish bible study and my vision is that one day we can start a service in Spanish simultaneously with the English service every Sunday on our campus.