Francisco Olazábal

Francisco Olazábal (October 12, 1886 – June 1, 1937) was a Mexican Pentecostal evangelist, who conducted an evangelistic healing ministry and founded the Interdenominational Mexican Council of Christian Churches in 1923, later renamed as Latin American Council of Christian Churches or Concilio Latino Americano de Iglesias Cristianas (CLADIC). Francisco Olazábal committed 30 years to his evangelistic healing ministry. His father, Juan Olazábal, abandoned him and his mother after his mother converted and she became a lay evangelist (SOURCE-lecture notes). Olazabal left his mother in 1902 to travel to San Francisco, California to visit family. The General Council of the Assemblies of God ordained Olazábal on September 24, 1916. In 1920, Olazábal began Buenas Nuevas Mission in El Paso, Texas.

In 1922, Olazábal founded a Bible college in El Paso, Texas. In 1923, Francisco Olazábal formed the Latin American Council of Christian Churches, the first independent Latino Pentecostal denomination in the United States.

In 1929, Olazábal held a healing campaign in Chicago. In 1931, Olazabal's evangelic healing campaign attracted over 100,000 people to Spanish Harlem. Olazábal's services took place at Cavalry Baptist Church in Brooklyn. Olazábal's "Puerto Rico Para Cristo" campaign in 1936 was considered unsuccessful. On September 10, 1936, Olazábal announced his intention to unite with The Church of God, at that time the group under the leadership of A.J. Tomlinson which would later become the Church of God of Prophecy.

Death On June 1, 1937, Olazábal was critically injured in an automobile accident near Alice Springs, Texas. Olazábal died in the hospital from internal bleeding on June 9, 1937. Francisco Olazábal is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles.