The Triumph of the Gospel in the Sacristan's Home: A Novel Based on a True Story

By Rev. Samauel Soto E

I have written my familys true story as a novel in order to help the reader understand the immense love God has for all of humanity. The story narrates my familys miraculous conversion to Christianity and the struggles we faced because of it. It also includes eyewitness accounts of the persecution experienced by the evangelical church in Colombia during the years 1948 through 1962. In the end, Gods love reaches out and transforms the lives of even the most skeptical family members.
God wants that nobody get loss but everybody repented to receive forgiveness of his or her sins and the gif of eternal life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462064021

Rev. Samauel Soto E

Rev. Samuel Soto is Colombian, Baptist Pastor, and Member of the Florida Baptist Convention. His Ministry covers a period of 55 years. He has a bachelor’s degree in Theology and in Communications. He is an expert storytelling. He has previously published other book “Opening the Bible”—Christian Basic Doctrines— (Spanish Edition) and two training courses for leaders of the Church. Retired, at present is an active member of the Anastasia Baptist Church. He and his wife, Stella, have two daughters. They live with one of their daughters in Palm Coast, FL. Rev. Soto went to be with Jesus on 4/3/2013.

Book preview

The Triumph of the Gospel

in the Sacristan’s Home

A Novel Based on a True Story

Rev. Samuel Soto E

With the foreword by Dr. J. K. Rodriguez

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

The Triumph of the Gospel in the Sacristan’s Home

A Novel Based on a True Story

Copyright © 2011 by Rev. Samuel Soto E.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Unless stated otherwise, Bible references included in this book relate to the New King James Version © Thomas Nelson Publisher

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4620-6401-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-6402-1 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 11/07/2011

Rev. Soto is Pastor, initiator of churches, evangelist, Producer of radio programs.

Contents

FOREWORD

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

EPILOGUE

To my daughters

Amanda and Patricia

FOREWORD

Samuel Soto entered the literature of religious novels with a powerful book: "The Triumph of the GOSPEL in the Sacristan’s Home."

In literature, truth is power. The Triumph of the GOSPEL in the Sacristan’s Home, is not only plausible, it is the truth! The truth told with the charm of fiction. Reading it invades the spirit with curiosity, and fills the soul with anxiety about the fate of the persons involved in the story.

The author’s artistry is, often, to magnetize the reader, making it impossible know if you are reading fiction or history.

We cannot continue without expressing to the author, the public’s gratitude for his literary contribution to the evangelical literature. Gratitude because he not only has he written a book, but also he has written it in the form of a novel. He has made use of a literary genre, which is missing, in the scarce evangelical literature of Latin America.

The Publishing Houses are seeking authors who master the art of writing novels, the art of storytelling.

The origin of the story and the novel is very remote. The novel was a literary resource that the Orientals invented to shed a moral philosophy in the plot of a fable.

The universal literature is honor by the contribution of great writers and storytellers. However, unfortunately, the Latin American evangelical literature has not been prolific in this wonderful genre of literature. For that reason, we appreciate Rev. Samuel Soto’s presentation of this very interesting book.

The Triumph of the GOSPEL in the Sacristan’s Home is a book that reports the customs of the farmer and the villager in Colombia. It religiously paints a picture of how religious fanaticism covered with blood many households in the Republic of Colombia. It was Divine Providence, which stepped in to preserve the life of the author of this book. However, God’s design and permissive will allowed fanatic hatred to bring mourning to his paternal home and to exact a tithe from this noble and loyal family.

Universal circumstances have brought about changes in the farms and villages, which served as the theater to the tragedies narrated by the author. Yet, the inquisitorial school, where the souls of these religious leaders learned to be fanatical, and where they agitated their followers to murder their fellow compatriots, has to change. There is an urgent need for radical change that prepares new religious leaders to respect differences of opinions and to protect the rights of individuals holding unto these different opinions.

Including the Preface and the Epilogue, The Triumph of the GOSPEL in the Sacristan’s Home contains less than 150 pages. It has the minimum number of pages to call a book. Nevertheless, it is an entire book. It is the journey of a family, in its spiritual pilgrimage from darkness to light, from death to life.

The novel began when the youngster Cesáreo was sacristan in Chaparral. It follows the chronological and psychological pilgrimage, with its difficulties and multiple experiences, until an unexpected economic crisis forces him to leave his empty home in search of his family’s affection.

Let us accompany Don Cesáreo, the already aged sacristan of Chaparral, to the special services in the Evangelical Church of Puerto Berrío. There Cesáreo sits down in one of the last benches. He is resigned and taciturn. The preacher has extended an invitation to accept Christ as Savior. The old sacristan gets up with tears in his eyes and comes to the altar where he accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Savior.

Cesáreo’s wife and children had accepted Jesus Christ long before Cesáreo’s decision. Some of them died without seeing the conversion of Don Cesáreo. They had already crossed the river of death as martyrs; they had fueled with their blood the fires of the Inquisition! Moreover, their ashes and prayers now were producing fruit.

Reader, you have in your hands a book well achieved.

Dr. J. F. Rodriguez

PREFACE

The pages that I am presenting to the reader are writing up at the request of some churches, institutes, and evangelical seminars, where I had the privilege of giving my testimony, how God saved me having been born in a Roman Catholic home, in the Republic of Colombia.

This testimony contains the drama of a soul that struggles with God because he does not want redemption. It includes also interesting facts never written about the persecution of the Evangelical Church in Colombia during the years from 1948 to 1962.

I moved to accept the challenge of writing these lines with the sole purpose that this testimony may strengthen the faith of Evangelical people in countries where they persecuted them for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This work, although written in dialogue and fictional form, is a real and true story.

Rev. Samuel Soto

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want publicly to acknowledge the following persons who, after reading the manuscript, have helped me make corrections.

Doctor Gabriel Muñoz-Uribe, lawyer by profession and Professor of philosophy at the Free University in Bogotá, Colombia, S.A.

To Miss Mary Schmal graduate in Hispanic Studies and Professor of English at the University of Puerto Rico.

Stella Soto, my wife, who did all the secretarial work. The publication of this testimony would have been more difficult without her collaboration.

To my two daughters, Amanda and Patricia, both of them collaborate actively in reading and correcting the manuscript.

Finally, I extend my warm and sincere gratitude to Dr. J.F. Rodriguez for honoring me by writing a foreword to this second edition. Dr. J.F. Rodriguez, a journalist and writer, well known throughout the island of Puerto Rico. He was a dynamic and prolific exponent of the message of the GOSPEL of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am most sincerely grateful to each of them for their cooperation in this task and for their words of encouragement at a time when it seemed that my strength was almost gone.

Chapter 1

Sacristan of Chaparral

A youth named Cesáreo lived in Chaparral, Department of Tolima, Colombia. He was the sacristan of the parish. As any other boy, he filled with curiosity which daily caused great consternation to the Priest. He was a young man typical of the province, full of hang-ups, capricious, and stubborn. One day his superior thought about firing him. The priest believed Cesáreo was arriving at erroneous conclusions through discussions with unbelieving friends whose solid arguments Cesáreo could not refute. Unable to find someone to replace Cesáreo in his job of sacristan—taking care of the sacristy in the Catholic temple—the priest resigned himself to bear with him. The priest sheltered the hope that his good counsel and the passing of time would change Cesáreo.

However, the reality proved different. Cesáreo gets worse; he was exceedingly disobedient and doubt and unbelief filled his heart. When he heard talk of dogma as the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, he could not believe. This unbelief and irreverence that the sacristan demonstrated toward the dogmas of the Church, which for the priest were sacred, greatly bothered the Priest. What was happening to the Sacristan? The Priest did not know.

What was happening? Cesáreo was secretly reading the forgotten Sacred Bible that the priest had in his small library in the sacristy. The reading of this book, whose content and style was so different to the few books Cesáreo had been able to read before, it was changing visibly and completely the life of the parish’s sacristan. Cesáreo read the Bible in secret and fearful of the priest discovers him, yet he found himself irresistibly attracted to that marvelous book.