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By Erik Alsgaard

When is a choir more than a choir? When it is also a group of missionaries.

Seventeen men, all from Patillas, Puerto Rico, form “The Courageous Men’s Choral Group.” They spent 12 days in the Baltimore-Washington Conference not only performing but learning about and doing missionary work.

The men — all laity — were sent by Puerto Rican Methodist Church Bishop Rafael Moreno-Rivas, according to the Rev. Leo Rodriguez, pastor of Salem Hispanic UMC in Baltimore, and Coordinator of Hispanic and Latino Ministries for the conference. The group took part in a feeding ministry at a new Hispanic Church start in College Park, walked the sidewalks of the neighborhood at Salem Hispanic, and took daily classes in advanced mission work, led by Rodriguez.

The choral group sang Sunday, May 4, at Salem Hispanic, and was given gifts by Baltimore-Washington Conference leaders, including United Methodist Women’s president Nancy Randers-Pehrson, and United Methodist Men’s president, Bill Weller. Baltimore Metropolitan District Superintendent, the Rev. Cynthia Moore-Koikoi, along with the Baltimore Regional Guide Darlyn McCrae, handed out certificates to the men for completing their training.

“Some of the men, who knew they had gifts, through this course have made a more personal decision for Jesus Christ and for missions,” said Rodriguez, himself a native of Puerto Rico. Through his network, he learned about this group of men with a passion for mission work. He quickly invited them to come.

For Manuel Calvo, this was his first time in Baltimore.

“We’ve been so blessed for all the people,” Calvo said, “both Anglos and Latins. They make us feel like we’re home.”

Calvo joined the choir shortly after it was created. The most impactful experience on this trip, he said, was meeting the needs of people.

“You know, sometimes we forget about needs,” he said. “But being confronted with seeing the eyes of the people…but more than the need of hunger, the spiritual need.”

Fernando Romero leads the choir, forming it 18 months ago to help attract and keep more men in church.

“Every Friday, we come to church and have a group of men that come together,” he said. However, they decided that there needed to be more men’s work in the church. Thus was born the choir, but a choir with a difference: they would be missionaries, traveling throughout Puerto Rico and wherever God would lead them.

“There’s a spiritual need in our world,” he said, not just in Patillas, not just in Baltimore or College Park, but everywhere. “We want to work for God, to do what God puts in our heart.”

Luis “Varo” Lebron joined the choir at the start, too. He said he liked the cold weather on this, his first trip to Baltimore. He said another experience also touched his heart.

On a rainy Tuesday in late April, he said, the group went to College Park and gave out sandwiches and coffee where day-laborers gather searching for their next job. Because it was raining, most of the would-be workers —who often take work in construction or landscaping — had not been hired that day.

The group fed more than 80 people that day and exhausted their food supply, but not their compassion. Their message to the workers, “You are not alone,” became their mantra throughout the week, reflecting the truth that God is always present through Jesus Christ.

“All they think about is their work,” Lebron said. “I hope they saw a way, through us, to find God in their heart, too.”

Rodriguez dreams of turning Salem Hispanic into a bi-cultural ministry and mission center that both receives and sends missionaries. He also wants to renew the 112-year old building that is in desperate need of air conditioning and other repairs.

But more than that, he has a dream of leading more people to Christ.

“Through this ministry, I hope more people will become committed to Jesus,” he said.