Remembering Pastor Rafael Arista: Evangelical Leader’s Life and Legacy

2023-07-09 14:24:15

Pastor Rafael Arista. THE PRESS / Archive

The Shepherd Favio Rafael Aristavice superintendent of the evangelical Assemblies of God church, a congregation that brings together thousands of members at a social level, died this Saturday following suffering a traffic accident in Estelí, confirmed his family and the congregation.

“This morning we received the body of our esteemed Rev. Favio Cruz Arista at the facilities of the national tabernacle of the Assemblies of God. We invite the national church to accompany our pastor’s family in this moment of pain,” announced the Assemblies of God on their social networks.

The body of the pastor in the Assemblies of God church. Taken from the social networks of the congregation

A news portal from Estelí reported that at least four vehicles were involved in the accident. “Presumably a heavy vehicle would have suffered a mechanical failure, causing at least four vehicles to collide sharply on the stretch of road between the city of Estelí and the municipality of La Trinidad,” Noticias de Estelí said.

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On June 3, the pastor would have been celebrating his 73rd birthday.

After the accident, Fabiana Arista, the pastor’s daughter, published what happened on her social networks, stating that “my father taught me to believe in a God of miracles, a God who can do everything and now from the depths of my heart and my soul I ask God for a miracle for my father, my partner. Let us unite in prayer, we know that nothing is impossible for God”.

Her other daughter, Eunice Arista, shared that “she was happy. Her last days were spent with me and my sisters here in Arizona, we had such a great time! He did not want to leave his eyes were sad for his return, it seems that he knew that he would leave, it was a great farewell that he came to give us, I declared my love to him and he to me. We remember so many things and I thanked him for being such a good father to his 6 children, I will miss him to heaven, he is now with the God he loved so much and because whoever sacrificed his entire life, we have to follow in his footsteps and fulfill his dreams. See you in heaven.”

Surrendered to death in hospital

Images circulated on social networks where the religious man is seen trapped among the scrap metal resulting from the accident, and how he was later transferred to the San Juan de Dios Hospital, in Estelí, where he surrendered to death.

Radio ABC Stereo reported that Pastor Arista was a survivor of another serious traffic accident. In February 2022, he escaped death when he fell off a cliff in his truck while driving from Managua to Waslala.

The pastor published on Saturday that he would have attended the second season of the national evangelization day that was held in the city of Masaya, where the artists Willy González Cruz known as Redimi2 and Marcela Gándara participated, according to official media publications.

“We live in a Nicaragua that is becoming more evangelical Christian every day. Masaya dressed up as a gala receiving thousands of brothers praising God”, Arista had published.

Close to the dictatorship

The religious Arista was close to the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, he recognized “the openness of the Nicaraguan Government to the preaching of the Word.”

In 2018, it endorsed the reforms to the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS) that provoked massive protests and were violently repressed by the regime.

On that occasion, he said that “from the point of view of the attention that is going to be given to each one of the retirees, how is it going to be attended, from the point of view of justice where the one who used to win for saying something he earns half a million córdobas a month, now he will pay the same as someone who earns little, that is a measure of justice”.

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