Jaime Ortiz was raised in a strong Catholic
family in Colombia during “La Violencia,” in
which Protestants were openly ridiculed and
demeaned for their beliefs. One afternoon, a
teenaged Jaime sat on his family’s secondstory veranda and watched a high school
friend, a Protestant, being called names
and having stones thrown at him by a gang
of boys. When Jaime realized he would not
have responded to the bullying with the
same tolerance his friend did, he wanted to
know more about his friend’s religion. So, he
snuck into the back of a Presbyterian church
in Medellín. Keeping his coat on and his hat
pulled low to avoid identification, he sat in
the back of the church and was amazed by
what he heard. He returned, then returned
again. He would tell his parents he was going to the movies or to a party, and then, he
would sneak off to church!
After Jaime accepted the Lord, his father
threatened to throw him out of the house.
It was only his mother’s intervention that
allowed him to stay. When it came time for
college, he received a scholarship to study
at a seminary in Campinas, Brazil. There,
he met his wife, who would later return
to Colombia with him. During his time in
Campinas, he was lauded and offered a full
scholarship to enter the doctoral program
in Princeton, but his passion to serve as a
pastor in Colombia was so strong that he
declined that opportunity.
In Colombia, after several years as a
pastor, he eventually became a professor,
then the rector of the Biblical Seminary of
Colombia. Seeking higher education, he
entered the law program at a prestigious
university in Medellín and majored in constitutional law. Even then, he wasn’t sure
why, but he was convinced this was what
God wanted him to do, so he obeyed.
In 1991, the Colombian government decided to initiate a constitutional assembly
and rewrite Colombia’s constitution. With
open elections, Jaime received the seventh
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