From Wounded Warrior to Impassioned Evangelist

DMin Student Elias Reyes Champions Cross-Cultural Ministry

At WBS’s recent on-campus intensive for Doctor of Ministry students, you could have heard Elias Reyes occasionally raising his voice as he discussed sharing the gospel of our Triune God across cultural barriers. With undergraduate and graduate work in intercultural studies, missiology, and anthropology, His passion for evangelism, missions, and the unity of the Church is evident. Yet Elias’s journey to this place has taken some strange turns in far-flung places.

Raised in a Christian home, Elias says “there’s a difference between being present at church because have to be and recognizing you are a sinner needing Christ’s grace.” The latter did not happen for him until he was in his twenties at an evangelistic crusade. However, with little follow-up discipleship, he found himself wandering from God until his forties.

The attack on the U.S. on 9-11 served as a wake-up call for him. He signed up for a reserve unit. Six months later, he was deployed to Fort Hood, and put “boots on the ground” in Iraq in 2006. He became an assistant to chaplain Benjamin Bender. Together, they toured three ancient biblical sites in that nation along with other soldiers. While standing atop the ziggurat in Ur, where Abraham received his call, Bender pulled Reyes aside and told him, “I feel a strong impression from the Lord to ask why are you running from His call; He has greater things for you!”

With that seed planted in his spirit, Elias was redeployed for a second tour. While coming to Baghdad, his helicopter came under attack. They were forced to make a hard landing. Getting off the craft, Elias landed wrong, compressed his back, and sustained a head injury. Returning to Ft. Hood, he spent two years at the Wounded Warrior Center before being medically retired in 2009.

During that time, chaplains kept reminding him of God’s calling, eventually leading him to repentance. “I recognized that I didn’t know God at all, but He sent people to love me, drawing me to Himself,” he says.

He ended up at a small church in Flagstaff, Texas, where he began to be exposed to concepts in faith, leadership, the Holy Spirit, and Wesleyan doctrine. Then, tragedy struck the community when a young Latino man was shot to death. Elias’ own family is originally from Puerto Rico, so he identified with the victim. As with the events of 9-11, God used this moment to mobilize Elias. He attended an evangelistic community event gathered in response to the shooting. Afterward, he began meeting weekly with pastor Robert Norton. “He spent two hours every Monday over coffee, teaching me to interpret Scripture and helping me prepare sermons.” He began preaching at Sunshine Rescue Mission, a local homeless shelter, and he and his wife opened their home for a Bible study with unchurched and de-churched people impacted by the shooting. “At times we had up to 90 people crowded into our living room, kitchen, and stairwell every Sunday afternoon,” he recalls. Later, the church offered to let them use the sanctuary, and the gathering grew to 200 attendees.

Elias had used his GI Bill to attend Arizona University, majoring in cultural studies. During his junior year in 2018, he had the opportunity to do mission work in Costa Rica. This sparked an ongoing love of that nation. Elias makes regular return trips, working with local Methodists to put on evangelistic events.

On one such trip, the group’s cook pulled him aside. “I love to cook and often helped in the kitchen,” he says, “but I was not expecting what she said.” Her message was, “I couldn’t sleep because of you. The Holy Spirit kept bringing you to my mind. You appeared in my dreams, and I heard the voice of God saying, ‘I have called them to my service.’” As they talked and wept before the Lord, they asked the pastor to pray for him. He laid hands on Elias and prophesied, “God is going to open doors for you to confirm that it is Him who is doing it and you will know it is Him doing it and not humans.” From that time, Elias reports, “every aspect of my educational and career opportunities have been provided for in remarkable ways.” For example, he says, a family member provided $30,000 to cover his studies.

Elias’ master’s degree in missiology was with Asbury Theological Seminary. After affiliating with the Global Methodist Church, he began researching options for further study. “When I opened up the doctrinal statement of Wesley Biblical,” he says, “something leaped within me. I knew this was the place for me. I have loved finding my niche in the WBS classes, with their emphasis on the inerrancy of Scripture and classic Wesleyan theology.”

One way Elias contributes to spreading the message is by providing informal training to a number of Latino pastors. “Many of them come from contexts where they could never afford the educational opportunities I have been given. Most are bi-vocational and many do not have a bachelor’s degree, but they have a great love for the Lord and for their churches.” Elias takes skills and concepts he has learned through his seminary training and makes them accessible to them, thus spreading the message of Scriptural holiness that WBS champions.

In a sense, Elias is a missionary in both directions. While he loves bringing the gospel to Costa Rica (and more recently, his first trip to Kenya), he also feels burdened to bring the spiritual life of the majority-world Church back to the U.S. “North America is the greatest mission field in the world,” he says. Part of his calling is to help U.S. congregations come alive to the power of the Holy Spirit, and the intensity of commitment to Christ, that he sees in other cultures. Currently, he assists with ministry at First Methodist Church in Bryan, Texas, where he helps them engage evangelistically with their community.

“A thirsty world has their hand out to us,” says Elias. “We must not be a dry pump. We cannot give away what we do not have. I do not want to be a Christian without God’s power, presence, love, and passion.”

From being called like Abraham in Iraq, to becoming a connector of cultures from Costa Rica to Texas, God has taken Elias from being a wounded warrior to being a champion of faith. Through his classes at WBS, we expect the Lord to continue to deepen his message and widen his impact in a world that needs people passionate for the mission of God.