Alejandro Pinelo to the right of His Excellency Victor Hugo Palma, bishop of Escuintla (Guatemala), with some of the Full Time Lay Missionaries from that country.

Alejandro Pinelo, a consecrated member of Regnum Christi and director of the Full Time Lay Missionaries, shares his experiences as the head of this apostolate and discusses what it is all about.

Hello! My name is Alejandro Pinelo and I am an industrial engineer, graduate of the Technological Institute of Monterrey, Mexico, and a consecrated member of the Regnum Christi Movement since 1994. I am so grateful to our Lord for the grace to participate in the Full Time Lay Missionaries, an apostolate of special significance that is making a significant impact on society, helping to extend Christ´s Kingdom. It has also helped me to grow as a person in many ways.

For the last seven years I have worked with this very original apostolate that involves numerous professionals and a wide range of opportunities for evangelization. We collaborate with everyone from cardinals, bishops, priests, consecrated souls, CEOs, and business managers to the less fortunate, including many of the impoverished indigenous peoples of Latin America.

The Full Time Lay Missionaries apostolate is a "business" that provides pastoral coordinators for local parishes who are totally dedicated to the formation of lay Catholics. The Second Vatican Council called for a greater lay participation in the evangelical work of the Church. Who better than lay people to spread the Gospel? Lay people can go anywhere: the fields, the mountains, businesses, factories, families ...

The program seeks out people, married or single, who are willing to dedicate their lives to the Catholic formation of their brothers and sisters in their parishes. Many are the needs that this program fulfills and many are the hearts that benefit from the "medicine" of being generous and serving others.

Hand in hand with bishops and diocesan priests, our institution offers professional training to help and encourage these lay apostles as they discover how wonderful it is to be Catholic. They grow to become proud of their faith.

We now have more than one thousand families serving as Full Time Missionaries in Mexico, Venezuela and El Salvador. To help coordinate this beautiful effort we have put together a team of professionals to act as the business managers and directors of formation for this great "business" of God. Our staff elaborates formative materials that will help the lay missionaries in their mission of drawing others closer to their faith. We have grown to more than 120 professionals at the head of this initiative.

The progress has been great even though the obstacles are numerous -- but this is the best proof of it being a work of God. All Catholics are a part of the Church that needs people who are holy, dedicated, efficient, and striving to make Christ´s message as attractive as possible. The time that we have to serve God and his children is very little so we need to make it yield for him 100%.

For more information on the Full Time Lay Missionaries please visit www.CatholicWorldMission.org.

(June 6, 2003)