“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground,
for it is the time to seek the Lord…” Hosea 10:12 (ESV)
Elias Delgado was born in 1897, on a sugar cane plantation in Linares, Mexico, called Hacienda Jesús María—an estate that still exists today.
He was the ninth child in the family, and the first to be born to Christian parents. His eight older siblings were born while the family was still deeply Catholic. That change in his parents’ (my Great-great-grandparents’) faith is the beginning of everything.
A Rainstorm and a Revolution
My Great-great-grandfather, Carlos Delgado, was a young husband and newly married. In his own words, “When I became a man, having entered into marriage to one of the most outstanding young women of the town, I began to sow seed [for] a farm on the outskirts of San Carlos.”
He was sowing crops at first, but soon he’d be sowing something eternal.
In 1896, during a cold and rainy spell, Carlos—then a devout Catholic—offered shelter to a Protestant evangelist who had been run out of town for distributing Bibles. The evangelist stayed a few days, sharing Scripture and conversation. Before he left, he offered Carlos a Bible in exchange for a few pesos. It was Carlos’s wife, my great-great-grandmother, who first opened it.
The more they read, the more unsettled they became, particularly when they reached Exodus 20. The second commandment, forbidding graven images, didn’t square with the rows of statues lining their church. Carlos brought The Bible to the priest who had raised and educated him, and challenged the priest for clarity.
In an excerpt from Elias’ autobiography, he retells the story he’d heard countless times from Carlos’ point of view:
“As I read the first commandments with all the details written there, I was hardly able to contain myself. I took the book under my arm and went straightaway to the house of Father De La Peña Velazco. I arrived so agitated … Showing him the book, I said, “Father, everything I am, and everything I know, I owe to you. I know you would not lie to me. I was given this book, and I was told that it is the Holy Bible. What do you say?” The priest examined the book, “Yes, this is the Protestant version of The Bible.”
I don’t know if it was zeal or anger that I felt, but I asked the priest, “If this is The Bible and these are the Ten Commandments of God, why do we have all this?” I pointed to all the statues that adorned our church. The priest answered with his usual patience.
“Son, The Bible says this, and I know it is the truth. The church has believed it convenient to put these statues here so that the believers can fix their gaze on them and concentrate their thoughts. I have served the church for many years. I’m very old and I know how the church persecutes those who do not believe the way it ordains. I do not have the vocation to be a martyr; however, I have told you the truth. Maybe if I were twenty years younger, I too would become a Protestant. But if you want to do what God commands, this is The Bible. Follow it.”
And so, they did.
Carlos went searching specifically for a Baptist church that preached the Gospel and baptized “not children, but believers” by immersion.
He said, “From that time forward I made plans to leave San Carlos solely for the purpose of finding the Baptist church.”
It was then that his entire family’s trajectory shifted … including his young son Elias’ … including mine.
Baptist by Birth and by Conviction
Elias was baptized at age 11 by Rev. Daniel Sierra Barocio, who would shortly thereafter become President of the National Baptist Convention of Mexico in 1928.
Though he received secondary education under a Presbyterian program and was offered ministry advancement, Elias declined, “because of my Baptist convictions,” he wrote in his autobiography, “and [I] ultimately left that institution to pursue a secular career.”
He married young, started a family, and stepped into a burgeoning home church plant in McAllen, Texas—his first taste of planting and serving within a Baptist church context. That obedience opened a path to Seminario Teológico Bautista in Fort Worth, Texas (SWBTS).
I have to pause here to express my sincere gratitude to SWBTS for providing a scan of his handwritten transcript. Though he didn’t complete the program, Elias spent four years immersed in theological study and poured that knowledge into a lifetime of evangelism and church planting.
“My beloved parents came to live with us,” he wrote, “and their hopes and dreams were fulfilled as I became pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista Mexicana in Fort Worth.”
Mission Board Beginnings and CP Momentum
In 1923, just months prior to the birth of the Cooperative Program, Elias Delgado was ordained to the Gospel ministry. That same year, he began his missionary work under the Home Mission Board (now NAMB). For 35 years, he served the local church across Texas, Mexico, and California.
All told, he pastored or planted churches in:
- Fort Worth, McAllen, Mission, Mercedes, Del Rio, Corpus Christi, Harlingen, La Feria, and Texas City, TX
- Monterrey, Xicotencatl, Villa Juárez (Mante), Mexico
- Barstow and San Francisco, CA
Every one of those churches represents a community reached through faithful, cooperative, evangelistic work. His life was deeply rooted in Baptist convictions, but his fruit was always mission-focused.
Liberty in Mante
In 1964, the California Southern Baptist reported one of his most daring acts of ministry, which had taken place in 1929, in Mante, Mexico. On a national holiday honoring liberty, Delgado stood in the town square and preached a message titled “La Libertad de Conciencia” (The Liberty of Conscience), at a time when public Protestant preaching was forbidden.
When a prominent military general approached him after the message, Elias braced for arrest.
Instead, the general said, “I also am a Christian… and I want you to come to my home and preach The Gospel to me and my friends.”
They became friends. The general even raised funds among his own people to purchase land for a church, what would become First Baptist Church of Mante, Mexico.
A Faith Worth Sowing
Elias served twice as president of the Mexican Baptist Convention of Texas: in 1938 and again in 1948, but he wasn’t chasing fame. My great-grandfather chased souls. With a borrowed Bible, an unfinished degree, and a call rooted in conviction, he gave his life to planting churches and preaching Christ.
Years before Elias stood in pulpits across Mexico and Texas, his father Carlos was sowing seed—both literal and spiritual—on the outskirts of San Carlos. He farmed by day and read the pages of his Bible by candlelight.
And like many of our Baptist forebears, Elias sowed Gospel seeds with Cooperative Program support behind him, through NAMB, and through the California and Texas state conventions. Mostly, it was through the local church.
And now … through me.
Because some stories don’t end.
They take root … and grow.
“The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,
and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” 2 Corinthians 9:6 (ESV)
