AG Global Hispanic Ministry (FRAHMAD) Elects First Female Executive Leader

Silvia E. Carrizo is helping others build bridges to minister. Last month at its meeting in Madrid, Spain, the Assemblies of God global Hispanic ministry association (FRAHMAD) named Carrizo, 56, as executive treasurer. Carrizo is the first woman elected to serve in FRAHMAD executive leadership.

Maricela H. Hernandez remembers her fellow leadership pioneer as the caring aunt who answered a Holy Spirit nudge to fund her nephew’s medical school education.

As a minister, Bible school teacher and long-time secretary treasurer of the Southern Pacific District, only the third female elected to serve in an Assemblies of God district’s leadership, Carrizo “is a very disciplined women of character, but her tender heart is reflected in her work and in her passion to raise other leaders,” says Hernandez, an AG executive presbyter. Hernandez, secretary-treasurer of the Texas Gulf Hispanic District, was herself the second female within the Assemblies of God elected as a district officer.

William H. Rodríguez regards Carrizo as a trailblazer.

“She’s always been a great speaker and great teacher, invited very often to events,” says Rodríguez, superintendent of the Southern Pacific District. “She’s constantly praised by pastors because of her diligent hard work assisting pastors and churches with the needs of the church.”

As pastor of Vida Church in La Puente, California, he notes that Carrizo has led her congregants to meet the community needs with compassion, especially during the COVID pandemic, keeping the church’s food bank stocked.

After Carrizo came to faith in Christ at age 20 in her homeland, Argentina, she sensed a call to ministry. But Pentecostal churches there limited women’s church leadership opportunities. In 1997 she moved to California where she studied for the ministry at the Latin American Bible Institute College (now LABI College) in La Puente, later teaching there for 15 years.

Carrizo, who is single, believes the Lord brought her to the United States to make room for women in all phases of life to serve in leadership roles. She recalls a fellow female minister’s prophetic word for her: “I’m seeing you entering with a light in your hand to places where never a woman has been. And a lot of ladies are following you,” the minister told her.

Reflecting on that word, Carrizo says, “I believe the word came to pass.”

She became Southern Pacific District’s women’s director in 2006 at age 38, even though young women who had never been married hadn’t previously been considered qualified for the position. Six years later, she became the first female elected to serve in the executive leadership of the Southern Pacific District.

In 2016, FRAHMAD’s women’s arm elected her as secretary, which called on her to organize global events, and later treasurer.

“God opened the door for me to do it only by His grace and love and giving me the wisdom,” Carrizo says.

Regarding FRAHMAD, she says, “With this new appointment in this season, I’m the first female taking a position at that level. God at some point ordered my steps to break the mold, to tear down the wall that for many years the ladies weren’t allowed to be.

“I believe my biggest message is to be a bridge between men and women, between generations,” she says. “I think that’s the time the church will start building bridges and start working together for the Kingdom of God to be glorified in every nation.”

FRAHMAD is composed of 14 Spanish-speaking AG districts within the United States and 22 AG districts worldwide. Carrizo’s vision is to empower countries within FRAHMAD to utilize its existing resources to better generate income that can facilitate ministry. She looks forward to sitting with superintendents in each country to partner in any way possible to see fulfillment of God’s vision for their nation, she says.

“The goal is to plant churches. How can we provide resources to help them do that?” Carrizo says.

The task to which the Lord has called her is God-sized.

“I need to get to know each country and their needs and how we can partner together,” she says. “I like to see the needs of other people and how we can help them see their dreams come true.”

Much has changed in Argentina since Carrizo migrated in 1997. Last year the nation’s Assemblies of God began allowing women to become fully ordained.

Sergio Navarrete, Southern Pacific District honorary general presbyter and director of Hispanic Initiatives 
at Evangel’s Assemblies of God Theological Seminary , will continue to serve as FRAHMAD’s vice president.

AG Costa Rica superintendent Ricardo Castillo M. was reelected as FRAHMAD president.

Pedro Pablo Rojas, superintendent of Nicaragua Assemblies of God, is FRAHMAD secretary.

Deann Alford

Deann Alford is a journalist and author. She attends Glad Tidings of Austin, an Assemblies of God congregation in the Texas capital.