Every Friday, Baptist Women in Ministry features an interview with an amazing minister on this blog. Today, we are thrilled to interview, Veronica Martinez-Gallegos. Veronica IS what a minister looks like!
Veronica, tell us about your ministry journey and the places and ways you have served and are serving.
My ministry journey begins in my birthplace in a Mexico/USA border town, Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. I grew up attending Emanuel Baptist Church where I learned about missionaries in the Girls’ Auxiliary (GA’s) missions program. I remember I was twelve when I had my first meaningful conversation with God about my life purpose. However, being the youngest of ten siblings and living with an alcoholic father, it was not always easy to understand clearly God’s voice. There were too many voices around me, and I often felt voiceless. Since my early years, the theological concept my church teachers introduced me to was, “God punishes you if you don’t behave.” It was confusing to hear about God’s love and about God’s wrath. It became embedded theology. Even as a child, I remember thinking about ways of pleasing God, so I would not experience God’s wrath.
I was fifteen when my mom sent me to Dallas, TX to live with one of my sisters. I felt abandoned by my mother, but God had other plans and better opportunities for me in this country. I had a great opportunity to change my life for good. I found a spiritual family in a church that offered me ministry opportunities, and I was encouraged by my pastor Francisco, and his wife, Rosalva, to continue my education. For the first time, I recognized I no longer wanted to seek God out of fear; I wanted to experience God’s love for me. I no longer focused on why I had such a difficult childhood. I was grateful that I was rescued, and I began to understand, somehow my scars were useful. I became aware that God’s presence was with me even in difficult times. I was 17 years old when I had another important conversation with God. I remember that day vividly. My pastor was driving, and I was looking at the sky between the buildings in downtown Dallas. I asked God to make me a woman of prayer. One day, while praying God spoke to me and said: “I have plans for you.” That was it. “I have plans for you.”
When I finished High School, I enrolled in the Hispanic Baptist Theological Seminary (HBTS) in 1993. My theological education began at HBTS which offered an equivalent of an undergrad associate degree that prepared Christian Spanish-speaking leaders for ministry. At HBTS, I met my husband, Hugo. We married in the summer of 1995 and after graduating, we moved to Durham, NC. In the summer of 1997, I had a Divine Appointment with my dad when he came to visit me. For the first time, I had the opportunity to speak with a sober and clear-headed father. As an adult, I allowed the little girl inside of me to ask my father for what I needed from him. Then, he shared his life story, which I had never heard before. With tears in his eyes, on the most beautiful day, I will always remember he asked me to forgive him. From that point on, my father and I continued a beautiful father-daughter relationship until he died in 2018. Back to HBTS, during those years, women were not encouraged to enroll in the Theological Studies Program but encouraged to be in the Church Ministries or Music Program. I could not see the embedded theology that was promoted in which women were seen as appendages to men. Even worse, was the expectation that as women, we were to understand and believe ourselves unworthy of a pastoral call. Needless to say, the road before arriving at where I am in ministry today was steep. Although there were moments of great joy, there was also much sadness and emptiness in my first decade in ministry. As a pastor’s wife, I agreed with the mindset and ignored that God had called me to pastoral ministry. It felt like I was involved in a ministry of “doing,” but I was not “being.” In ministry, I was elected as the first Latina President for the Hispanic Women’s Fellowship for the North Carolina Women’s Missionary Union. I coordinated the children’s and youth camp for the Latino churches in NC. Professionally, I worked for the Baptist State Convention as an Administrative Assistant for the Multicultural Team and then moved to work as the Project Coordinator for the NCWMU.
What have been your greatest sources of joy in ministry?
I would have to say that my greatest sources of joy in ministry has been my theological and pastoral formation. Of course, my husband and daughters are also a great source of joy. They are a daily reminder of a God who is present, a God who hears me and sees me. When we were told we would never be able to have children, I believe God was hearing my prayers. As God answered Hannah’s prayer, so God heard mine. We were childless for almost nine years, then Samantha and Isabel, our twin daughters come into our lives. Our daughters were three when my husband and I decided to go back to San Antonio, Texas for him to continue his theological studies. In 2010, HBTS became the Baptist University of the Americas (BUA) offering a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical/Theological Studies. My husband’s plan was to be a full-time student while I worked full-time. But, for my benefit, the Dean at BUA asked if I had submitted a student application. I replied: “Of course not, why should I want to have a degree in theological studies? I am a woman.” He encouraged me to apply, which I did, even though my husband then disagreed. I began the undergraduate journey with the desire to find a place for myself as a woman in ministry. But even more, it was my desire to find myself, my identity. I felt lost and this was the chance to act upon my desire to find myself and my own pastoral identity. I thank my husband for being willing to evolve with me on this journey, risking openness of mind, accepting an egalitarian relationship, and no longer seeing me as an appendage of himself.
What helped me the most during this period was an invitation I received from Dr. Nora Lozano to do an intensive course for my undergraduate as part of her newly established Christian Latina Leadership Institute. Dr. Lozano and CLLI faculty helped me redefine my journey, in a non-judgmental approach, they encouraged me, empowered me, and helped me to rewrite my future goals as Latina woman in ministry. When my husband and I graduated from BUA, we returned to North Carolina. Because of this experience and knowing that many other Latina women were hungry to learn and in great need of being heard, I began the extension of the LLI, North Carolina in partnership with Dr. Lozano, BUA and the Women Missionary Union of NC. When we moved to NC, my husband encouraged me to continue my theological studies, and I applied to Campbell University Divinity School (CUDS).
What have been the greatest challenges you have encountered in ministry?
I think I am my own greatest challenge I have encountered in ministry. For me, it has been a journey to claim and accept that, “women no longer have to function as the moon reflecting the sun but can become the sun that shines its light out of its burning core of life, fostering life on earth” (Johnson, 2008). Fortunately, it was through the years in BUA and CUDS that I began the most important journey of my life. As part of my MDiv., I choose the program in concentration of chaplaincy and counseling, in which I had to do an internship of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE). Without a doubt, my CPE journey is the period through which I, and my theological perspective, have grown and changed exponentially.
During my higher theological education, not only were my spiritual eyes opened, but my whole understanding changed regarding living out my deepest call as a human being before God. Becoming aware of the retribution theology embedded in my childhood — obedience brings blessings and disobedience brings curses — I now understand and believe I can approach God regardless of my imperfections. God is with me no matter what. Now, after a long journey, my call to ministry is clearer. I have been formed, challenged, encouraged, and empowered to be what God called me to be, to claim my voice and say, “I am a Latina Baptist woman in ministry.” However, it took me almost two decades to discover the place in ministry where I feel I belong; that is, Clinical Pastoral Education. My transforming religious/spiritual development is due to the great experiences I have had since beginning CPE. I have learned to ask for what I need and reclaim my voice.
After my CPE internship, I applied for residency. Before I finished my second CPE unit, I knew there was more for me. My educators encouraged me to apply for a second year residency and to begin a discernment process to become a Certified Clinical Spiritual Care Educator. It has been a long journey of writing theory, processing, and reflecting about my pastoral care practice as an educator. After I passed my readiness committee, I was granted candidacy as an ACPE educator and became a board-certified chaplain endorsed by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
What is the best ministry advice you have received?
For me, one of the most important lesson I learned happened in CPE. It has been an invitational theme I have heard from my educators and peers; which is owning my personal story, understanding my own inner emotional and spiritual life. This is an insight I have gained and learned which will continue to guide me in my pastoral care ministry. My passion for doing this work is based on what I, myself, have received. CPE has given me a new perspective on pastoral care, and the opportunity to find myself as a chaplain and as a pastor.