Editor’s Note: Maria Eugenia (Maru) Rodríguez, 38, of Monterrey, Mexico, spent the past two years as a volunteer missionary in Spain. She was in the experimental first wave of volunteer missionaries from the South America (SAM) and Mexico and Central America (MAC) regions, sent to Spain and Italy and through Project Caleb. In total, eight missionaries were selected to help advance the church in Western Europe. To learn more about these projects and their results, read the articles in NCN News.

Rodríguez talked with Engage magazine about her experiences in Spain, and what she plans to do now that she has returned home to Mexico, and to the Church of the Nazarene Templo Shalom in Monterrey.

Engage: How did you first realize a call on your life to missions?

Rodríguez: When I was a child, my dad always tried [to get us to read] the kids’ missionary books from Nazarene Publishing House. In that way, God started to touch my heart. I remember three: “A Teenager Called Machina,” “Crocodile Tears,” and there’s another book I remember—author Carmen Esperilla wrote about Mexican children, [“In the Shade of a Mango Tree”]. That started God touching my heart with those books.

Engage: More than two years ago, you saw a video from the Eurasia Region presenting Project Caleb. How did you know God was leading you to be part of this?

Rodríguez: God told me, “You are gonna be there.” I said, “Me? I’m working in a good company in Mexico. How can I be there?” I was trying to have a little fight with God… I asked God to dispel my fears about that, if it was His will. I told God I needed peace. He confirmed that call with peace in my heart.

Engage: Your assignment in Spain was to make friends with people, share the Gospel with them, and help Nazarenes in Spain to expand existing churches and plant new ones. How did you do this?

Rodríguez: I was serving in four different communities in Madrid, Spain. I ministered with Jessica from Argentina. Sharing the Gospel in Spain is very difficult. It’s not like Latin America. First we needed to build personal relationships so we can gain [people’s] confidence. Then we could talk to them about Jesus Christ—if they allowed us to. But we were rejected many times.


Rodríguez and the volunteer missionaries in Spain taught free
English classes as a way to serve and build relationships with
people in Spain. Photo courtesy Rodríguez.

Some schools in Madrid changed their teaching systems: Now they teach all the classes in English except Spanish and math. For this reason we started offering free English classes. I’m not a teacher, nor a good English speaker, but all that I know, all that I am is in God’s hands. I’m only an instrument. He used me to help children and teenagers to understand their English lessons. Some of the parents were in the classes, too. That’s what was wonderful because the parents brought other friends, [so] each month we had new contacts.

We took advantage of celebrations like Christmastime, when we prepared a children’s choir and dramas of the birth of Jesus. Also, during summer vacation we did Vacation Bible School in the parks and we showed the JESUS film. But also we worked in Christian Family Centers.


The volunteer missionaries in Spain ministered to children through VBS, a
children's choir and dramas, such as the story of the Christ's birth. Photo
courtesy Rodríguez.

Engage: A Christian Family Center is a home in which the Nazarene family invites neighbors to activities like Bible studies, discipleship and tutoring for children. Explain why you used this strategy and how you implemented it.

Rodríguez: That project started because the Nazarene church in Spain has been there 20 years, but in those 20 years [they have planted just five churches]. It’s like a sleeping church, so that’s why they started with that project.

At the beginning it was so hard, really, because we were foreign. As volunteers, we were not working, we were not studying there, so people thought we were strange: “You are here and you’re doing nothing?” They didn’t trust us at the beginning, so that’s why we started to help them with free English classes. That’s the way God used us to enter, to help them to trust in us. At the beginning free English classes were not part of the plan.

The people talked to us when they had a need and sometimes they called us when they had a problem. They started to see us as counselors. We started doing that by telephone.


Through the English classes, students began to trust Rodríguez with their
problems, opening doors for her to explain about hope in Christ. Photo
courtesy Rodríguez.

Engage: Please give an example of how this enabled you to share Christ with someone.

Rodríguez: Teaching English in Alcala de Henares, I met a teenager, 18 years old. Her name is Stefanie. She was in the English class. After four months of companionship, she felt confident enough to speak to me about her problems. She shared with me that she has done many things that she knew were wrong, and I talked with her about the love of God through Jesus. But her answer was, “When I am dying I will beg forgiveness for my sins.” And I said to her, “Who says that you will have an opportunity to repent?” And her answer: “Something tells me God will give it to me.”

Well, two weeks later she came to me saying, “I feel empty.” I shared just two verses with her: Deuteronomy 30:19 and Revelation 3:20. That night she prayed, recognizing her condition, and she repented and invited Jesus Christ to come into her heart. Now she is growing in her faith and she finished the first part of the discipleship classes. She and her mother and her two youngest brothers are coming to church. Also, her boyfriend [is going to church]--one of the problems that she had was her boyfriend.

Engage: What did God accomplish through you and your partner Jessica in Madrid over the past two years?

Rodríguez: One of the churches in Madrid, Alcala de Henares, is one hour by car from Madrid. The church there was closed when we arrived two years ago. We arrived, we opened it and now the church is growing there. We have four new families in that church.

In all of these [communities]—Valdemoro, Pradolongo, Griñon and Illescas—we have new members in the Church of the Nazarene. Five total new missions—preaching points with two or three families who are in each of these new preaching points

Engage: What is the significance of Project Caleb for the church in your region?

Rodríguez: Never in the past have we had volunteer missionaries go to another region. So it was the first time the MAC Region sent missionaries; it’s the first time my [local] church sent two missionaries to the same project.

I see this is a new age for missions for the Church of the Nazarene in MAC and SAM regions. I think this is like a wakeup call for the Church of the Nazarene in MAC Region. This is the beginning of a new age; that’s what I think. This is an opportunity for many youth like me. When I was a teenager I wanted to work in something like this, but the Church of the Nazarene didn’t have anything for [people in my region].

Engage: Have you seen a change in mission perspective in your church through this project?

Rodríguez: To tell you the truth, some [people in my home church] said, “You are not a missionary.” And you can see with that phrase that the church in MAC Region was not prepared; they thought a missionary is someone from the United States.

So now that we are back, we are going to start to teaching them about what we did and about the needs in Spain—how Spain needs more missionaries. That’s one of the points we are going to share here.

So the church in the MAC region is changing their mind.

Engage: How did you help your local church develop a sense of ownership with what you were doing in Madrid?

Rodríguez: Each month I sent a report over two years and they saw how difficult it is to work there. [When I came home] I saw a lot of people at the airport, and a big banner saying “Welcome,” and they asked me about people in Spain: “What happened with that person? What happened with that kid?” Our church was praying a lot each day, each week. They know people [in Spain] because in my report I gave some names, specific needs from people from Spain. In our church they adopted them and they were praying for those people. So that means they were supporting us a lot.

Engage: How do you feel about being in the very first group of people from your region to do this?

Rodríguez: I praise God because I feel great. I feel that I’m a new person, that I’m different; my mind is open, my world is bigger now. I have come back to Mexico to share what I did in Spain, but also to prepare more teenagers who feel like I used to.

Engage: Now that you are home, what are your plans?

Rodríguez: I received an offer to work in the Mexico’s North Field in missions. And that work means I need to prepare more youth for missions, specifically cross-culturally—they want to have one of the mission schools in Monterrey. Also I will work in my church planting new missions.

Engage: What has God taught you during the past two years?

Rodríguez: One of the things that He taught me in our work was tolerance. We learned to work in teams. We learned another culture at the same time.

I learned that it doesn’t matter who you are or how many things you know how to do, if you or if I are inside God’s will, He’s going to use you. It doesn’t matter if you study or not, if you speak or not, it doesn’t matter. If you want to be an instrument, He will do it. Nothing is impossible for God. That’s what I learned.

I’m going to change my life because of this experience. Because I know that God needs more workers. His Word says that. So I want to be one of his workers, working in Mexico doing more for his Kingdom.