A prodigal Chamula pioneer return, a sinner forgiven by grace

SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LAS CASAS, Chiapas, Mexico — Faith, overcoming persecution and loving God’s Word don’t guarantee that a Christian won’t drift into sin. And Domingo Hernández Aguilar drifted a long way from God for one so revered among his fellow believers. But at 78, he is again being honoured for being the first person to bring the Gospel to San Juan Chamula – and for his courage in overcoming the hatred of his former friends in doing so.

Domingo Hernández Aguilar, the first Chamula to bring evangelical Christianity to his people, is today reunited with his wife and honoured by his people. Chiapas, Mexico. Photo: UBS/Larry Jerden (MEX01DJ-42)

Mr Hernández became a Christian while attending night school in San Cristóbal de las Casas.
“A friend I met there, a member of the Zhol tribe, told me that I needed God,” he remembers. “I told him, ‘No, I don’t need anything.’”

In Chamula, Mr Hernández had attended traditional religious services but really didn’t believe in anything. Eventually he agreed to go to church with his Zhol friend.

He found that he enjoyed the preaching and from that time attended regularly for two years.

“I kept to myself,” he says, “but I learned enough to start sharing it with my family. I became a Christian and started working as a translator.”

His passion for sharing the Good News, however, was kindled by the experience he had with a friend.

“He was ill and started going to a witch doctor,” he recalls. “I told him he would get nothing out of it. I told him he would get better if he trusted Jesus. That is the way I began sharing with the people in Chamula.

“No ‘big thing’ happened – I just had compassion for the people of Chamula. First I just started to share with my family, and it grew from there.”

Those simple acts have gained for Mr Hernández a permanent place of honour among the Chamula believers. They call him simply ‘Number One’.

At the time, however, his compassion for this fellow Chamula drew a quite different response.

“Four families began to meet in our home,” he explained. “The authorities began to ask questions.

“‘Why are you meeting like that?’ they asked. ‘You don’t take part in the traditional celebrations, you don’t buy alcohol, you don’t buy candles – what’s going on?’

“We replied, ‘We know that God is true and that he wants a better life for people. That is all we are sharing.’”

Mr Hernández says the authorities felt they were trying to change traditions – an act not well received in such a traditional culture.

“They tried to burn my house,” he remembers. “People who lived around me began to beat me up. They said they didn’t want evangelicals living in Chamula town, and that if we didn’t leave, some of us would be killed.”

Before they all left the area, some of the Chamula were killed, including the family of another well-known Chamula Christian, Pasquala López Hernández (see feature).

“I was one of the ones who helped her when she was injured,” he says.
Such tragedies fuelled the dispersion that has now spread the Gospel throughout the state. But at first, the church did not grow as much as it should have.

“One problem was that even though there were people coming to faith, no one was sharing it,” Mr Hernández remembers. “If new people wanted to know abut the Gospel, the believers would send them to me. I was seen as the ‘expert’.”

Mr Hernández felt ill-prepared for ministry, but eventually he learned to read the Spanish Scriptures, then was asked to work on the translation of the Chamula New Testament. He also helped translate 20 hymns.

“I helped translate some of the words for the Bible and for the hymns,” he says proudly.

“I think and read in both Chamula and Spanish,” he says. “I read the Bible in Spanish, but explain it in Chamula!”

“The Bible is hard to translate into Chamula because it is a more complex language,” he explains. “One sentence in Spanish may be three sentences in Chamula. That’s why for me it is easier in Spanish!”

Despite his position among Chamula Christians, in 1968 he took what he calls ‘a bad step’. “I drifted away and the flesh won,” he declares.

Mr Hernández left his wife and had families with two other women, but he eventually returned to his long-suffering spouse.

“I finally realised that God had said strong things about such a life, so I repented,” he admits. “Now I have my family back and I feel like I am back in relationship with God as well.”

He is also back in relationship with the Chamula believers. Today, Mr Hernández lives as a sinner forgiven by grace. And the Bible has taken on an even more central place.