The Reverend Doctor Luciano Jaramillo, 86, founding pastor of El Camino Cumberland Presbyterian Church in West Miami Beach, Florida (Grace Presbytery), died February 1, 2021. Luciano was well known and highly regarded for having led the team effort by the International Bible Society to develop the Nueva Version Internacional (NVI), a Spanish Language Protestant Bible akin to the English language New International Version.

Luciano became the Principal of Colegio Americano in Cali, Colombia, in 1969. Under his direction the school thrived and grew into one of the finest schools in Cali. In 1979, he accepted a position with the United Bible Society and moved to Mexico City. Luciano moved with the UBS to Miami, Florida, in 1983. In 1989, the International Bible Society engaged him for the NVI project. He retired from the IBS in 2018.

Luciano Jaramillo was born in a Roman Catholic family in Cisneros, Antioquia, Colombia August 20, 1934. He was ordained in the Catholic Church but experienced a conflict of faith. Sent to Rome for a year of intense study of Holy Scripture and then to Jerusalem for a year of immersion in Biblical languages, he could not reconcile what he saw as contradictions between the Catholic tradition and the message of the Scriptures. Luciano was excommunicated.

Although expelled from the priesthood, Luciano retained his academic credentials and found work teaching in a Baptist school. A teacher at Colegio Americano, encouraged Luciano to meet the Reverend Bill Wood, a Cumberland Presbyterian missionary. Wood was looking for an accredited professor to teach the obligatory Latin class. Luciano immediately accepted beginning a long-lasting relationship with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church through the Colegio Americano.

Bill Wood and fellow missionaries John Lovelace, James Kelso, Larry Acton, Boyce Wallace, Robert Watkins, and José Fajardo became Luciano’s mentors. Luciano became well known in the educational sphere in Cali and among other private schools in Colombia.

During Luciano’s first years working for Colegio Americano, Wood suggested Luciano consider ordination as a Cumberland Presbyterian minister. In the mid-1960s, Luciano and his wife, Athala, moved to Tennessee for him to pursue a master of divinity at Memphis Theological Seminary and a masters in educational administration at Memphis State University.