Jonathan is now pursuing Master’s studies at the Confessional Baptist Seminary in Ecuador. He is also currently pastoring a church in Envigado Columbia.

Testimony of Conversion

I am Colombian, born in the city of Bucaramanga. Son of a single mother and for that reason I grew up without the stability of a family and home. My mother for work reasons was not present in my growth, this led me to be an independent person from a very young age. I was without limits, resentful, individualistic and full of dark emotions. Therefore, the source of influence in my life and formation were friends and bad models in my social environment. It is noteworthy that in the midst of all this, God and the Christian faith were not part of my life. My family was one more of the cultural Catholics that were abound in Latin America.

As the years went by and I became a young man I began to live the wildness of life and manifest rebellion against anyone who tried to set parameters, norms or rules over me. Anything that implied rules, laws, regulations I was hateful toward. I then entered into a spiral of conflicts at school, in the family, then in the military service, and finally in the consumption of liquor. It was then that I began to see or perceive that something was not right; but I did not know that, therefore, I blamed my mother, the system, the world, the absence of a father, etc.

Until finally, on one occasion I prayed to God. I asked Him to help me if He really existed.

At that time, in the year 2000, we had a visit from a close relative who noticed me and asked my mother to let me go with him, his wife and children. Unbeknownst to me, he was a believing Pentecostal Christian. He was the person God used to bring me closer to Him, introduce me to the gospel and initiate me in the way of the Lord as a “pilgrim” on my way to the heavenly city. He was a person who modeled for me the concept of Christian family, biblical authority, love, faith, devotion and piety. He was the person God used to let me know the love of a Father and lead me to the heavenly Father through Christ. He was the person God used to show me that even when I felt like a hapless orphan, there was an eternal, safe and glorious home for me.

Finally, after some time with them, I returned to my mother a very different person. The Lord had produced a new birth in me, I was a new creature, I was a child of God adopted by grace. My relationship with my family and my mother changed radically and in that way the Lord used me to take the gospel to many of my relatives. Since then I have not left the pilgrimage to the heavenly city and I hope under the grace of the Lord and the power of His strength to continue until the end.

Call to Ministry

By 2003, I was serving as a police officer at the non-commissioned officer level. I wanted to serve in the best way, and honor the Lord with everything I did. I remember that I was part of a group in charge of fighting the guerrillas in our country, and in that process I wanted to take training courses to continue improving in my role. I submitted seven applications for this purpose, but all of them were denied. That frustrated me a lot.

After some time, and coping with my frustration I remembered my prayer to the Lord in the year 2000 before I met Him and became a Christian. “Lord if you are real, I promise to go to a church, not to make my mother cry anymore and to serve you.” So, after remembering that prayer I started praying to God and losing His direction for me. Not a few months passed when I was assigned to a new responsibility in a small city called Yopal-Casanare. There I could congregate in a church, make Christian friends and get involved in church service.

After a few months in the church, the pastor mentioned that if anyone was interested in studying theology, they were going to start an academic process with a seminary. I prayed to the Lord, I asked for His guidance to know if that was what He wanted me to do, that if that was the purpose He had for me, He would help me to be able to carry out that role. To my surprise, when I applied to the police for permission to study theology, it was granted. When I spoke to the pastor to see if he agreed, he supported me. So I began my training, without knowing about the call to pastor.

Eventually I got married and resigned from the police force to pursue my theological studies, begin a college degree in education, and serve in the church as the person in charge of messengering, cleaning, and other miscellaneous duties. Alternately to that role, I continued to support the ministerial affairs of the church as a lay leader.

Over the course of about two years, the pastor and the church began to see in me the qualifications of a person called to ministry. I was assigned responsibilities in the church which I enjoyed doing. And it was in the midst of adverse situations that the church faced (a pastor was disqualified for sexual immorality) that my name was proposed to be part of the pastoral team of that church, I accepted the proposal, the church approved the invitation and so I began my work.

I finally left that church with my wife and daughters for the year 2016 because the Lord added in His mercy greater understanding of His Word to our lives, allowed us to know the doctrines of grace, the reformation movement and historical faith. In that process, I studied at Integrity and Wisdom Seminary in the Dominican Republic, then I began Master of Divinity studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.