November 18, 2003

LIMA - Evangelical preacher Paul Finkenbinders, better know as Brother Pablo, five-day visit to Lima caught the attention of local press.

Several dailies and television stations published stories and interviews with Brother Pablo, who held a private audience with Congress president Henry Pease Monday. On Friday, Brother Pablo attended a supper with Evangelical leaders and political and social authorities. On Saturday he met with young people in a downtown park and the final night of his visit he and his wife attended a special event with Evangelical Churches in the Dibos Coliseum.

The 82-year-old international preacher held his final tour of Latin America accompanied by Carlos Rey, a Colombian Pastor who will replace him the production of a A Message to the Conscience and will preside the Hermano Pablo Evangelical Association.

At Congress he met with legislators Gloria Helfer, Santos Jimes and Carlos Chavez, as well as members of the association he leads.

Finkenbinder is well loved in Peru for having promoted, together with Pedro Ferreira, director of the Pacifico Communications Group, the National Prayer Movement at a time when the country was racked by terrorist violence in 1989.

Brother Pablo was born in Puerto Rico in 1921 and in 1955 he began preaching over the radio. His A Message to the Conscience, aimed at spreading the Gospel to all people regardless of their denominations, made him popular throughout Latin America and was the foundation for one of the most extensive mass dissemination instruments on the continent.

From his first trips to remote villages in El Salvador to meetings throughout Latin America attended by thousands, his passion for preaching Christs Gospel has marked his life. He has also made extensive use of the radio and television.

His program A Message to the Conscience is watched, heard or read in 30 countries around the world some 14,000 a week although Hermano Pablo stopped taping the television program in 1996 when he realized he was making mistakes when he read the teleprompter, according the daily Peru 21.

When he turned 20 he married Linda, his faithful lifelong companion. When they were 22 they moved to El Salvador where they lived for 21 years. There in 1955, Brother Pablo began to preach the Gospel by radio.

In 1960 Brother Pablo turned to a new media, the television, to present dramatized parables and Bible stories. He eventually produced six Biblical movies that continue to be shown today.

In 1964 he and his family moved to Costa Mesa, California where they established the headquarters for his ministry. The radio program and the written column is transmitted to 30 countries around the world today.

The international preacher has received many awards and distinctions from groups like the National Association of Christian Movies, the Religious Press Association, the National Association of Christian Radio stations and in 1993 he received a Honoris Causa doctorate in divinity from the Southern California College (Vanguard University).

In 1996 the IberAmerican Confederation of Christian Communicators and Mass Media (COICOM) named Brother Pablo and his wife Linda COICOM Ambassador Ministers for IberAmerica.

Carlos Rey Stewart is responsible for the daily administration of the Association and continues to tape, as he has since 1995, messages with a marked Hispanic cultural emphasis.

ALC News (Agencia Latinoamericana y Caribeqa de Comunicacisn)