COSTA MESA, Calif. -- Jesse Miranda, a professor at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, Calif., and director of the school's Center for Urban Studies and Hispanic Leadership, believes a Christian revival in America is coming from south of the border.

According to Charisma News Service, at around some 40 million, Hispanics in the United States now almost outnumber blacks, according to government figures released last month. Other studies claim an estimated 9 million of them are evangelical. And of that number, close to 70 percent are Pentecostal.

"We need larger facilities. We don't fit," said Daniel de León, pastor of 6,000-member Templo Calvario Assembly of God in Santa Ana, Calif., the largest Hispanic church in America.

Iglesia de Restauración Elim, an independent Pentecostal church in Los Angeles, began with three members in 1986 and now has 4,200 members.

"They mostly came from the Catholic Church," said René Molina, pastor. "They are tired of tradition. They want to have a real relationship with Jesus. They want to have His love in every part of their lives."

Although most Hispanics live in urban centers, hordes are pouring into even the unlikeliest of rural towns. Mabel Nieto, a single Mexican American, planted Fuente de Vida -- affiliated with the Assemblies of God -- in Perry, Iowa, a small farming community near Des Moines. She is targeting 2,000 Hispanics from Mexico and Central America who work in a local pork-processing plant.

"There has been an awakening among these people," she said. "They are witnessing on the job, and young people feel a need to preach."

Marcos Witt, 40, a popular worship leader and teacher throughout Latin America recently joined the 30,000-member Lakewood Church in Houston as pastor of the Hispanic congregation.

More than 3,000 people attend Witt's Spanish service, which results in as many as 55 conversions every week. He intends for his congregation to become the largest Hispanic church in North America.

Since Frank Almonte, 44, who in 1988, took over as senior pastor of Adonai Christian Center in Queens, New York, membership has soared from 60 to 1,900.

"God is opening the eyes of the Hispanic people," Almonte says. "Something is going on. I can't explain it. Most are coming from the Catholic Church. They want to listen to God's voice. They want to hear Jesus."