When evangelist Luis Palau died in 2021 at the age of 86, he concluded more than sixty years of ministry and presenting the Christian Good News to over one billion people. Growing up in a small Argentinian town outside of Buenos Aires, Palau’s parents – his father died when Palau was ten – were part of a small congregation. Converted as a twelve-year old in 1946, Palau began street-corner preaching as a teenager, and began hosting his own Christian radio program in 1953. Mentored by Pastor Ray Steadman who persuaded Palau to come to the United States in 1960, he studied at Multnomah School of the Bible, where he also met his wife Pat. Joining Overseas Crusades (OC) in 1961, Palau went on to establish OC’s Latin American-focused ministry based in Mexico City. In 1978, after being the president of OC for his two final years in the organization, he established Luis Palau Evangelistic Ministries (later Luis Palau Association), including a team of dedicated colleagues who had been part of the Luis Palau Team in OC. Along the way, he served as an intern for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and as a Spanish translator for Graham; the BGEA was instrumental in opening doors for LPA as the organization was being launched. Palau and Graham continued their friendship, with Graham occasionally appearing at Palau’s large events.

The growth of Palau’s ministry occurred in stages. The initial phase of Palau’s ministry was primarily centered in Latin America and Spanish-speaking communities in the United States. Gradually, the reach of his ministry spread throughout the world, holding crusades – later called missions or festivals – in cities in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand, and Pacific islands. As Palau’s sons Kevin and Andrew assumed more responsibility, leadership, and ministry in LPA, youth festivals became the predominant evangelism method in the late-1990s for Palau events, featuring popular Christian musicians, extreme sports, and family activities. When Andrew Palau established his own evangelistic ministry in LPA, the organization’s efforts in Africa became more frequent. LPA also added its Season of Service in conjunction with the 2008 Portland CityFest, involving churches and local ministries to address human needs of the community.

Preparing for a local festival required months of networking through various levels of a community and identifying local leaders for collaboration. A hallmark of LPA’s festivals was their coordination with local churches and ministries to lay the groundwork prior to an event, interweaving resources for the events, and providing networks for follow-up for new converts and ongoing local evangelistic outreaches. Official data from LPA identifies that Palau held evangelistic meetings in more than 80 countries across all major continents. Two that most stand out in the collection for their extensive documentation are the 1984 Mission to London and 2015 CityFest in New York City. The documents also record his initiatives to combine established mass evangelism practices with innovation, most notably in use of media and LPA’s transition to youth-oriented festivals in the late-1990s.

Palau’s foray into broadcasting included his radio program “Luis Palau Responde,” begun in 1964 in conjunction with his Colombia crusade, and his later television show, “Night Talk with Luis Palau,” which helped establish a media presence in a festival city. They more significantly opened conversations with everyday people (while others listened in) about their spiritual questions and life problems, as Palau listened, empathized with, and offered biblical guidance. The collection includes samples of these broadcasts.

How does a person respond to the gospel when faced with it themselves? How do they respond to the needs of the world around them? Palau’s Papers, soon to be opened in the Wheaton Archives and Special Collections after being donated to Wheaton College in 2018 and 2022, document much of his personal life, activity, leadership, and influence to illuminate the answer to these questions. Not surprisingly, a large portion of the documents are in Spanish. Family letters and photographs tell some of his personal story. Folders of correspondence and reports from his evangelistic meetings record the details of his preaching and evangelism ministry. His leadership in Overseas Crusades and Luis Palau Ministries are told through organizational documents (the Luis Palau Association maintains its own organizational archives at its Oregon headquarters).

And the ongoing influence of his ministry is captured in videos of his preaching, reports on his festivals, and the testimonies of individuals who committed themselves to faith in Jesus Christ during one of his festivals. The papers don’t exhaustively record all of these, but capture a selection of these, along with other special events like his invitation to the White House in 2001 shortly after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and Washington, DC, and his welcome to New Zealand by Maoris at the beginning of his 1987 crusade.

No one collection tells the whole story of a person’s life, an organization’s activities, or how God has achieved his purposes through them. Fortunately, the Palau’s Papers don’t need to stand on their own in this, and are joined by two other collections in the Archives with substantive documentation (including hundreds of photographs) about Palau’s life, ministry, and leadership: 1) the records of OC International (Collection 222), and 2) the 1996 Say Yes, Chicago! Records (Collection 650) consisting of 22 boxes of files.

The papers also show how Palau’s family played a key role in his life and ministry. Letters to and from his mother and siblings show their influence on and interaction with him in his ministry. He attributed to his wife Pat the value of her guidance and wisdom, while his son Kevin Palau became the LPA president and CEO, and Andrew became an evangelist alongside his father. The collection records the interweaving and interaction of these many people. So as Palau’s ministry ended in 2021, his sons carry on LPA’s organizational ministry, while many of the individuals who came to faith in his evangelistic meetings continue it on in the contexts of their work, church, and neighborhoods.

With all the channels that Palau established or supported to carry on the ministry he began, his effort to preserve his papers at the Archives – something he and his team initiated near the end of his life – make his preaching, planning, and passion accessible to generations going forward.

The Luis Palau Association’s website also offers a very helpful timeline for Palau’s life, as well as his obituary. Another valuable resource is Palau’s own autobiography, Palau: A Life on Fire (2019).