Martinez 'signed up' for ministry after recovery from Lupus disease By John H. Adams The Layman Online Wednesday, April 26, 2000
She did it so well that her Presbyterian minister, who served three yoked congregations, started sending her around the circuit on Sundays to preach at the three churches. She was 16 when that began. "I can't remember," she laughed when asked what her first sermon was about. "But I'm sure it was about the love of God." Her painful secret But the teen-age preacher went on her circuit with a painful secret. She suffered from lupus and was heavily medicated and in almost constant pain. Doctors told her it would be a lifelong problem. The condition was discovered when she was 14. She missed a year of school and had to make monthly trips from her home in Pismo to Los Angeles for examinations and medication changes. She said she began reading the Bible during that year at home and discovered that God loved her and wanted her to have a personal relationship with him. She calls Scripture "the once only, eternal lasting word of God, constantly being renewed to us." But she did not dare think of living a normal life. Her condition continued to be serious after she graduated from high school and enrolled in California Polytechnic Institute as a sociology major. As part of her student aid requirement, she worked in a youth center afternoons and evenings. "One particular evening at this youth center there was an evangelist," she said. "He started talking about healing. This voice said to me, 'Jill, tell them you are sick and you need help.' At that time I used to go off in a corner and take pills and not talk about it." Prayer for healing She told others about her problem. "They laid hands on me. They prayed and the young man said, 'You're healed,' and I said OK" – although she did not detect any noticeable difference. She interrupted the story. "I haven't told many people about this," she said. "They might not understand." What happened next, she remembers, is that the young people were sitting in a circle and one girl began talking about having problems with her parents. "I reached across and said, 'All you have to do is believe. Then this thing happened to me that I don't have words for. A force caused me to fall forward. The energy went out of my arm toward this young girl. I started crying. I apologized. "From that moment on, I didn't take any more pills. I had no idea I could get my body back. I thought, 'I get my body, too. Where do I sign?'" By sign, she meant the ministry. It would take a while. She finished college with a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Hawaii and worked in community programs. Doctors say her lupus has been in remission for years. Martinez says they are amazed as well. A defining moment Her recovery from lupus was a defining moment for Martinez, 49, one of four candidates for moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA). She went on to finish college and worked a few years in community development social justice programs for poor people. She began work on her master of divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary in 1974, and graduated in 1983. She is working on a doctor of ministry now. Martinez is not your everyday Presbyterian pastor. Ethnically, she is the daughter of a Mexican father and a mother of Scots-Irish descent. She has served churches as a full-time minister, but her interests lie also in community development and social justice issues. She is currently area manager in Santa Barbara for Peoples' Self-Help Housing Corporation, a non-profit organization that builds and renovates housing for low-income families in three California counties. "My call into ministry has really been in the Mexican community," she said. Only 23 percent of the Mexicans in the United States are churched, she said, and many are being aggressively proselytized by Jehovah's Witnesses. "Our communities are absolutely starving to death spiritually," she said. "I am out in the community, out in the world. There is so mcuh need, so much hurt that there isn't enough time to do what we need to do." Favors diversity She says her work in the community is one reason she is running for moderator. She believes she has learned to appreciate diversity and the need for people to agree. "I really see myself as moderator – I want to say mediator – as a person who has a variety of experience. I hear a lot of different views. There is validity and significance in all of them. Only after we all speak together can we come up with something new." She says she is troubled by the prolonged fight the PCUSA has had over the ordination issue. "In all honesty I don't have the answer to that question," she said when asked whether the denomination should change the standard that prohibits self-affirming, active homosexuals from being ordained. But, she added, "I don't know how to pick one single thing in a person's life and say, that's the thing that makes you an invaluable contributor to our denomination. If we decide on this today, what are we going to decide on tomorrow? I do know gay and lesbian tendencies are not contagious." Reaching the unchurched "We're so busy beating up on each other," she said. "We concern ourselves with things that are important, but not as important as getting out there and reaching the unchurched. Let's talk while we're working out in the community." Martinez previously served as the associate executive presbyter for mission for the Presbytery of San Diego, where she was responsible for 20 mission projects in San Diego and Imperial counties, as well as in Baja, Calif. The programs served the poor, homeless and military families in crisis. She also staffed community teams for strategic planning and worked for new church development, as well as fund development for a Presbyterian orphanage in Mexico. Nationally, Martinez has served as a member of the Council on Presbyterian Seminaries, the Financial Issues Task Force of the General Assembly and as a keynote speaker for the Presbyterian Women's Gathering. She chaired the committee to fund and develop the Spanish Language Presbyterian Hymnal and is a former governing body member of the National Council of Churches. |
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