In 2006, the Minnesota District Advisory Board, led by District Superintendent Dr. Richard Sickels, decided to begin Missionary work among Hispanics in the State of Minnesota. To this end, the Director of Hispanic Ministries for the US-Canada Region, Dr. Roberto Hodgson, was invited to assist in consultations related to the beginning of the work. During this process and providentially, Priest René Franco, a Nazarene pastor originally from El Salvador, mentioned to Dr. Hodgson that he had been in Minnesota preaching and that he knows good Christians in the area who could support him in his research.

 

In August 2006, Dr. Sickels and the Advisory Board invited Priest Saúl Carranza from Guatemala to come see the area and talk with them about the possibilities of working as a Church Planting Missionary among the Hispanics of Minnesota. The Consulting Board interviewed Priest Carranza and agreed on the guidelines for an eventual hiring. On that occasion, Pastor Carranza and Dr. Hodgson interviewed with Emilio Campos and Oscar López who provided valuable information about the Hispanic work in Minnesota.

In September 2006, Dr. Richard Sickels and the Advisory Board authorized the hiring of Priest Saúl Carranza to be the coordinator of the Hispanic Ministry in Minnesota.

The Carranza family arrived in Minnesota from Guatemala on January 15, 2007. At first, only their son Marcos, then 13 years old, accompanied them. Later, their other son, Saúl Jr. joined them. The district superintendent and his wife waited for them at the airport with the essential equipment. Coats, hats, gloves and snow boots. It was snowing and the temperature was 15° Celsius below zero. The first three months of his stay in Minnesota were spent getting to know the District in the company of the District Superintendent and his wife Ronda. Although the Carranza family was invited to work with Hispanics, there was only one Hispanic family in the entire district, and they were to meet them several months later. Saúl remembers: The most difficult thing at the beginning was learning to live in temperatures that sometimes reached 30°C below zero. At these temperatures, the body accustomed to the temperatures of Guatemala suffers very strong pain in the bones, the face freezes easily and the hands hurt horribly. Marcos and Cony often had nosebleeds due to the dryness of the environment. The second conflict was with the language. Although we were supposed to know basic English, upon arriving in the United States we realized that we knew technical English and church jargon. Unfortunately, we didn't understand everyday English, the idioms and jokes of Minnesotans and we still don't understand it well. The culture shock was horrible. In sessions or services, when we made an extra effort to understand, we would get a headache, we would feel like we were starting to short of breath and everything would spin. The one who didn't go through that was Marcos, who adapted very quickly. The beginning of the work was not easy. We didn't know Hispanics and we didn't know where to look for them. We couldn't go out into the streets because the only thing we found was cold and snow. Furthermore, United States law does not give freedom to go knocking door to door as we would do in Latin America. The first family that approached and that spoke Spanish was the Lima family. Rosendo and Leila attended Brooklyn Center Church, and were originally from Cape Verde, Africa. Although their native language is Portuguese, they were the first resource that God gave us to work with. Then the López family arrived. Oscar and Sonia, originally from El Salvador and of Nazarene origin. They, not finding a Hispanic Church of the Nazarene in Minnesota, congregated in another denomination. When we informed them that the Church was beginning Hispanic work, they arrived at Brooklyn Center and returned to their Church. The López family had been praying for eight years for the Church of the Nazarene to begin Hispanic work in Minnesota. These were the good people with whom God blessed the beginning of our Ministry in the USA. In April 2007, a Sunday School class began in Spanish. Cony, my wife, was the teacher and Lima and López were the students. By then, I was traveling every Sunday to a different American Church presenting the Hispanic Ministry throughout the District. With the arrival of spring it was now possible to go out into the streets and get to know the City. With my son Marcos we started going to the soccer fields to play and make friends to invite them to Church. The first service was on May 10, when we celebrated Mother's Day. There were four mothers invited, and that day God granted us the first conversion. María Edith Silva, Colombian, had gone shopping at a Hispanic store where we gave her an invitation to come to the service. When she read Church of the Nazarene she remembered that it was the Church that some members of her family attended in Cali, Colombia. She came to the service and was the first fruit that God granted us.