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‘We have grown together’
HOUSTON—Lazaro Riesgo, pastor of Sagemont Encuentro, is a product of the people God has brought in and out of his life.
Riesgo was three when his father left Cuba promising to find a better life for the family in the U.S. The father never returned, however, leaving the family struggling to overcome the trauma and suffering that comes with abandonment.
“I remember [hearing] a knock on the door and wanting to believe it was my father who was home,” Riesgo remembered, “but it wasn’t.”
Riesgo acknowledges the heavy burden his mother, Cary, took on as she raised her family while also caring for her own mother.
He remembers an aunt, Obdulia Peña, visiting from Miami one year and leading his mother to faith in Christ. The aunt, who died in 2023 at age 96, encouraged Cary to find a faith community that could support her as she endured life’s hardships.
Cary did just that and began attending Iglesia Bautista Libre, one of the few churches in town still standing after the Cuban revolution. It was the presence of the Lord and the fellowship of brothers and sisters at the church that sustained the broken family.
Riesgo was nine when he gave his life to Christ during an altar call. Several Christian men who had been investing in him since he was younger continued to speak biblical wisdom into his life, encouraging him to not hate the father who abandoned him, but to have love and mercy for him.
“These men taught me to love the heavenly Father and to fill the absence of my earthly father with the sufficiency of the God of heaven,” Riesgo said.
When Riesgo was 17, another important man came into his life—Rolando Delgado, a new pastor called to serve the church. It was Delgado whom God used to lead Riesgo to answer the Lord’s call to attend seminary and prepare for ministry.
“Lázaro,” Riesgo remembers Delgado challenging him, “you need to find your place in the body of Christ.”
Riesgo never wanted to be a pastor or be involved in ministry. “I just wanted to be a good believer, get married, and have a successful career in sports,” Riesgo said.
But God began to change his heart during one of Delgado’s sermons, during which he warned that fame and success are often stumbling blocks to serving God. Before long, Riesgo enrolled in seminary in his hometown to prepare for the ministry.
Open doors
Riesgo met his wife, Ariadna, before entering seminary. She understood and accepted God’s call on their lives and never doubted that call, he said—even when she had to make the difficult decision to leave her medical career in Cuba to serve in ministry with him.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in theology in 2003, Riesgo was sent to pastor his first church. A few years later, in 2007, God opened a door for his wife and him to expand their ministry through the National Youth Leadership Network, an association of three Baptist conventions in Cuba. This led to a full-time job for the Riesgos to travel throughout the island to help disciple Cuban youth until 2010.
The Riesgos began to envision expanding the ministry they were doing in Cuba to a larger area. In 2011, they left Cuba to fulfill a missionary call in Panama at a Bible institute, preparing future leaders for the pastorate and for missions. In 2015, that larger vision came more into focus when they received an invitation from a Baptist mission agency in Nashville to expand the work they were doing in Panama throughout Latin America. They accepted and spent four years training leaders in many Latin America countries, including Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, and El Salvador.
‘God is not finished with you’
By 2019, however, Riesgo sensed something was missing. Because of his frequent travels training church leaders, he missed the connections associated with serving in the local church. Before long, he learned of an opportunity to pastor a church in Miami. While it seemed like an answer to prayer, many difficulties lay ahead.
Prior to the pandemic, he and Ariadna’s passports and residency documents were stolen during a burglary of their home. Pastoring during the pandemic proved physically and emotionally exhausting, leading Riesgo to make the difficult decision to take a break from ministry in 2020 to take care of his health.
“We were left alone in Miami with virtually nothing,” Riesgo said.
They spent six months, from June to December, walking through that desert season. Though it was a time of discouragement for Riesgo, he remembers Ariadna’s constant encouragement.
“I saw myself without a future at that time,” Riesgo said, “but my wife faithfully reminded me that this was temporary … [that I needed to] remember what and by whom we were called.”
“God is not finished with you,” Ariadna would tell him.
Though he admits it was hard to believe at the time, he has since seen God move in a powerful way through a new ministry assignment.
A new start, a new story
After spending half a year away from ministry, Riesgo received a call from an American pastor, John Carswell, who had gone to Cuba to teach other pastors. Carswell learned that Sagemont Church in Houston was looking for a pastor for its Hispanic ministry and encouraged Riesgo to submit his resume.
Despite his trepidation, Riesgo did and was called for an interview. About a week after he returned to Miami, leaders at Sagemont sent him a letter extending the call for him to pastor Sagemont Encuentro. Riesgo and Ariadna packed the few possessions they had left and arrived at Sagemont Encuentro to preach on Easter Sunday 2021.
From that moment on, a new story began for the Riesgos and for the church.
Relationships—with God, each other, and even sister churches—are one of the focal points at Sagemont Encuentro. Riesgo was greatly impacted by the relationships he formed with the men who invested in him when he was younger, and now he wants to connect others so that they may grow and learn to serve others.
Riesgo also focuses on encouraging people to deepen their experience with the Lord and have an identity rooted in Christ. He recently wrote a book, Contrasts: The Value of Being Different, to challenge believers to live authentic lives while making decisions that align with God’s kingdom values.
As a result of their focus on Jesus and one another, Riesgo—who also works with new church planters through his collaboration with Send Network SBTC—said God is allowing the ministry to experience growth numerically, spiritually, and relationally.
Said Riesgo: “We have grown together.”
