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Meet the Director

Elias Garcia, General Director

Elias Alberto Garcia was born in the city of Trujillo in Venezuela on June 4th of 1974. Born of Ernesto Garcia, a CPA and Carmen de Garcia, an elementary school teacher, Elias grew up in the town of Pampanito just 15 minutes from Trujillo. Raised Catholic, he became actively involved in the Catholic Church as an altar boy and a member of the Sacred Sacrament Society at the age of ten. Elias became a Christian at the age of fifteen through the testimony of relatives and the ministry of a youth group, but he faced the opposition of family members for his conversion.

Elias was discipled and developed his early Christian life at the First Baptist Church of Trujillo where he was baptized, started his teaching ministry as a Sunday School Teacher, and occasionally participated as a preacher. Elias graduated from high school in 1990 at the age of sixteen and then worked for a couple of years in different jobs. He met his wife-to-be, Arelis, nearly a year after high school. In 1993, Elias started college and became one of the founding members of the Missionary Baptist Church in his hometown of Pampanito, where he worked with short term missions teams from the United States. In 1997, Elias graduated from college with a degree in Information Technology and married the love of his life! Arelis had been the guardian of her niece, Genesis, since she was 4 months old. The new couple adopted into their family, as their own.

In 1999, Elias and his family moved to Yakima, Washington. They were sent by 14 Baptist churches of Trujillo State as a missionary family to the Hispanic community in Yakima. This work started with a door-to-door evangelism campaign with the participation of 20 Venezuelans and three local churches from the Yakima Valley. In December of 2000, the Garcia family was blessed with a new member, Elias Ernesto; and in July of 2003, the newest member was born, Elisa Daniela.

The Garcia’s early ministry resulted in the planting of Iglesia Bíblica Vida Nueva (New Life Bible Church) in Yakima, and in 2003 Elias became the General Director of the New Life Hispanic Ministries. This organization was created as an outgrowth of the church planting efforts started in 1999. In 2004, Elias finished his Bachelor's Degree in Bible Studies through the extension program of the Christian Bible College and began study of his Masters Degree in Cross Cultural Ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary. After serving as pastor of Iglesia Bíblica Vida Nueva from its inception, Elias moved on to become the full time General Director of New Life Hispanic Ministries in January of 2008. Iglesia Bíblica Vida Nueva (New Life Bible Church) called a full-time pastor to continue the ministry of the church. Elias is now directing his full attention to promoting, developing and coordinating the vision of the ministry God has given him and his family.