1. When I was nearly 3 months old a family from Raleigh, North Carolina
adopted me. I was born in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, and adopted into a Christian family. I
was christened in a Presbyterian church around the same time I entered into the
United States. My family moved to Arkansas due to work, and my grandparents had
a farm they needed help attending. I was three years old when we moved to the
humble town of Pottsville, Arkansas and immediately I was in church as soon as our
stuff was moved in our new home. My dad was an elder at the Associate Reformed
Presbyterian Church from 1995-2005. This is the church I saw my sin, and say my
need for a Savior. It was only by the grace of God that in giving me faith I was able to
believe all that Christ did in His life, death, and resurrection. I believed that I came to
know the Lord when I was 10 because I prayed a prayer, but it wasn’t until I was 14
saw Jesus as Lord, and repented of my sin. That was my final adoption, and by His
Spirit I became a child of God. I knew that the last four years was me trying to be
good, and not the Spirit doing all good through me. Then was the time I saw my
longing for His word become more about drawing nearer to Him and not knowing
the answers as if I had to take an exam and ace the get into Heaven test. Around the
time of my conversion I decided it was best that I should move to a church that had
youth. I sat in the older mens Sunday school and learned quite a bit, but I didn’t
know any Christians my age. I was an only child too, and all I knew was that
everyone knew Jesus. The ARP church had a lot of older members. As I look back
there was a great need for older men to step up and prepare younger men for
leadership in the church. The last 5 years of my time at the ARP church I saw a lot of
men who played a huge role in the church pass away. Today sound teaching comes
from the pulpit, but there is a great need for outreach, and community involvement.
Theology should push us to missions, not hold us still.
Then the son of a Southern Baptist pastor to youth group invited me to youth
group when I was 15. That is when I started reading my Bible consistently, and
spent time in prayer daily. When I was 16 I started journaling as I read my Bible.
During this same time I joined the Southern Baptist church. I didn’t know what it
fully meant to be Southern Baptist, but I was recognized as candidate for
membership through baptism. I knew then that baptism was a symbol of the burial,
and resurrection of Christ. It wasn’t until Dr. Christopher Barber who taught Sunday
school when I was 17 that I knew why I was a Southern Baptist, and he pointed me
to need to understand and know God for myself. I read the Bible, but it wasn’t until
his intentional teaching that stirred up my desires to seeking who God was, and
what was my theology. He taught about Baptist history, the difference in Calvinism
and Arminianism, and the history of the Bible. This was the first real teaching I was
ever under that I understood that this Christian life was more than going to church,
and being “good”. He was the first man other than my father that I met up with
weekly. We went through the Bible together as go against each other pushing some
billiard balls around the pool table. He showed me how to be a hard working, Bible
reading, and family leading man of God. He was as meek as Moses, and humble as
Elisha. He knew his Bible, and he knew I needed a man to help me grow towards the
ministry. He helped me see the call of God to go into ministry. During the summer of
2011 I was asked to be a church intern in the inner city of Baltimore. Before this
summer I had started college, and a man named Keith Kluthe led me through several

2. books, and gave me a spot to lead in his youth ministry. I still was young, and
needed more time to grow, but I was anxious to serve. There were 5 senior high
guys that I was able to teach and guide as they made their transition from high
school to college.
As I was in college I didn’t join the Baptist Collegiate Ministry as most
Southern Baptist students do, but I was drawn to the Wesley Foundation. They
claimed to be an interdenominational ministry, and that was kind of sketch, but the
collegiate minister there, Jason Molitor shook my hand, and there started a good
friendship. He and I sat down quite a bit and talked about the ministry. Dr. Barber,
and Jason helped me work out this call. I served there on the men’s ministry team
for 4 years and my last year I served on staff as Director of Men’s ministry. I also
served at the BCM helping with Discipleship Now’s at several different churches in
Arkansas. Discipleship was a word that I never knew until my parents gave me a
MacArthur Study Bible for Christmas in 2010, and Keith gave me a book to read by
Bonhoeffer. That word, and the command of Jesus Christ to make disciples was a
new, but a familiar sound. That was one of my goals in college, and it wasn’t until
after I graduated last year that I saw that happen. I had the honor of meeting up with
several guys encouraging them in the ministry at Tech, and teaching them Bible. I
was able to point many of our leadership to churches, and saw a great number of
college students in the Wesley grow in those churches. Something I want to clarify.
God granted me an opportunity to serve in a ministry that it and I differ very much
theologically, and ecclesiologically, but I took the position and served there to point
students to Jesus Christ.
I am firm in what I believe as a Southern Baptist and I hope through this
extra biblical training, and intentional conversations with professors, and students
that I become more like Christ, and see His mission more clearly. I desire to teach in
a seminary or Bible college one day, and if the Lord wills it serve the local church as
its shepherd.