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Paco García is pastor of a growing church in Chiclana, Spain, near the historic port city of Cadiz. As the founder and president of the Kairos Project, he helps train missionaries from Latin America and the United States who feel called to work in Spain. He began his ministry working with alcoholics and drug addicts. On a recent trip to Spain, World Pulse correspondent Ken MacHarg spoke with García in Chiclana.

How did you begin your ministry here?
I’m a Spaniard from Chiclana. My wife is German. We became saved in Germany in 1976 in a Nicky Cruz crusade. We were in a Spanish-speaking church and developed a ministry. But my heart burned for Spain because this city was without a church. I know that my father was the second evangelical Christian in the city. The other man died. In 1985 we came back to Chiclana and didn’t know if we would start a church here or go to Madrid, but the Lord brought us in touch with several drug addicts. Then we decided to do something for the people.

What style did your ministry take?
We didn’t know anything about drugs or how to deal with people with drug problems, but we knew that Jesus is powerful. So, I went to the mayor of the city and asked him, “How can we serve you in the drug problem?” He was amazed that we could work on this. We thought we knew the solution. I asked the local radio director if I could have five minutes on the radio. He was amazed and thought we were crazy people. He gave us the time. Through that, people got in touch with us.

In 1988 we started our first rehab center. We took girls to our home and my wife took care of street girls. We bought a house where the center now is. We went around and asked for cement and stone. All these houses are built by small pieces of stone. My wife went from market to market asking for food. In December 1990, I had to stop work at a digital computer company and devote myself to the center. We had 70 people living here and provided them with food; [99 miles] away from here we opened another center in Carmona.

Is ministry here in Spain difficult?
If I go by what I have heard, I would have to say yes. If I go by what I have experienced, I have to say no. I see hundreds and hundreds of people being saved. The idea that Spain was difficult was true because people who didn’t understand Spain tried to evangelize it. Spain is Spain and needs to be evangelized by the keys that the Holy Spirit holds for it.

Everyone who wants to be involved in a mission in Spain has to be trained in Spain in what we have discovered in our years working here. So, I say, don’t train missionaries in the States and send them to Spain. Because they know how to go to McDonald’s and they will reach the McDonald’s in Spain, but they have to be taught how to eat fish with the hands like Spaniards do. This is maybe the key.

This is not only for North Americans. This is also for South Americans. I say to South Americans, if you and your family stay in the corner and only cry out something, maybe only “taxi,” people will hear that you shout and they will say yes, I want to receive Jesus. Some people are saved only by hearing a loud cry, they are so sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

In Brazil they are saved. In Guatemala, if you say, “God bless you,” they say, “Yes, I want to be blessed by the Lord.” So, don’t think that Latin American missionaries will have the same experience here. I know several missionaries who say, “Your country is so hard. I’ve been here for a year and nobody has been saved.” You want for them to become saved in your strategy, in your manner, in your attitude. Please, feel the Spaniards, discover what they feel, what they like, what they hope. Then go and take that and apply Jesus.

Are there other mistakes made by North American missionaries?
One of the things that hurts my heart is when I see church buildings in Spain built by American dollars. So you see buildings, but empty. Denominational thinking is a part of my country and is the opposite of what we have to do. You spend a lot of money to build a building and have your title on the front and then you have to push the people in. People don’t like to go in places like that. Spaniards are anti-religious today because they were oppressed by religion. They consider themselves Catholics, but are anti-religion because Franco pushed them into the churches.

How did you use your ministry with addicts to build a church?
I don’t know how to do drugs. I don’t know about smoking or alcohol. But the Lord has used our lives to bring hundreds of drug addicts out of their drugs. What was the key? Sitting with them, building houses with them and crying with them, making joy with them, playing with them and understanding how they think, how they feel. Then to all of them applying my faith and my savior. My explanation is that I don’t know alcohol, but I know it is a problem. And I know Jesus, and if we bring them together, something happens.

December 21, 2001