Baptist Work Before Floods

The first Baptist church was started along the Litoral in 1976. This church, Bethsaida Baptist Church is located in Catia La Mar and is currently pastored by Daniel Ojeda. This church has been a relief center, distributing food and other necessary items during this crisis period. Four other churches and one mission exist in the state of Vargas. These churches are Esperanza y Verdad, Luz y Verdad, Mesías in Catia La Mar, Los Corales and the mission church, Camuri Grande out of the church Los Corales. All churches currently have a pastor except Los Corales. The pastors consist of one bi-vocational, two retired laymen who are full-time pastors, one seminary graduate and one bible institute graduate. Four of the six churches had buildings while the mission meet in the house of the pastor and Mesías met in the house of a parishioner or at Bethsaida.

In 1991, James and Sammye Crawford were the first missionaries to live and work in the Litoral. They served for four years in that area and to date continue to impact the area with service. Tony and Kelly Gideon lived in the Litoral from Jan, 98 to Nov. 98 when they relocated to Caracas. Many different volunteer teams have served the area such as medical, sports and construction. As recently as this summer, three construction teams, 2 from Okla. City, OK and one from N. Carolina built a new church for the Luz y Verdad church. This construction replaced an old building. James Crawford reported that one of the most effective volunteer ministries has been the medical teams that worked in the area during the Abre Obras about two to four years ago. James stated that many of the churches have been involved in mission outreach and conduct bible studies in different areas. The mission pastor had just recently shared with James that they were reaching out to other communities in the east. A ministry that was noted by James as making an impact was the ministry to the surfer community. The ministry was beginning to really boom and was a joint effort of two churches working together.