Missionaries

We moved to San Pedro La Laguna on November 1st, 2018, to serve with Proyecto Fe. We are both from Guatemala City. We met at college in 2002, while we were both attending the School of Theology.

Carla was born again at age 8. At 9 years old she knew from the Lord she had a call to missions. She grew up reading about missionaries traveling overseas and started serving in church from an early age. She was trained in ministry and preaching since her youth by her parents with whom she traveled all around Guatemala, to the US and Canada doing ministry. After High School, she went to Bible School, then she studied Translation and Interpretation. In her twenties, she served as an interim youth pastor in a church in Waynesboro, Virginia.  Upon her return, she enrolled at the School of Theology where she met Bernardo. 

Bernardo was born and raised in a Christian home, but he walked away from his faith in his early twenties. His parents sent him to the US to finish High School and he stayed and started working in the car sales industry. He still came to church on occasion but was not fully involved. After 10 years living and working in the US, he came back to Guatemala City to visit and due to situations out of his control, he ended up staying. While in Guatemala, he committed his life to the Lord again and received from the Lord the confirmation that he had the call to ministry he had always run away from.

By ways only the Lord can arrange, one day Bernardo found himself enrolling to attend the same School of Theology Carla was attending. We were introduced to each other by a mutual friend. 

While at college, we developed a friendship that later evolved into a dating relationship and engagement. Shortly after the engagement, we received a call to serve in Spain planting a church, which was an answer from the Lord to our prayers for a whole year up until then. We had been praying for an opportunity to serve Him in missions. A couple of months after our beautiful wedding in November 2004, we moved to Colombia for missions training. Then, we lived in Singapore for 6 months where we were further trained at the Asian Training Center for Evangelism and Missions. In September 2005, we arrived in Barcelona, where we celebrated our first wedding anniversary a couple of months later. 

While in Barcelona, we both served as mission pastors. Our three sons were born in the mission field. Daniel in 2007, Joaquín in 2009, and Roberto in 2011. We lived in Singapore once again for a short while when Daniel and Joaquin were toddlers as part of Bernardo’s pastoral training. 

After the church was officially signed and established as a church in Spain, a process that takes several years, the Lord started directing us to move back to Guatemala. In June 2014, almost 10 years after leaving Guatemala, Carla returned with the boys. Bernardo stayed back overseeing the final process of the transition at the church and moved back to Guatemala three months later. 

For a few years since we came back to Guatemala in 2014, we worn many hats, working secular jobs and serving at our church, but the longing and desire to go back to ministry full time is engraved in our hearts. It is what we do. It is our calling. Bernardo then started praying, asking the Lord for direction about going onto the mission field again, initially thinking the Lord was going to send us back to Europe. But the Lord had other plans in store and Proyecto Fe called offering Bernardo, and later, both of us, an opportunity to serve with them. 

A month later, in November 2018, we were all packed up and moving to San Pedro. 

It has been a blessing to be in San Pedro. Our boys have grown so much since we arrived, as they are also growing to understand God’s purpose in our lives. They are being homeschooled, and they particularly enjoy when mission teams come because they get to serve with them and make new friends. 

There are challenges every day, but we hold on firm to the Lord’s hand. 

If the Lord ever moves you to come visit and serve, we will be happy to welcome you. 

Bernardo & Carla, Daniel, Joaquín and Roberto Montenegro