A long way in 10 years:
the story of Pastor Eliseo

n Pastor Eliseo Arvizu outside his church building in Chihuahua. He now leads an evangelical congregation of 300 families

LAGUNA DE ARBOREACHI, Chihuahua, Mexico —“When I was growing up I learned about the pagan religion, based on a ritual community dance called yúmari,” says Eliseo Arvizu, the first Tarahumara to pastor a fully-registered evangelical church. “The people taking part would celebrate by singing and making music and dancing. After a day of this animals such as sheep, goats and small colts would be killed and offered to God.

“They would the throw food up in the air to ‘feed God’,” he says. “Then they would get drunk and sometimes they would introduce peyote (a hallucinogenic plant grown locally). It was horrible: very dangerous. But our group didn’t do peyote.” Even as a child, he had his doubts about the rituals.

Cultural

“I noticed that the food never disappeared!” he says.“When they threw it into the air, it always fell to the ground and got eaten by the dogs. I used to think, ‘If God was real, the food would disappear.’ To me it was just a cultural event.”

His view of the traditional religion changed irreversibly when he was 21. “I began having pains like needles in my bones and hips,” he says. “I also had a lump on my neck and on my chest. I went to several witch doctors and medical doctors – my family spent almost all the money they had on them – but none could find anything wrong.”

Then one day, when he was visiting a friend, a man named José began talking to him about Jesus.

“He talked to me and prayed for me,” Mr Arvizu remembers. “Then I prayed and I was healed. Then I knew the Lord was real. I told him I would serve him the rest of my life and I left all the witchcraft behind.”

And as a result of his healing, his parents and grandparents became Christians, also. Not long after he had been baptised he felt the call to preach and a clear confirmation that God’s hand was on him.

Test

“When I started preaching I felt as if I had a hand on my head saturating me with God’s power,” he explains. “Nevertheless I put it to the test: I said, ‘If my uncle and my cousin become Christians, then this is real.’ These two were really pagans – I thought they might never change.”

So every afternoon for two weeks, Mr Arvizu gathered his family together to talk about Jesus. And one by one they were healed and became saved.
“I knew that only the power of God could do such things,” he says. In his mind, his test had been passed – but more and more people were coming to the afternoon meetings.

“All of a sudden my house was full! That is how the mission here in Laguna de Arboreachi started.” But it was not all plain sailing for the new pastor – or for his converts.

“People said we were following a foreign religion, that we were pagans and were breaking the laws of God. They accused us of raping women and burning Catholic churches and schools. They called us names and beat us up – although I personally was only threatened.”

At one point the local authorities even threatened to run the Christians out of town for not following the local laws and traditions.

“There were about 600 of us,” Mr Arvizu says. “We just started praying and then we started witnessing to them. Well... they gave up and we are still here! And now several of the people who wanted to get rid of us are Christians. Some of the chiefs became Christians and encouraged their people to follow Christ as well.”

Today the church he leads has a congregation of 300 families, is the centre of a wide evangelical outreach to the Tarahumara and provides the best training it can – with limited resources (see related feature) – to new pastors, missionaries and teachers.

He notes that even relations with the Roman Catholic Church have improved.