[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 21 (Wednesday, March 2, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
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[Congressional Record: March 2, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           SHOW YOU CAN DO IT

                                 ______


                           HON. LARRY LaROCCO

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 2, 1994

  Mr. LaROCCO. Mr. Speaker, a recent article in the Idaho Statesman 
paid tribute to Ramiro Reyes, pastor of Idaho's only Hispanic church, 
Iglesia Evangelica, in Wilder.
  The article, by Bill Roberts, describes the many contributions of 
Pastor Reyes based upon his beliefs in self-help and involvement in the 
community.
  I commend the article to my colleagues and ask that it be printed in 
the Record.

                           Show You Can Do It

                           (By Bill Roberts)

       Wilder.--Lauro Trina, his wife, and their three children 
     came to Wilder last September with no money and no food.
       A String of temporary jobs had played out, and Trina came 
     looking for work.
       Ramiro Reyes, pastor of Wilder's only Hispanic church, 
     heard about Trina's plight. Within the day he showed up at 
     the family's house in Wilder's government migrant housing 
     complex with bags of groceries.
       At Christmas, he was there with toys for the children.
       ``He came and brought food,'' Trina says. ``He was here 
     right away. It's all right.''
       Another life touched by Ramiro Reyes.
       Trina is working now, Reyes says. And things are better for 
     the family.
       There have been many such stories about Reyes in the 38 
     years he's ministered to the people of Wilder, a 
     predominantly Hispanic town of 1,350.
       Reyes' church, Iglesia Evangelica, is nondenominational and 
     98 percent Hispanic. The core membership works mostly for 
     agricultural companies.
       During summer, Sunday attendance jumps from about 60 to 
     over 100 as migrant laborers come to work the fields from 
     across the country and from Mexico.
       At church, they hear Reyes preach from the Bible, but he 
     also tells them how to improve their daily lives. To a family 
     with kids dropping out of school, he says, don't blame the 
     schools, ``Kids spend more time in front of TV than reading a 
     book,'' he says.
       To Hispanic men who drink and that is a key problem, Reyes 
     says he tells them to go home and be with their families.
       ``Did you ever see a drunk that was rich?'' he asks. ``You 
     don't have to go to a bar to have a good social life.''
       To Hispanics struggling financially, he says ``out of a 
     dollar, put 20 cents in the bank.''
       It's pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps straight talk that 
     makes no allowances for people who may feel oppressed. That's 
     because Reyes doesn't believe in discrimination.
       ``We've got too many beggars like that,'' he says. ``We're 
     not in the minority here.'' Wilder is about 60 percent 
     Hispanic.
       ``We haven't got a problem with racists. I've never been 
     ill treated.''
       Reyes urges his congregation to get involved in their 
     community. Run for the school board, he says.
       So far, few have. The mayor of the town is white. So is the 
     school board.
       But Reyes isn't giving up.
       Sure, he says, it's a tough message. ``Some people don't 
     see the truth as helping.'' Some people drop in on a Sunday, 
     hear the message, and don't return. ``A person might get 
     offended at what I say and never come back.'' Jose and Rosa 
     Rodriguez didn't leave. They started coming to the church in 
     the mid-1980s.
       Reyes helped them get their first house. He helped them 
     fill out forms and serve as a translator. ``He helped during 
     hard times,'' says Rosa through a translator.
       And they believe in his take-charge message. ``That's very 
     true,'' Rosa says. ``That's what I tell my children.''
       Reyes who says he's such a familiar figure in Wilder that 
     even the dogs know him is about to retire from the church he 
     started.
       But it's doubtful this stocky man, with an urgency in his 
     voice that compels people to listen, will ever stop telling 
     Hispanic farm laborers that they must take control of their 
     own destiny.
       His plan is simple: ``Show you can do it,'' he says.
       He asks no more of his congregation that he has of himself.
       Reyes was raised in a migrant family in Texas and Mexico 
     and spent much of his early life picking cotton, 
     strawberries, tomatoes and oranges. He's never strayed far 
     from the dirt and the crops.
       By his mid-20s Reyes had compiled a resume of 
     drinking, gambling and fighting. He beat his wife, and 
     never held a job for more than six months.
       ``Nine out of 10 men (I knew) were like me,'' Reyes says. 
     ``Every day, every evening. I did this to make me a macho 
     man.''
       At a Southern Baptist Church in Texas in 1955 where friends 
     had persuaded him to come Reyes says he realized his life was 
     going in the wrong direction. ``I felt convicted of my sinful 
     life,'' Reyes said, and accepted Jesus Christ as his savior.
       ``When my buddies discovered I became a Christian and saw 
     me with a Bible, a lot of these people made fun of me,'' 
     Reyes says. In 1956, Reyes, then 27, moved to southwest 
     Idaho. He worked the fields by day. But at night, and all day 
     Sunday, he and his wife, Rebeca, walked through the labor 
     camps in Wilder, Emmett and other cities passing out Spanish 
     literature and talking about God.
       Sam Parvin, a Wilder minister, remembers working with Reyes 
     during the late '50s. The two would talk through row shelters 
     long buildings broken into small rooms. ``We went in night 
     after night with loud speakers and Spanish music,'' Parvin 
     says. Parvin preached the Gospel, and Reyes translated.
       Even then, when people were without food, Reyes helped, 
     Parvin says, ``We used to get groceries. It's part of the 
     ministry.''
       In 1958, Reyes left Idaho to attend a Spanish Bible School 
     in California, so he could return home and preach.
       After several years of working in the migrant camps, Reyes 
     was frustrated. ``We weren't gaining any ground,'' he says. 
     So he and his wife started a church in 1963. It began as a 
     Bible study with the Reyes and Parvins 13 people in all. But 
     it soon grew.
       They held Sunday School classes in their house or in 
     visitors' cars.
       ``He just stuck to it,'' Parvin says. ``He has a good 
     nucleus there.''
       Iglesia Evangelica is small. It seats about 100 people.
       On a typical Sunday, Ramiro Reyes stands in the aisle and 
     greets everyone as they come to Sunday school or church.
       Services are bilingual. Hymns are sung from Spanish and 
     English hymnals. Reyes leads the singing. The languages mix 
     without confusion.
       Bible lessons are read by the congregation. One verse in 
     Spanish. One in English.
       The sermon is given in both languages. Each thought spoken 
     by Reyes is given first in Spanish, then in English.
       He moves effortlessly between languages.
       There is a pulpit at the front of the church. But Reyes 
     doesn't use it. With a tattered Bible in his hand, he 
     delivers the sermon he's worked on for several days during 
     his early-morning Bible study.
       He paces up and down the aisle stressing his message again 
     and again.
       ``For God so loved the world that he gave,'' Reyes says.
       ``If you say you're holy, you blew it, because you are 
     not.''
       Be fair with people, he tells the congregation. And try to 
     do the right things.
       Outwardly, Reyes pushes for a better life for Hispanics in 
     an upbeat, direct tone. But inwardly, he says he gets 
     discouraged.
       ``We can do more with Hispanics in every area,'' he says. 
     But Hispanics won't take leadership roles, often because they 
     don't believe they have the education. ``Some day this will 
     change,'' he says.
       Reyes' presence in Wilder has helped bridge the city's 
     Anglo and Hispanic cultures, says Ramiro Cruz-Ahedo, pastor 
     of Wilder Methodist Church's mostly white congregation.
       ``He was the first person to welcome me to the community,'' 
     Cruz-Ahedo says. ``He opened doors for me. He was delighted 
     to see a Hispanic pastor of a white congregation.
       ``His ministry is bicultural and bilingual. He relates to 
     both groups. That has helped to bring the two communities 
     closer together.''
       Doug Amick, Wilder's mayor, agrees. ``If you need help you 
     can depend on him to help. It doesn't matter if you're 
     Hispanic or white. If he sees a problem, he confronts it head 
     on.''
       Reyes saw a need for housing for migrant Hispanic farm 
     workers. He helped raise the issue, and today Chula Vista 
     Acres has 120 units for farm laborers. One of the streets in 
     the housing complex bears his name.
       ``I speak out when I see an injustice,'' Reyes says. But he 
     disdains the label of social activist. ``You don't have to 
     raise a flag. Go through channels, not on the streets as a 
     demonstrator. That brings reproach to our denomination.''
       The congregation is having a tough time envisioning Iglesia 
     Evangelica without him.
       Rosa Rodriguez rolls her eyes back and shakes her head. ``I 
     don't want him to retire.''
       Says her husband Jose, ``I thank God because I know Pastor 
     Reyes.''

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