And walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Ephesians 5:2
Unfortunately, these days, we do not see many Christians follow the example of Christ and offer themselves as a sacrifice to God, doing His work which sometimes comes at a great cost. However, Pastor Olman Sánchez is a living testimony of a man who walks in love of God and people, and thereby sacrificing Himself for others and most importantly for God.
One might say his humble beginnings prepared him for the purpose the Lord had for him. Born in Guanacaste, a province in northwestern Costa Rica by the Pacific Ocean, Pastor Olman was one of eight children in a home where there was no father. Therefore, his mother struggled for the survival of her large family. She worked many different places washing sheets and doing other menial jobs to keep a roof over her children’s heads. In spite of this, sometimes the money she earned was just not enough, so she and her children had to sleep under a bridge for approximately three years. Nevertheless, when asked how his childhood was, Pastor Olman says with a smile on his face,” It was beautiful.” How could this be? Starting from the age of four or five he and his siblings along with his mother were homeless. Yet, he has good memories.
He realizes that his mother gave her best effort for them to survive under the bridge and although life was hard in his childhood, he still remembers it as a lovely life and describes it as different than how children grow up today. He and his brothers and sisters learned from a very young age that they too had to play their part in the livelihood of their family. As a result, Pastor Olman learned to fish to help with food. He never lost his skills, and he is still a good fisherman. Poverty also produced creativity in him and he and other children from the area formed a choir to sing for old bread that became a part of his family’s meal.
Being poor, he only completed six years of school. This did not stop Pastor Olman though. He moved from living under a bridge to becoming a bridge to help others who are in a similar situation that he had experienced. His perspective is that God is a God of great purpose and that period in his life was preparation for the purpose God has chosen for him.
Pastor Olman did not grow up in a Christian home, so he may not have been able to imagine the destiny God had for him. His Catholic mother tried to take him and his siblings to church, but they didn’t want to go. He instead indulged in the ways of the world and started drinking alcohol at a very young age which was a big struggle for a while. It was also normal to have children outside of wedlock, so he had four daughters and a son.
As he reflects on his life, he recognizes that God was fighting to reach him in the midst of his rebellious lifestyle, and he also acknowledges that when the devil knows a person’s destiny, “he tries to kill us.” And Pastor Olman is no stranger to near death experiences.
However, although the devil tried to steal, kill and destroy Pastor Olman’s life, God already knew the plans He had for him, which was not to harm him, even though he did go through pain. But, it was to give him a hope and a future, in which God demonstrated that He could do exceedingly abundantly more than Pastor Olman could every ask or think according to the Holy Spirit’s power that works in him. And this has all been for God’s glory.
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