After completing a bachelor’s of divinity degree at TCU, Wayne Long ’67 created a new missionary society, the Hisportic Christian Mission, to meet the needs of the large Portuguese-speaking community in the United States, most concentrated in California or along the East Coast. “It’s a word we coined — His, is meaning pertaining to, Port is Portuguese, the language and culture, and the ic makes it an adjective, so it means pertaining to the language and culture of Portugal,” he said.

From Providence, R.I., a strategic center of the Portuguese-speaking populations from Newark, N. J., to Lowell, Mass., Long shepherds the 41 churches that are now a part of the mission in the U. S., Brazil, and Africa. The mission has plans to start churches in Texas, Georgia, Florida, California and Illinois to meet the needs of the growing Portuguese-speaking population.

Long’s job as a pastor has been watching lives change and families restored. “One of the things that motivates me in ministry is seeing the change in people’s lives,” Long said. One of his current mission pastors came from Brazil with some heavy baggage. Through his association with the mission, he got away from drugs and turned his life around.

The mission not only provides a church service, but also assists new immigrants learn to speak English and adjust to the new culture. Many of the immigrants are young and starting families. Churches are planted among those young families to assist in strengthening the bonds of family, social activity, and recreation.

“What we’re doing is a critical thing for the church to step back and take a wider perspective. America is becoming a country where there will be no majority after 2050,” he said. Long sees an urgent need to invest in these new immigrants as they assume a larger role in American society.

For his investment in so many lives, his other alma mater, Northwest Christian College in Eugene, Ore., awarded him an honorary doctorate in June, 2004.