Luis Palau Argentine Christian Evangelist

Luis Palau Jr. is one of the world’s leading international Christian evangelists and lives in the Portland area of Oregon, USA. He was born in Argentina and moved to Portland in his mid-twenties to enroll in a gradate program in Biblical studies. For many years he had a long and close relationship with Billy Graham.

Luis was born on 27th November 1934 in Maschwitz, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has 5 younger sisters and a step brother. His father, a construction executive, died when Luis was 10. The family were left nearly destitute and he had to leave his British-run boarding school to work in a bank as the sole provider.

Aged 12 he was ‘born again’- devoting his life to Christ.

Luis first heard Billy Graham in 1950 on the radio when he was still in Argentina.
Billy inspired Luis.

1960 Luis came to Portland to attend a graduate program at Multnomah Bible college. He met and married his fellow student Pat, a Beaverton kindergarten teacher in 1961.

1962 he became a US citizen. The Palaus spent the next 8 years as missionaries in Mexico and Colombia.

He worked for Billy as a Spanish interpretor and as an evangelist and in 1970. Billy contributed the ‘seed’ money( $100,000 in 4 quarter payments of $25,000) for Luis to start his own ministry, which he based on Billy’s model. In the 1970’ s he worked to build up his ministry

In 1975 he shared the Bible Expositor post with Bishop Festo Kivengere at Eurofest ‘75 which was held in Brussels’ Belguim and the Palais du Centenaire and the Heysel Stadium and sponsored by the Billy graham organizasion.

October 1978 Luis Palau Evangelistic Association LPEA) was ‘incorporated’. Since then Luis has held large scale evangelistic festivals and gatherings around the world.

In 1999 it was noted in the Portland weekly newspaper that he assembled an 80,000 member audience in the nation’s least churched major city.

In 2003, 3 of his 4 sons were working for his ministry. He hosted 3 daily radio programs- an English show carried by 900 stations and 2 Spanish programs carried by 880 stations in 25 countries.

November 2005 visited Beijing, China.

In 2007 it was estimated that he had shared the message of Jesus Christ with 25 million people in 70 nations. At his headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon he employs 70 and another 25 around the world.

March 2008 Luis addressed 500 Christian pastors in the build-up to the August event. 22-23August 2008 held a festival in Portland which focused on volunteerism to support the homeless - over 2 days 140,000 attended. This was organized by fellow evangelicals and the Portland commissioner Erik Sten. He called the effort* Season of Service*(Please read notes)

In 2015 he hosted an event City-Fest for 60,000 in Central Park, New York City

For over 70 years Luis has been committed to the Word of God

On Thursday, January 18th, 2018 Luis shared on Facebook he had stage 4 cancer. ( Read update on Luis’s heath on 14th October 2020

PBS
wikipedia