In 1938, Hubel Virgil Lemley (known to his friends as “Lem”) a 30 year old graduate of Philadelphia School of the Bible, and his wife Mildred were commissioned by First Evangelical Church of Memphis, TN to take the gospel to the Tlapaneco people. Brother Lemley had also been trained at Wycliffe Bible Translators in Siloam Springs, AR, where he was equipped with skills for laboring to bring the Scriptures into other tribal languages. The Tlapaneco live in approximately 250 towns and villages in the southeast corner of the Mexican state of Guerrero.
Until Mr. Lemley's arrival, the Tlapaneco were an unreached people group, with no known believers or gospel witness. Many Americans think of Mexico as a unified, Spanish-speaking culture. But there are at least 64 known tribal people groups in Mexico, with names like Zapotec, Mixtec, Aztec, Tlapaneco, and more. The Tlapaneco presently number about 150,000 persons. They fled to the mountains of Guerrero from the conquering Aztec advance in the 1500s, and have lived in this mountain region ever since.
After five years of gospel labor, Lemley saw his first convert, Catarino. He awoke one morning to find Catarino outside, smashing his sacrificial altar. Upon asking why he was doing this, Catarino informed Lemley that, last night, he had committed his life to the Lord Jesus and was forsaking the rain god as a worthless idol. It was not long afterwards that Tlacoapa had a small but thriving church, with a determination to be a mission center to take the gospel to other nearby villages.
To this day, many of Catarino’s descendants are believers in Christ, including Abel Espinosa Rosas, who has served as Director of Escuela Biblica Tlapaneca (Tlapaneco Bible School) since its opening in 2007, where young men and women are trained for ministry roles to serve the churches.
In the providence of God, Ruben Gaytan, a Mexico City architect, came to know the Lemley family and became a supporter of their ministry. He made frequent trips with them to the Tlapaneco to preach the gospel and find more of the villages. Much of their time in Mexico City was devoted to working on translation of the New Testament into one of the six dialects of Mephaa. After Mr. Lemley went home to the Lord in 1993, Ruben became director of the ministry until his homegoing to the Lord in 2024. Now, the leadership of the ministry consists of nine men, native Tlapaneco pastors and other native leaders, known as the ICT board. (Iglesias Cristianas Tlapanecas).
Now, there are over 30 evangelical churches among the Tlapaneco people, as well as the earlier mentioned Bible school. About half of those churches do not yet have a trained pastor. We estimate that about 3,000 Tlapaneco people have turned to faith in Christ. The New Testament has been translated into one of the primary Mephaa dialects, and work continues on the others.
Many Tlapaneco believers have come out of practices that we would describe as witchcraft or animism. There is often a great cost for Tlapaneco who turn to Christ. A new convert’s refusal to take part in the village traditions and holidays often results in violence, and many have been driven out of their home village and forced to live in isolation outside the town.
Those churches which do have a pastor do what they can to support him. The Tlapaneco Indian Ministries budget from U. S. churches supplements what their local churches can give each pastor. We are grateful for your generous interest, enabling us to support these worthy laborers for the gospel.