By Elket Rodríguez

Professional soccer beckoned to Rogelio Pérez. Soccer loved his speed, strength and energy. It respected his great mentor and father, Jaime Humberto Pérez Castillo. 

But at age 16, Pérez trotted off the soccer field and onto a much different life journey.

"I was about to be a professional footballer," Pérez, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Capernaúm in Olmito, Texas, recalled. “But I decided not to continue. That was a dagger to my father's heart."

His father had aspired to be a professional footballer and loved soccer. He hoped one of his sons would fulfill his dreams. So, he took young Rogelio’s rejection of the sport personally. Enraged, he spoke hurtful words that penetrated his son’s heart.

Jaime and Rigoberto—Pérez's older brothers—already quit soccer. So, the father set his dreams on the younger boy, with devastating effect. "My father channeled his frustration into me," Pérez said. “But I thank God for that. At that time I had a very great spiritual need.”

After the disagreement with his father, Pérez’s brothers invited him to attend Iglesia Bautista Aposento Alto—Upper Room Baptist Church—in his hometown, Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Captivated by the sermon, he came  to grips with his true passion. “There, I had my personal encounter with Jesus,” he said. “God gave me the opportunity to forgive me and my father. Also, he (eventually) gave me the privilege of letting my father die in my arms."

Pérez's mother provided spiritual leadership in their home. Thanks to her efforts, Pérez and his brothers are pastors today. 

But even after Pérez began following Christ, he did not set out to become a pastor. At 22, he earned a civil engineering degree and moved to Mexico City. Two and a half years later, he moved to Matamoros to work for a private construction company, where he eventually started his own construction company. 

During his time as an engineering entrepreneur, Pérez met his spouse, María Isabel Pérez, with whom he has four children—Valeria, Michelle,  Ari Gamalier and Joel Daniel. In addition, he met Pastor Carlos Navarro at Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville. Pérez began visiting the church and learned how to minister from his mentor, Navarro, he noted. 

During a mission trip, Pérez sensed a special connection to Argentina. "I saw people without a pastor and in great need," he said. So, Pérez felt God reaffirm his call to ministry and fill him with a peace he never had experienced.

Pérez returned home to work in his construction company, believing God would lead him back to Argentina. With the help of Navarro, Pérez graduated from Brownsville’s Baptist Theological Seminary and became Iglesia Bautista West Brownsville’s first missionary. Then Pérez felt God urging him to close his company. Obediently, he walked away from a well-paying job and headed to the mission field.

For a year, he served as pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista General Alvear in Mendoza, Argentina. When he arrived, the church only had only 10 members. During his tenure, the church grew to 100 members. 

Upon his return from Argentina, Pérez reported back to Navarro, who suggested he allow the Holy Spirit to guide him. Months later, Pérez learned Olmito needed a church.

Pérez began studying the village while scouting locations for a suitable church building. Iglesia Bautista Capernaúm started after a person who became a charter member asked, “Why don’t you start the church in my garage?”

A decade later, the congregation averages 130 worshipers on Sunday mornings. “I give all the credit to God and my wife,” Pérez said. “If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve anything.”

When refugees surged to the U.S.-Mexico border in late 2018 and early 2019, IB Capernaúm started a feeding ministry among immigrants in the burgeoning tent camp in Matamoros, just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville. At least twice a week, they delivered meals, provided clothes and diapers and other necessities, and preached the gospel. 

The U.S. and Mexican governments’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed that ministry, at least for the present. So, Pérez and IB Capernaúm have focused on a need closer to home: With the assistance of Hearts4Kids and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s Coronavirus Emergency Relief Fund, they feed more than 600 families every week.

To help Fellowship Southwest support immigrant ministry on the U.S.-Mexico border, click here.

Elket Rodríguez is the immigrant and refugee advocacy and missions specialist for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Fellowship Southwest.