Jack Voelkel
Pablo Carrillo: From Marxist to Missionary (Part 2)
(Synopsis of Part 1: Pablo Carrillo, a Mexican university student, raised as a Christian, was attracted to the Marxist political struggle of his generation. As the violence increased, however, he became disillusioned, and then unexpectedly heard the Gospel in an evangelistic meeting as if for the first time, and gave his heart to Christ. He continued his studies, while throwing his enthusiasm into evangelistic work.)
After graduation, the Lord led Pablo to spend three years with Operation Mobilization (OM) in Southern Europe and the Middle East. He was deeply impacted by the resistance to the Gospel in these countries in contrast to Mexico where evangelical (Protestant) churches were sprouting up like wildflowers. Spain was rocky soil, and the small Protestant congregations struggled to survive. They seemed to lack vision, outreach, and even the expectation of growth or of making an impact on their neighborhoods. But the Middle East was even a greater challenge, dominated by the Islamic culture, where sharing the Gospel was not only difficult but downright dangerous.
During those years Pablo made three critical decisions: he recognized that the Lord was calling him to spend his life sharing the Gospel with Muslims; he met and fell in love with Jane, an American missionary from California (whom he married four years later); and he decided to return to Mexico to get some practical experience in industrial engineering. Pablo was convinced that exercising his profession as a “tent maker” would be the most effective way to serve among Muslims. During their years in Puebla (Mexico), their daughter Natasha was born.
A few years later, Pablo and Jane joined the OM ship “Doulos” which made its first tour of Latin ports. Their goal was to share the vision for work among Muslims with as many Latin churches as possible. When the tour was over, the Carrillos left the ship in Spain and immediately made plans to go to North Africa. But admonitions from concerned friends kept coming to him: “Wait, Pablo, don’t go it alone; form a team.” Pablo and Jane waited on God – for three long years. During this time they helped build up a local congregation in Granada (Spain) and deepened their vision to mobilize and train Spanish-speakers for ministry in the Muslim world. They lived on the small yet sacrificial offerings that came to them from their congregation in Puebla. Yusef their second child was born in these years.
But a bigger surprise was yet to come. Just before leaving for North Africa, their third child, Yamila was born with Down Syndrome. At the time, the Carrillos did not know how to react:
In those days the world came down on top of us. We didn’t know what to do. Yet when everything was so dark, the Lord touched us with His hand. We could almost see Him, weeping with us because of our circumstances. We could feel Him, placing His hand on our shoulder and saying that He also had cried out on the Cross, “Why?!” We could almost audibly hear Him whisper in our ears passages from His Word, as we made our way to North Africa with our three children.
For five years Pablo and Jane pioneered a ministry in North Africa, with the kind assistance of some missionary friends. The first two years were a struggle for survival: learning the language, adapting to the culture, looking for a job and stretching their family budget to make ends meet consumed most of their time. Raising a family in a foreign culture was an added challenge. Jane had her hands full with child care and house work, with taking Natasha and Yusef to the local schools and preparing tasty meals with the meager income.
During those five years, Pablo returned to Latin America for several weeks at a time. His passion was to motivate the pastors and young people to come and help him bring the Gospel to the Muslim World.
In North Africa, Pablo discovered that in contrast to his expectations he could not get a job as an industrial engineer. Then in the third year, the Lord brought Heinz and Isabela, a Swiss-German couple, who offered to help him turn put his abstract ideas about “tent making” into a viable reality. Together they established a carpet export business and birthed Pablo’s dream to carry out “Integral Mission,” that is “to serve the Lord with one’s academic background and live the Gospel through our job.”
As the ministry developed, Pablo and his small team nurtured and deepened a larger vision. As they continued to share their passion for the Muslim world with Latin American churches they actively recruited other Latinos as partners. When young men and women began to respond, they moved back to Spain and set up a training program for missionary candidates. Eventually they formed a mission agency called “PMI.”
At about this time (1987), a unique missionary conference, COMIBAM, was held in Sao Paulo, Brazil attended by 3,000 evangelicals from all over Latin America. It had one over-arching theme: Latin America needed to move from being a mission field to become a mission presence.
A new missionary vision was birthed that week that continues to grow and expand to this day. The call ignited fervent Latin young people with a passion to follow Jesus and produced literally thousands of missionary candidates. Many made their way to Spain and into PMI.
Through the ministry of PMI, Pablo envisioned a three-fold plan. As a mission they would:
- Inform Latin American churches about the opportunities to serve Muslim peoples and get them involved through prayer, giving, or sending workers.
- Give candidates some pre-field orientation preparations and cross-cultural training before sending them to their place of service.
- Encourage new missionaries to establish long term residence and ministry in their new host country. Each team member would use his or her education and training to develop a business or development project which would allow them to be natural and welcome servants in the host culture.
The end goal of the plan was that these “lay missionaries” would share the news of Jesus Christ with the people they would normally work with. The hope was that small groups of national believers would be established who in turn would carry on a witness to their own people.
By 2005 PMI had recruited over 125 missionaries serving in Muslim lands from 15 countries of Latin America. Tim Halls, North American director of PMI, comments on some of the unique difficulties Latin missionaries face:
Since Latin agencies are new, finances can be sparse. Many missionaries from Latin America sell all they own to go to the field and live [there] without the medical and retirement plans that we North Americans require, much less the vehicles and appliances that we consider essential. They often head to countries that have no diplomatic relations with their own and where missionary visas are not granted. In many places where our Latin friends serve, if you come as a missionary, you are not even welcome. Latinos, unlike North Americans, often discover that locals have never heard of their country. I remember standing with a Venezuelan missionary in Uzbekistan as he tried to explain to one of the locals where Venezuela was (“between the United States and the country where Pelé came from”)! I had no such trouble.
As the enthusiastic new Latin missionary candidates began their ministries overseas, often in difficult and resistant fields, many became discouraged and returned home. Mission leaders, such as William Taylor (see reference below) and others began to explore and document the reasons for their attrition.
After careful evaluation, Pablo has come to his own conclusions, and offers advice useful to all who contemplate missionary service:
- He cautions candidates not to be in too great a hurry to get involved in missionary work. The need of the lost should not undermine adequate preparation.
- If one wants to serve the Lord he or she has to learn lessons in the school of life, coming to know and enjoy the Lord in one’s own home and local church, and obeying Him in small details, day by day. The one who is faithful in little will be given more responsibilities.
- He deplores the superficiality often evident in the Christian life of many new missionaries. “They are activists, with a poor image of themselves, and haven’t learned how to develop healthy relationships with people, either Christians or non-Christians.”
- Finally, many come to serve among Muslims with very little understanding of its culture or religion.
The great needs of Latin missionary candidates weighed so heavily on Pablo that he has recently left the leadership of PMI and has established the Raymond Lull Seminary in Spain, a missiological training course to orient the Latin church in the historical / biblical bases of mission, as well as help future missionaries understand Muslims and how to effectively communicate the Gospel to them from the Latin American context. Part of this ministry is holding seminars the length and breadth of Latin America.
Over thirty-five years have gone by since his father confronted Pablo and demanded that he choose between his university studies and serving God. Since making his decision to serve the Lord, God has led him to be a pioneer, making his home in many places, facing difficult issues, but always with the vision that the Lord of the harvest is calling Spanish-speakers to serve Him as cross-cultural missionaries to bring many into His Kingdom. Pablo wants to do all he can to help them be as effective as possible in carrying out this call. His example is a compelling one and demonstrates that a choice to follow Jesus wherever He leads, opens up a journey without parallel.
Some points for reflection:
- How would you describe Pablo’s vision and purpose in life? How does it compare with yours?
- How is Pablo different from most missionaries that you have met?
- What do you like about him?
- Is there anything that bothers you about him, his vision, and his ministry?
- What questions would you like to ask him? (Send them to me, Jack Voelkel, on the “Ask Jack” column. I’ll see that he receives them.)
Sources cited:
Carrillo, Pablo. History of PM International. (Unpublished manuscript.)
Carrillo, Pablo. Entrevista con el Fundador [de PMI] (Unpublished manuscript.)
Carrillo, Pablo. La Visión de PMI. Unpublished manuscript. 2005.
Carrillo, Pablo. Personal correspondence. 2005.
Halls, Tim. The Missionary Movement from Latin America. LAM News Service. http://www.lam.org/view.html?id=265 11/12/03.
Operation Mobilization. (For more information see http://www.om.org/)
Taylor, William. D. (ed) Too Valuable to Lose. Exploring the Causes and Cures of Missionary Attrition. Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1997.
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