After 28 years as a missionary to Cuba, Haiti, France, and Spain, Florent Toirac, a Cuban national, well aware of the difficulties of reaching the masses in remote areas, and convinced that radio was a way to reach them, established Spanish World Gospel Broadcasting with the radio program, El Camino de la Vida (“The Way of Life”).Initially it was broadcasted from Tangier (North Africa) into Spain, and later taken to Latin America where an expansion of the transmissions began to take place. To accomplish the discipleship process, national missionaries were added to the ministry. These were supported through ministry partners in the USA, and were periodically supplied with literature, New Testaments, and Bibles to assist them in their evangelistic efforts. With expansion of nationals and literature, the ministry’s name was then changed to Spanish World Gospel Mission.
Mr. Toirac died in 1989 and Cornelius Rivera became Executive Director in 1991 until the end of 2010. During his time as Director he provided vision to our ministry by expanding the radio outreach by assigning to the national missionaries the responsibility of finding the radio stations for airing the broadcasts, duplicating the programs, distributing them, and monitoring their transmission in their countries. At the present Cornelius continues with the production of our two radio programs for their distribution by our missionaries. He also teaches at the Seminary for Expository Teaching in Honduras. In summer of 2010 he published a commentary in Spanish on three of the Minor Prophets. His desire is to be able to write about other books of which there is little or nothing written by way of exegetical commentaries in Spanish.
After serving as a pastor in a church in the northern part of Mexico, in 2002 Daniel joined Spanish World Ministries as the Ministry Coordinator.
For eight years he was in charge of coordinating, training, and overseeing the work of our national missionaries. Since January of 2011 he was appointed as director of this ministry.
Besides the administrative position he remains in contact on a daily basis with the missionaries and also is seeking to establish contact with churches and individuals to promote what the Lord is doing through this ministry.
For sixty years, Spanish World Ministries has functioned under the premise that the Lord Jesus Christ commanded his disciples to preach the Gospel, and that this is the activity in which those who believe in Him are to be occupied during the present age. Considering that we have been given stewardship to disseminate the salvation message among the Spanish speaking people of the world, we endeavor to carry out our mission and pursue our objective with constant and persistent determination until He comes. The Lord has opened for us several doors to reach thousands of people with the Gospel every day.
We produce audio messages for both, radio broadcasts and social media posting; we have an App for sharing these media; in these pandemic times, we produce short evangelistic videos; and we use social networks to post all our audios and videos to make them available, for free, to local churches. We also promote the audios through our national missionaries to local churches and radio stations, with no cost for them whatsoever.
With the realization that the Lord’s return is imminent, we are then faced with the urgency of communicating the salvation of message to as many people as possible in the Spanish Speaking countries. Thus, believing that the use of radio broadcasting technology is uniquely and highly leveraged method of putting God’s Word into the ears of the masses, we emphasize the production and distribution of biblical and culturally relevant radio broadcasts that point people to recognize their need of Christ and receive Him as a Savior. The Lord has blessed the efforts of each one of our missionaries as our programs are transmitted over 2,400 radio stations all over the Spanish speaking countries, meaning that the Gospel is broadcasted over 29,000 times per week.
Within the last years, God has been opening greater opportunities to reach more souls with the precious message of salvation, making use of newer technology. Five years ago, we launched El Camino de la Vida App. Thanks to this evangelistic tool, the believers can share the Gospel making use of smart devices. Since the App is free and available in the three markets. Over 8,000 devices have downloaded the App, and over 67,000 times, the programs have been heard.
Three years ago, the translation and production of our programs in Quechua and Guarani became a reality. Over 18 million people speak these two languages in different countries in South America. Even though there is valuable biblical material translated into these two languages, there are very few evangelistic tools available. Since we initiated the production and distribution of the programs in these languages, 145 stations in Guarani, and 130 stations in Quechua have accepted to broadcast our materials.
For sixty years, reaching Cuba with the Gospel has presented different challenges. But we praise Him because our programs are heard all over Cuba through the Internet.
The Lord has blessed us with 17 National missionaries who are vital to the expansion of the ministry in each country. They are accountable to the central office in Winona Lake regarding their work, plans, progress, problems, and any other matters about the ministry. Finding outlets for the transmission of our programs, supplying them with the needed materials, maintaining contact with radio stations, encouraging local churches to sponsor the broadcast and directing those who respond to a local church is to be done by our national missionaries who function as our representatives in their country of service.
The missionary team has grown to 19 missionaries, ministering in 15 countries. We reach Cuba thanks to the Internet. With 60 years proclaiming the Gospel through the radio, the original 15 minute program “El Camino de la Vida”, and a short 3 minute broadcast “Reflexión para Hoy” introduced in 2004, are heard in over 2,300 stations, approximately 35,000 times per week, in all the Spanish speaking countries. The plan for immediate future is to add national missionaries in the countries where Spanish World does not currently have representatives. These are El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Puerto Rico.
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