PROFILE

Rev. Arlene Del Rio co-founded Abounding Grace Ministries with her husband in 1982 and Abounding Grace Christian Center in 1992. Although officially licensed as a minister of the gospel decades ago, she has been content to serve quietly behind the scenes, without formal recognition or applause. Yet for more than twenty years she has been the ministry’s conscience, its human center, always giving, always doing for somebody the way her Jesus does for her. She has been steady, consistent, the first to arrive and the last to leave, sacrificial to the detriment of her own interests. She has been a grandmother, a mother, a mentor, a confidant, a counselor, a coach, a friend, a teacher. She has tirelessly served our children, our women, our men, our orphans, our bereaved, our sick, our poor, our guests. A graduate of Columbia University and Zion Bible Institute, one of her first converts as a young woman is a man beloved by all at Abounding Grace as “Pastor Rick.” More than thirty-five years later, she’s still leading knuckleheads to Jesus. She has modeled for us faithfulness, the kind of faithfulness our Master looks for when he says: “I will raise up for myself a faithful priest, who will do according to what is in my heart and mind.” (I Sam 2:35)