Creation Pioneer

When Jaime Siman left his beloved El Salvador, he didn’t know God would bring him back to his people one day with a new way of presenting the gospel.

Growing up a nonbeliever and evolutionist, Jaime became a chemical engineer so he could help his countrymen improve their lives through technology. But when he was 27, El Salvador’s brutal civil war forced him to flee to the United States. Jaime saw God’s hand leading him to safety, but three years of soul-searching passed before he trusted Christ as Lord.

“God gave me immediately a passion for His Word and the opportunity to share it with refugees who were fleeing Central America,” he explains. Jaime then went on to get a seminary degree and eventually became a pastor in southern California.

At seminary he remained an evolutionist. As he wrestled to explain how a woman could be made so perfectly to complement a man, however, he realized biblical creation must be true. He finally understood that God’s Word has the answers for everyone seeking purpose and meaning in every area of life, including science.

Since then he has had a growing burden to share this message with his Christian brothers in Latin America. Historically, they don’t quite know what to do with creation apologetics. They are sometimes concerned that scientific evidence takes faith out of the equation. As a pastor with seminary and science training, Jaime is ideally suited to show them why this approach is so important in our skeptical age.

From his home base in southern California, Jaime travels all over Latin America, including secular colleges. He also has a website and is a regular speaker at Biola University’s annual Spanish-language apologetics conference. He started a side ministry called “Study Bibles for Cuba” in 2004 because he was concerned about the lack of training among house pastors. So far that ministry has shipped more than 17,000 study Bibles to pastors. He is also writing a Spanish book on creation and evolution.

Many in Latin America have never heard a solid defense of biblical creation, but that is changing. Jaime says, “In my travels I have found that youth have tremendous interest. Atheists have received the Lord in our seminars, and the faith of many has been strengthened.”