By Jeff Brumley
By all accounts, nothing rattles Alina Carbonell.
She has survived communism in Cuba, the leukemia death of a beloved sister, an abusive marriage and a nasty divorce.
Throw in a near-bankruptcy while raising two boys on her own, and that’s still only the half of it.
“This woman has been tried by fire most of her life,” said Bill Coates, senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Gainesville, Ga. “She is very seasoned and very mature.”
It’s those qualities that have placed Carbonell in an unusual role for a woman minister: pastor of the Hispanic congregation that worships at First Baptist in Gainesville.
Coates said he doesn’t know of any other Hispanic churches led by women. And before meeting Carbonell, he had his doubts she could overcome the strong expectation of male leadership in Spanish-speaking churches.
“My only reservation was, how will they receive her?”
‘God started working in me’
It wasn’t all that long ago that Carbonell had her own reservations.
She made a decision to accept Christ in her early 20s.
“There was an altar call, but no one gave me a Bible or told me the implications of that decision,” she said. Years passed without engagement in worship or prayer.
In 2007, her sister Katherine was diagnosed with leukemia. While the search began for a bone marrow donor, Carbonell went to work for a donor registry in Georgia.
“I had no pastor or spiritual guide, but I was visiting churches doing bone marrow education,” she said. It wasn’t lost on her that her day job was exposing her to Christian fellowship.
“I would go to a couple services on a Sunday. That’s when God started working in me.”
‘I’m still in the miracle business’
During the 12 months that followed, Carbonell said she began to rely on fasting and prayer to get her through her sister’s illness. She prayed for other victims of cancer she encountered in her work and in visiting Katherine.
But she also prayed for a miracle to save her sister.
“I worried if my sister doesn’t get a miracle, how was it going to affect my relationship with Christ?”
A year after her diagnosis, without ever finding a donor, Katherine died. But Carbonell said she never became angry at God.
“He had allowed me to touch so many lives,” she said. “He said, ‘I’m going to show you I’m still in the miracle business.’”
That came in witnessing the miraculous recovery of others and seeing the courage and faith of those who continued to struggle.
‘Like God speaking to me’
It also came in the unexpected — and still more difficult — turn her life would take into ministry.
What came next was the slow, painful end of a 10-year, emotionally abusive marriage. Carbonell also teetered on the verge of bankruptcy — all while raising her sons, then 3 and 5.
But she plowed ahead professionally and decided to seek a graduate degree in nonprofit management. Those efforts met roadblocks and quickly gave way to a growing interest in Scripture study.
“I wanted more and more” Bible study, she said.
A growing sense of calling into ministry eventually led her to enroll at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology. She’s on pace to graduate in December 2015 with a master’s in Christian ministry.
At first she felt ill equipped to be around other students who had extensive backgrounds in Scripture and theology.
“I had no training and no pastoral or spiritual guide to encourage me,” she said. “I didn’t know where God was taking me.”
But all of that changed in the fall of 2012 during a preaching class.
“It was like God speaking to me.”
‘Strength for my ministry’
That voice has become even clearer since May 2013, when Carbonell became the Hispanic pastor at First Baptist, after more than a year serving part-time.
There, she’s discovered that all of her hardships had been providing the very pastoral and theological training she previously thought she lacked.
She can identify with couples struggling with divorce. She can identify with single moms raising children on tight budgets. She can sit with patients undergoing cancer treatments.
“All of this has made me more sensitive and more compassionate,” she said. “My divorce, my failures and my errors are now strength for my ministry.”
‘They look up to me’
That God has called her to this ministry at this time also is evidenced by her congregation’s acceptance and its spiritual and numerical growth, she said.
The male culture often prevalent in Hispanic societies has broken down at First Baptist, Gainesville. The congregation is about 25 percent men who are receptive to her leadership and seek her counsel.
“They look up to me and for that I am amazed,” she said.
However, there were some families who left when she became the full-time pastor.
“Most of those who left couldn’t comprehend why I — a single woman, divorced” — was chosen as pastor.
“But I haven’t seen any resistance from the men at all.”
On the contrary, the congregation is growing. There were up to 30 members when Carbonell began. Today there are 100.
Coates said any doubt he had about Carbonell’s abilities and calling have long since dissipated.
“She has more passion for ministry and the gospel and people than anyone I have ever seen,” he said. “She is a person who will stop at nothing to get the message across to build a congregation and genuinely care for people.”