Here is part of our Pastor's personal history:
He was born on October 24th, 1946 in Oacalco, Morelos, Mexico. In his teenage years he had a personal encounter with Jesus as his Lord and Savior. At age 17 he moved to Mexico City to study high school at the #7 Vocational School. He met Martha and 14 months later they decided to unite the lives. Since then, God has blessed them in many ways and has allowed them to be parents to Norma Edith, Rafael Aarón, Benjamín, and M. Abigail, whom they brought up in God's knowledge and who continue faithfully in His path along with their families.
While working in Mexico City for many companies, he decided to make a career as a salesman. With God's help, his wife's support, and a lot of work, he was able to succeed in such a way that a very importan company with an office in Guadalajara, Jalisco became very interested in his services and that was how the Solis Family moved to Guadalajara and became members of Tercer Iglesia Bautista de Guadalajara. They were members there for 15 years (1979-1994), during which they served in many ministries: Youth ministers, Missionaries at El Salto, Jalisco, where they started a church; Pastor Solis served as deacon (14 years), Adult teachers, Preacher, Evangelism Director, and Building Maintenance Director.
At the beginning of 1995 they felt the call to the Pastoral Ministry and after praying for a year, in January of 1996, they attended the Evangelism Conferences in Fort Worth, Texas, receiving invitations to preach at various churches and receving to offers to pastor, of which after praying, in March of 1996 they accepted the challenge of pastoring the small group (5) of people who gathered as the Hispanic Department at Rosen Heights Baptist Church in Northside Fort Worth. Pastor Solis, his wife and his daughter Abigail worked as a team and six months later the small group had grown to a regular attendance of about 40 people, and thus, Mision Bautista Rosen Heights is started with the vision of becoming an fully operational church (within 5 years.
By 2000, the congregation had an average attendance of 80 people, at which point it became evident that they needed to find a larger place. Praying and by faith, work on the Church Constitution started. Pastor Rafael Solis challenged the church to be faithful stewards and to wait for God to open heaven's gates. In April 2001, he met with the leadership of Azle Avenue Baptist Church, in order to have a larger space to worship God and the decided to share space, agreeing to have their first meeting together on Sunday, June 10th, 2001 and to start all regular services in the same building. In a respectful environment, fellowship started growing and all of the hispanic congregation was received as active members of Azle Avenue at the end of July. The interim pastor with the Anglo congregation resigned and by August 2001, Pastor Solis takes complete responsibility to be the pastor to the entire congregation at Azle Avenue Baptist Church, which he has faithfully done to this date and in 2003, he graduated from the SWTS Seminary Extention in Fort Worth, Texas, with a Diploma in Pastoral Ministries.
To God be the glory and honor!