Puerto Rico is a beautiful island with warm and friendly people. Over the past decade it’s 3 million residents have suffered many tragedies. Between the pandemic, earthquakes, and strong hurricanes like Mary in 2017, the people of Puerto Rico have been left with many needs. But the greatest of these needs is the salvation of the lost and sound biblical teaching.

Pastor Gilberto Santiago’s family came from Cuba and along with two other families, they have responded to God’s call to plant a network of churches western Puerto Rico. They families have missionary experience, and they understand that planting a church requires living a missionary life to make disciples.

The Puerto Rico Team’s vision is to plant a biblically-sound church in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. They wish to create a local family of believers, formed by the gospel, headed by Christ, and with missionary passion for the various communities and cities in western Puerto Rico. The vision is to plant numerous new churches as God allows.

Unfortunately, many of the current churches established in this area are not based on the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. Most of the current congregations emphasize motivational or humanistic messages, salvation by works, or material prosperity. Also, there are neo Pentecostals practicing charismatic errors and in some cases extreme legalism. The need in western Puerto Rico is to establish biblically based churches that preach sound doctrine based on the exposition of the Word of God.

In early 2024, the Coram Deo church in Aguadilla will begin services. Aguadilla is popularly known as the “new garden of the Atlantic” and is located on the northwest coast of the island. The first goal is to build a healthy church that will be the center of our Puerto Rican ministry (our “Jerusalem”) and the base for future growth in the region.

The Carrero and Herrera families were born and raised in Aguadilla. They have an in-depth understanding of the people, culture, and a wide network of contacts between families, friends, and acquaintances. Together, the Puerto Rico Team will begin to build this church by preaching the gospel and taking advantage of “house church” opportunities. Also, with the children and youth, we will be working both in a ministry of evangelism and discipleship. We are planning a sports ministry to reach the young people with the gospel.

Once we have met the first goal, the team plans to start a healthy church planting network in the western region of Puerto Rico (our “Judea and Samaria”). The western area is known as “Porta Del Sol”. It extends from Isabela along the northwest coast to Guánica in the South. The region covers 12 municipalities with a population that exceeds 385,000.

As part of this objective, we plan to establish the Coram Deo Center (CCD). This center will serve the community with a library of sound Christian books and be a place where we will actively disciple the people in our churches (parents, married couples, adolescents, etc.). It will also serve as a biblical school with the purpose of training leaders, missionaries, and church planters for future churches in Puerto Rico.

The final part of this second objective is to open a Coram Deo Bilingual Christian School. The goal is that this will be a school for the children for primary and secondary education with a goal of forming students who are believers in Jesus Christ who gain knowledge that is biblical, scientific, and intellectual to glorify God.