Hispanics Pay Tribute To Dr. Roberto Gonzlez '69

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The Forester: Web Extra: This story is an extended feature of the article appearing in Vol. 4, No. 1 of The Forester magazine published January 2010.

We thank the Rev. Douglas R. Groll, professor emeritus, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, for his time contributing this tribute to distinguished alumnus the Rev. Dr. Robert González '69 and his legacy of faith and service.

The Third National Lutheran Hispanic Convention of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod meeting in Orlando, Florida, paid special tribute to the life and ministry of a distinguished Concordia graduate, the Rev. Dr. Robert González in a special banquet on the evening of July 22, 2009. Dr. González’ life and ministry is a unique example of how God has used Concordia’s ministry of preparing men and women of divergent  linguistic, cultural and racial origins to be melded into a broad and wonderful series of ministries. 

Robert González was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1945. As a product of the missionary focus of a Lutheran school in Havana named after Clara Maass, a Lutheran nurse who sacrificed her life in 1901 in the search for an effective vaccine against yellow fever, Robert became a Lutheran.

In the years immediately after the Cuban Revolution (1960-62), Robert’s parents along with thousands of other families decided to allow their child to be airlifted to a host family in the United States. This vast project, called Operation Peter Pan, effectively relocated more than 14,000 Cuban children to willing homes. 

Robert as a part of this airlift arrived alone in Miami at the age of 16 as a monolingual Spanish speaker who was to become like a son to the family of Pastor Eugene Gruel, a former missionary in Cuba who had been forced to leave the island.  

The young Cuban scholar was to study English in Miami, theology and education in Concordia, Austin, Texas, and ultimately receive his B.S. in education in 1969 from the then Concordia College of River Forest [now Concordia University Chicago]. After years of teaching in Lutheran elementary schools in Florida, Robert entered the Lutheran pastoral ministry through the colloquy program of the Synod after study at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis.  

His first call in that vocation was to establish Spanish language work in Tampa, Florida. Because of his fine skills as an educator and pastor  Robert was called to be a part of the Institute For Hispanic Ministries, which was housed on the River Forest campus.  

In that call he was a part of a synodical program under the Colloquy Board of the Board For Higher Education, which functioned for nine years to prepare Hispanic pastors. When the Institute for Hispanic Ministries transitioned into the Hispanic Institute of Theology, an early experiment in extension education, Robert became a willing and effective pioneer in distance education.

In 1989 Pastor González was called to become the National Counselor for Hispanic Ministries under the Board For Missions of the Synod. He served in that capacity until 1994, and then again from 1998 until 2003. In 1994 he returned to his love for mission development as the Synod’s first called church planter to Mayaguëz, Pto. Rico. 

At the Synod’s behest and at the request of many fellow Hispanic pastors across the country, he returned to St. Louis in 1998 to continue as coordinator of Hispanic missions. For his fine work as pastor, missionary and administrator-churchman, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity by Concordia University, Irvine, California.  

In 2003, Robert together with his wife Susan and daughters Elizabeth, Suzanne and Debbie moved to Irving, Texas, where once again he effectively lead Redeemer Lutheran Church in developing a vibrant Hispanic ministry. While serving full time as pastor and mission developer in Irving, Texas, Robert succumbed to a heart attack on the evening of March 6, 2007, in San Antonio within hours of leading an Ablaze workshop in church planting for Lutheran Hispanics.

Robert has left a legacy to be emulated in many aspects of ministry. Hispanic Lutherans throughout the Missouri Synod knew him first of all as a loving pastor, husband and father. Perhaps because he had been forced by history to leave the country and culture he dearly loved, he seemed to intuit the plight of the immigrant, the difficulty of learning a new culture and a new language.  

Latin American Lutherans in the United States from our own Synod and from the broader Latino Lutheran community sensed his identification with their challenges and his love for them as peoples. At the same time, because he had learned English and the “American way” so well as a youth, he was able to relate to both cultures in such a way that he was able to serve as a window to each culture from the other side.  

Central to all that he did as pastor, educator, missionary, husband and parent was his firm conviction that the same Jesus Christ who he came to know as a small child in a Lutheran school in Havana would be his loving Savior and friend forever and consequently was the message so needed which he so willingly proclaimed to his beloved fellow Latinos and all of God’s children. 

Douglas R. Groll

October 12, 2009

Kim McCullough, Director of Community and Media Relations
708/209-3122 or kim.mccullough@cuchicago.edu