Arturo Casco

"You can't say too much good about Arturo Casco," says Archie Cameron. "Don Arturo has proven to be such a wonderful man. He just attracts people, and everybody loves him. He is a good man, a holy man. And it's a wonderful family--all of them. Everybody who goes there is delighted, because they are such good Christian people."

During his trips to and from seminary in the late 1950s, William Smith would sometimes stop to see the Cascos on his way through Tegucigalpa. "It was like going to an oasis in a desert to visit that family—everybody hugging you, the meal so nice. I just loved going there."

William was attending the same seminary in Costa Rica which Arturo had attended back in the 1920s. "He lived during a time when evangelicals in Honduras were persecuted by Catholics. Those were dangerous times for Arturo. Many times, he narrowly escaped. I heard a lot of those stories."

Arturo Casco was born in western Honduras, the son of a farmer/rancher who raised horses and mules. His mother, a devout Catholic, faithfully taught him to recite prayers, cross himself, and memorize the catechism doctrines. His godfather, a priest, further indoctrinated him in the religion.

But at age 15, Arturo began doubting these teachings, which, he would later write, "lack spiritual power and seek to win heaven by making penance and doing good works without leaving sin behind."

In 1932, he heard the Gospel preached for the first time, and immediately realized his need for salvation. And on August 27, 1933, "a glorious day," he gave his life to Christ and "entered a different world from the one in which I lived before, without hope of salvation, but today secure in Christ, not by memorizing the catechism but by keeping the doctrines of Christ safe in my heart."

Arturo was led to the Lord by a minister named Federico Aplicano. Rev. Aplicano took this new convert with him as he visited other towns to preach the Gospel. Sometimes, their efforts met strong rejection. While they personally suffered no physical mistreatment, they knew that some Christians had been killed for preaching the Gospel.

Arturo began witnessing to neighbors, and saw people come to Christ through his testimony. "Never in my youthful life had I experienced an enthusiasm as momentous as that which invaded my emotions and my desires that day," he recalls. "My only interest was to preach Christ."

A church formed in Arturo's home. But he left it in March 1934 to enter the Latin American seminary in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Upon returning to Honduras in 1936, Arturo was assigned by the Latin American Mission to start a church in the port town of Amapala on the Pacific Coast. He worked alongside Mabel Balder and Rina Tilsonton, missionaries from Moody Seminary in Chicago, Ill. Many people came to Christ. He earned $30 a month, and used that money to travel to other towns scattered throughout three provinces. Arturo's wife, Corina, gave valuable help to the ministry.

In 1936, Arturo visited a town called Namasigue. He met with the mayor, telling him the plan of salvation. The mayor said Arturo could use his house that night to hold a church service. During the service, a group of soldiers arrived, firing their weapons to disturb the service. But the mayor went out to them and put them in their place. That night, the mayor and eight other persons became Christians.

After the service, a young man asked Arturo, "When are you going back to your own town?"

"At 8:00 tomorrow morning," Arturo told him.

That's all the man wanted to know.

The next morning, as Arturo prepared to leave Namasigue, the mayor asked him to make a detour through the town of San Rafael to visit a sick woman. Arturo agreed. He visited the woman, told her about Jesus, and she accepted the Lord. The next morning, she woke up completely healed. Then Arturo headed back to his own city.

A few weeks later, Arturo returned to Namasigue to visit the new Christians and preach. After the service, the man who had approached Arturo before, asking when he was leaving Namasigue, offered Arturo a cup of coffee. Then he told his story.

"When you were here before, I came to the church service to kill you. One of the town fathers paid me a lot of money to kill you so you would stop preaching about Christ. The next morning, I was waiting in ambush for you in a deserted place along the road, but you never came."

It was because of a last-minute detour to San Rafael.

The man continued, "After you preached tonight, I realized I was a sinner and needed God's forgiveness, so I accepted Christ. Now I want to ask you to forgive me. I want you to be my friend and my pastor."

They hugged each other. Arturo not only became his pastor, but trained him to be an evangelist. A year later, this would-be assassin headed off to Guatemala to enter seminary.

Money was always in short supply.

Arturo recalls, "Whenever I was having financial problems, I would go up to the mountain to talk over my problems with the Lord. And when I came down from the mountain, the Lord would have a response."

One time, a North American engineer working on the Pan American highway gave Arturo his entire tithe, which he had been saving up. Another time, Mabel Balder wrote to her friends, telling of Arturo's work and inviting them to help support this young minister and his family. "Someone always provided for my financial needs, and sometimes they were not even Christians."

There were times when Arturo was jailed because of his evangelistic efforts, but someone always showed up to pay his fine and set him free, and to encourage him to continue preaching the Gospel. "That made others angry," Arturo recalls, "because they didn't understand why I should be cared for so well."

The Cascos faced large medical bills when their second son, Arturo, became ill. They took him to a doctor. "My son is dying, and I don't have money to pay you."

"Don't worry," the doctor said. "Right now, the only thing important is the life of your son."

So the doctor treated Arturo. Three weeks later, the doctor said, "Your son is better. Come tomorrow and we'll figure out the bill."

Arturo and Corina were in turmoil, because they had no money to pay for all the treatments and medicine Arturo had received. They knelt in prayer, tears in their eyes, asking God to somehow supply the money. As they prayed, they heard a knock on the door. It was the mailman with a letter from Pasadena, Calif., from a person they didn't know. A note said, "Mabel told us you might need some money, and so I'm sending this." It was just enough to pay the doctor.

"Every day my faith and my gratitude to the Lord increased. I knew that the Lord would always provide," Arturo testifies.

In 1942, Arturo entrusted the Amapala church to another pastor so he could start a church in Aramecina, on the border with El Salvador. That church grew to 75 members. Then the Cascos moved across the border into El Salvador itself, starting more churches for the Latin American Mission--in San Antonio, Lauterique, Mercedes de Oriente, San Francisco de Coray, Caridad, Langue, and other places.

Arturo, along with other Christians, suffered persecution in El Salvador. He especially found himself at odds with General Enemesio Hernandez, who hated and opposed anyone who preached about Christ. But Arturo eventually led the general to Christ, and in time, three of the man's children became pastors.

In 1946, back in central Honduras, Arturo planted a church in Nacaome. It had 134 members when he left in 1948 to launch an outreach in San Marcos de Colon. By 1948, Arturo's work with the Latin American Mission had been instrumental in starting 17 new churches and mission stations.

Then it was time to move on. In March of 1948, the Cascos concluded their work with the Latin American Mission, and affiliated with the Southern Baptist Mission. The family moved to San Marcos, a city on the border of Nicaragua, where Arturo established a church and two preaching points. Then the family moved to Tegucigalpa and started two more churches for the Baptists.

In 1957, the Baptists sent Arturo to Siguatepeque to meet and work with an ex-Catholic priest from Colombia. There, he founded three more churches for the Baptists.

Eudaldo Mejía, Archie Cameron's close friend and coworker during those early years, eventually moved to Tegucigalpa, where he worked for the Honduran equivalent of the FBI. One time while in Tegucigalpa, Archie walked the streets with Eudaldo and another former UB member who had begun working for the Honduras Bible Society.

"When are you going to start a church for us here in Tegucigalpa?" they asked Archie.

Archie replied, "You're the fellows that should be starting a church, not me. Why don't you start, and then we'll come help you?"

Eudaldo pursued the idea.

Years before, while living in San Ontonio del Norte, Eudaldo had accepted Christ through the ministry of Arturo Casco and had been baptized by him. His father in the faith was now pastoring a church in Siguatepeque. He approached Arturo about the possibility of starting a church in Tegucigalpa. Together, the Cascos and Mejías launched an independent church.

Eudaldo preached initially, since Arturo was still pastoring in Siguatepeque, but he didn't feel he could continue as pastor with his government work. However, in 1960 Arturo resigned from his work with the Baptists, moved his family to Tegucigalpa, and took charge of this new independent church.

With the church well underway, Eudaldo invited Archie to come visit. He liked what he saw, and he especially liked Arturo Casco. And Arturo liked him, and liked what he saw about the United Brethren church. Arturo affiliated with the United Brethren church in 1963, and has been a UB ever since.

That independent church became a United Brethren church. The UB churches in northern Honduras gave substantial financial support to this new outreach, recognizing it as a beachhead not only in the nation's capital, but in the whole southern part of the country.

In the years ahead, other UB churches arose in southern Honduras, many of them through Arturo's contacts. People would invite Arturo to come preach or he would take the initiative. The first church was in Moramulca, southwest of Tegucigalpa. Two young men from that church entered the Bethel Theological Institute, where they were trained and later sent to start churches in Maurecito and Nacaome. The mission was given a church building in Ilamapa. A church started in Yuscarán through one of its own, David Fortín, who attended the Institute.

When the UB church in Tegucigalpa outgrew its small building, the UB Mission Board approved a gift and a loan to build a large new church, which was completed in 1975. Today it is a prominent church filled with professional people.

A number of the Casco children now live in the States. Denis, living in California, is director of Latin American Ministries for the United Brethren church, and has been involved in starting Hispanic churches in a number of states. Rita, a daughter, married a Californian named Reed, who is now co-pastor with Arturo of the church in Tegucigalpa.

Archie recalls how, every time he visited the Cascos, one of the boys would come shine his shoes.

"In the Casco home, you are treated like royalty. You would sit down at that table, and Dona Corina would have the best of dinnerware, the best home cooking. She kept the home looking wonderful, and the kids were so well-behaved. Anybody who ever went to the Casco home was just so impressed with them. That family is really special. And all of those kids are involved in the Lord's work, somewhere."

Tio Archie

Tio Archie was written by Steve Dennie, Communications Director for the US National Conference, over a four-year period. It combines the life story of missionary Archie Cameron with the history of Honduras Conference. The book was published by the UB church in June 2001. Copies can be ordered from the UB Bookstore for $6 each. Contact Marilyn in the UB bookstore to order a copy.