Committed to the Dream How his own path to education prepared the retiring CHET president to lead a new generation of Latino and Latina students to serve the church An interview with Ed Delgado by Stan Friedman | July 25, 2019
Growing up in a small town in Arizona, Ed Delgado sensed a strong call to ministry that fueled his desire to provide Bible education opportunities around the world. For the past 12 years, he has served as president of Centro Hispano de Estudios Teológicos (CHET), the Covenant’s ministry training center for Spanish-speaking clergy and laypeople. He first came to CHET as a board member in 1999, then served as the school’s dean and vice-president from 2000 to 2005. Delgado retires in September. One of CHET’s primary goals has been to provide underserved and under-resourced Latino and Latina students with opportunities for ministry education. During Delgado’s tenure, the school expanded its curriculum and developed new pathways for students into credentialed ministry and graduate schools. CHET, which started with 50 students in 1989, had 452 students from 17 countries enrolled last year. Ninety-five percent of Spanish-speaking Covenant pastors have taken at least some courses through CHET.
How did your experience as a first-generation college student prepare you to serve CHET students? My dad was born in the United States, and my mom was born in Mexico one day before she arrived in the United States. Both of my parents were very bright. My dad was one of nine kids, and he loved school. But his family called him lazy because he wouldn’t skip school to help them in the fields, so he left home. Eventually he was able to get his high-school diploma. My mom won awards when she graduated from eighth grade. The first day of high school, she realized she didn’t have the money for books or paper, and she only owned one dress. So she dropped out and went to work cleaning people’s homes. When my brother and two sisters were born, my parents’ desire for us to go to school was really deep, and they did everything possible to help us. They put us in preschool, which was unusual at the time. They constantly encouraged us to be good students, to respect our teachers. I knew I wanted to go to college, but our high school didn’t have a counselor to help us prepare. I didn’t know you had to take an entrance exam like the SAT to get in. One day we were told that anybody who wanted to go to the university had to be at the high school early Saturday morning. When I got there they said, “Everybody who is taking the test needs to get on the bus.” The bus took us to the high school in the next town where they led us into the gym. There were desks all lined up with number two pencils. They told us to sit down, but I didn’t quite understand what was going on. Someone said, “Okay, you’re going to take this exam. You can’t get up, and you have to ask permission to move. Use the number two pencil, and take the exam.” I guess I did pretty well because I made it into the University of Arizona. I went there because I didn’t know I could apply anywhere else.
What is unique about the CHET student population? Ninety percent of the students studying at CHET are the kind of person I was as a young boy. Many of them haven’t been able to complete high school. They know they have a call to ministry, and they want to be equipped, but they haven’t had anyone to help them take the next steps. That’s what drives me to guide them, provide them resources, show them care. All our students are part-time, and almost all of them have jobs, so it’s a real sacrifice to be in school. Many of them come from extreme poverty or from countries torn apart by violence. A lot of them are the first ones in their families ever to get any advanced schooling, and some have never experienced graduation at any level. All of them really want to be here. They’re super committed. Our commencement ceremonies are filled with tears because they never expected this coul...