Every month, our good friends at Christian Radio International put out a newsletter about the gospel getting out across the world.
So let's listen to a story.
It's story time, everybody!
The newest member of Christian Radio International, La Luz Latina, which stands for The Light of the Latin World, radio staff,
radiates the joy of the Christian life with his infectious smile and effervescent spirit.
When you hear effervescent, you've got to think bubbles.
Caleb Delgado, confident, creative, passionate, is the kind of energetic young man that every pastor wants to mentor and every businessman wants to hire.
Who would believe that 15 years ago he was a bad boy, church teenager that many had written off as useless.
Caleb should have been a poster child for Christian education.
Saved at age 6 while attending New Hope Baptist Church in Summit, Illinois.
He later moved with his family to Northwest Bible Baptist Church in Elgin, Illinois and got to sit under the old-fashioned fiery preaching of Pastor Keith Gomez.
Caleb spent 12 years at Northwest Bible Baptist Academy while his godly father taught in the Bible College and his mother filled the home with
music and radio programs from Moody Radio.
Chicago's favorite was Adventures in Odyssey, which is a kids program.
The entire family lived and breathed church, bus routes, and soul-winning outreach.
So what went wrong?
In his junior year, Caleb began hanging out with the wrong crowd while working an after-school job at a local fast food restaurant.
Soon, a rebellious spirit overruled him.
Although he graduated from high school and enrolled in Providence Baptist College, he wanted no part of the studies there or the rules or the ministry.
He failed all of his classes except for choir.
On Memorial Day weekend 2011, God shook Caleb's world.
That Sunday morning, the Spanish church had a split, which is horrible.
900 people walked out.
Caleb recalled, “I got scared and began weeping.
Then the Holy Spirit clearly impressed on me, they are leaving, what are you going to do?”
I had to decide what I really believed.
That night I turned to God, began praying, reading the Bible for real, and listened to the Holy Spirit.
Although Caleb's desires changed, the people's opinion of him did not easily change.
Despite their skepticism, God began to direct Caleb's creative juices toward eternal projects.
After realizing that the summer attrition rate for bus riders was very high, the kids stopped coming.
Caleb organized a Sunday summer soccer league in 2012.
Every bus route had a team.
Caleb's kids became very faithful.
Even the parents attended.
Caleb oversaw it all, the games, tournaments, award ceremony, the gospel preaching, despite suffering an excruciating pain from an undiagnosed broken backbone.
Many were saved.
The idea was so successful that two years later, Caleb held sports camps in Panama, Mexico and Honduras.
Kids love activities.
The results were fantastic.
In one church with 15 members,
150 visitors came and 130 were saved.
Thank God for soccer.
While on a missions trip to Honduras, God brought radio into Caleb's life in a most unexpected way.
Caleb learned that a Christian station, which happened to be owned by an atheist, lacked content.
That's a lack he could fill.
Drawing on the idea he had used in high school when he entered the radio show category in a fine arts contest,
competition, Caleb volunteered to produce seven hours of live content per day.
You will have to have the Holy Spirit and a whole lot of personality to fill up seven hours with anything.
He scrambled to fill the time slot with listener testimonies, that's smart, local music, good, and live stream services from NBC.
While Caleb returned to the U.S.,
He began producing his own two-hour daily Spanish radio show entitled Conversations with Caleb,
which he has continued to do pro bono, which means out of pocket, totally free, because he loves God, for seven years, while working as a loan processor for JP Morgan on the side to support his family, of course.
Since Caleb's marriage to Nancy Jimenez in November of 2023, the couple has settled in Guadalajara, Mexico, where Caleb's college friend Sammy Robles, great guy,
founded and pastors the four-year-old Lighthouse Baptist Church.
Although Caleb has been working as the pastor's assistant, he has also been training some of the students in the Christian College to operate some of the boards equipment in the radio studio and to participate in broadcasts.
Recently, Caleb was asked to enumerate, which means to elucidate or explicate his present responsibilities.
So Caleb, what do you do?
“Well, I …
Teach kids, train secretaries, lead the Sunday school, plan a summer sports program, assist in the one-year Bible college, help with the construction of a new 600-seat auditorium.
We also facilitate establishing small businesses for the purpose of providing work for our college students here in Mexico.
And then we just, on the side, daily produce a radio show and I'm learning television production.”
“In my spare time, because basically God uses me as a Swiss army knife to do just about everything.”
Smiley face.
So what do you think?
Any feedback?
Any comments?
Could God use you to do something?
Gospel Broadcaster for January 2024