Honorato T. Reza

Born: Oc­to­ber 27, 1912, Alahuixtlan, Guer­re­ro, Mex­i­co.

Died: 2000, Kansas City.

Reza’s ed­u­ca­tion be­gan at age six in the home of a Pro­test­ant pas­tor, and con­tin­ued in a board­ing school in Tel­o­lo­a­pan, and lat­er in Mex­i­co City. Re­za be­came a Chris­tian at age 11 af­ter hear­ing a sermon by Ruth Del­ga­do. He turned away from the faith as a teen, but was re­con­ciled in 1930. He grad­u­at­ed from the Bi­ble In­sti­tute in Mex­i­co Ci­ty in 1935, and took his first pas­tor­ate in Ma­tí­as Ro­me­ro, Oa­xa­ca.

Reza en­rolled at the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Pas­a­de­na, California, in 1937, re­ceived his ba­che­lor’s de­gree in 1939, and re­turned to Mex­i­co Ci­ty in 1935 to open a new church. A few months lat­er, he mar­ried Ernes­ti­na Ten­to­ri.

Continuing post gra­du­ate stu­dies in paral­lel with his pas­tor­al du­ties, Re­za earned a de­gree from the Un­i­ver­si­ty of Mex­i­co in 1941. H. Or­ton Wi­ley in­vit­ed him to Pas­a­de­na Un­i­ver­si­ty the fol­low­ing year to teach Span­ish and lit­er­a­ture. In ad­di­tion to his re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in Pa­sa­de­na, Re­za was dean and pro­fes­sor at a Bi­ble col­lege in Los An­geles for His­pan­ic pas­tors of the Church of the Nazarene in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia.

In 1944, the Gene­ral As­sem­bly of the Church of the Na­za­rene cre­ate­d a Span­ish ra­dio prog­ram, with Re­za as its di­rec­tor. He moved with his fam­i­ly to Kan­sas Ci­ty in 1946 to sup­port that ef­fort. For 23 years, he host­ed the ra­dio pro­gram La Ho­ra Na­za­re­na, which was even­tu­al­ly broad­cast on 700 sta­tions.

In 1980, Re­za be­came found­ing pre­si­dent of the Na­za­rene Sem­in­a­ry in Mex­i­co Ci­ty, guid­ing it in its ear­ly years of de­vel­op­ment.

Reza’s works in­clude:

Brazil’s Open Door (Na­za­rene Pub­lish­ing House, 1958)
Our Task for To­day (Na­za­rene Pub­lish­ing House, 1963)
Nuestra Ta­rea pa­ra Hoy (Ca­sa Na­za­rene de Pub­lic­ci­o­nes)
Ambassadors to La­tin Lands, 1965
Prescription for Per­ma­nence: The Sto­ry of Our Schools for Train­ing Min­is­ters in La­tin Amer­i­ca, 1968
Missions: Both Sides of the Coin (Na­za­rene Pub­lish­ing House, 1973)
Through a Long Tun­nel: A Sto­ry of Sur­viv­al in Cu­ba (Na­za­rene Pub­lish­ing House, 1976)
After the Storm, the Rain­bow: The Church of the Na­za­rene in Cu­ba
Tras la Tor­men­ta, el Arco Iris (Ca­sa Na­za­rene de Pub­lic­ci­o­nes, 1993)

--hymntime/tch/bio/r/e/z/reza_ht.htm

Himnario Bautista gives his year of birth as 1913.