People were watching from Panama, Peru, Mexico, France, Australia, Japan, Australia and many other countries.
The Lake Union Conference sponsored and partnered with Hispanic coordinators from the five conferences a unique online virtual evangelistic series titled “Mas Allá del Dolor” (Beyond the Pain), which resulted in 50 baptisms.
The idea to have the meetings was initially presented by Ruben Bullón, Hispanic coordinator for Illinois whose father, the well-known Hispanic evangelist Alejandro Bullón, agreed to hold the meetings from his home in Brazil. The other Hispanic coordinators saw light in the concept and so together they planned the event. This series was unique in that all the planning and hosting of the event was done by the Hispanic coordinators.
In preparation for the series, which ran Sabbath, Dec. 5 to 12, Ruben Bullón said they connected with all the Hispanic churches in the Lake Union and had them promote the series on social media. When the campaign opened, they were broadcasting on 65 Facebook pages and six YouTube channels, with another 20 re-streaming from those channels. People were watching from Panama, Peru, Mexico, France, Australia, Japan, Australia and many other countries. In the end, the analytics revealed 500,000 viewers had watched the broadcast for at least one minute. “We managed to build the biggest broadcast network in our division,” said Bullón.
Before the series began, our members were encouraged to be involved in a 40-day online prayer series which would close at the time when the meetings began. Many of the members would use the “Our United Cry” prayer series recently translated into Spanish and developed by the Lake Union and used for the United Cry Prayer Conference.
Luis Parra, pastor of the Fairmont City in East St. Louis baptized 11 people, including one family of 7. Another pastor, Gilberto Bahena, encouraged his family which is Catholic and lives deep in the mountains of Mexico to watch the programs. Now his entire family is receiving Bible study.
“We are thankful for the miracles of grace that were viewed during this special week,” says Carmelo Mercado, Lake Union Vice President for Multicultural ministry, “and we pray that many more people will be baptized in the immediate future.”
