By Holly Meriweather, BMA Global 

Ronald and Damaris Murillo were the first couple discipled by American missionaries Bill and Jeanette Gibson in the late 70s when the Gibsons served in Costa Rica. During a conversation with Damaris, she described the impact that the Gibsons had on them. 

Damaris Porras was one of six sisters and two brothers . . . and considered the rebellious one in the family. When she was a teenager, one of her sisters was saved at Brother Bill’s church in Tibas. Her sister came home and told her family about her salvation and invited them to the Easter service led by Brother Bill. 

Damaris was the only one who did not attend. 

A year went by and she decided to go to that year’s Easter service with her sisters. Bro. Bill and Mrs. Jeanette were picking up a group of kids in their hometown of Santa Ana in “Herbie,” their Volkswagen van, and took them to the Easter service at Primera Iglesia Bautista de Tibas. 

During the service, Damaris began feeling uncomfortable after the pastor’s sermon, and when he gave the invitation, he asked, ”If you die today without accepting Jesus, where will you go?” Damaris was torn about the decision and very uncertain. She had always attended the Catholic church and tried reading her Bible, but the Catholic church did not encourage Bible study and there was no talk of salvation. So she would go back home and check her sister’s Bible to see if what the priests said lined up with the Bible. 

The pastor’s question helped her realize the final step was salvation without any strings attached, and at the age of nineteen, she surrendered her life to the Lord. From that point on, she wanted to learn as much as she could. She understood some of the Bible already and was hungry for more, so Damaris began discipleship with Bro. Bill and Mrs. Jeannette and shortly thereafter began serving in the church as a teacher. 

Ronald Murillo and his family attended a revival service where he accepted the Lord, then later on they became acquainted with Damaris’s family at church. The two began a friendship, talking often about Jesus and the Bible. When they discussed the topic of marriage, Damaris became worried because she knew that Ronald had been talking to Brother Gibson about pastoring, and she wasn’t sure she could be a pastor’s wife. After praying and asking the Lord to guide her, he removed her fears, and taught her to be a pastor’s wife. 

Two months after they married, Ronald surrendered to the ministry and started the adventure of pastoring, led by Jeanette and Bill Gibson. They discipled the Murillos, working side by side with them and planting churches, beginning with the church in Tibas, then in Santa Ana where Damaris’s family lived. They had been praying about planting their first church, and six months after the Murillos married, their first work together began, followed by Cuidad Colon. 

In addition to planting churches, Brother Bill and Ronald translated materials for a new Bible Institute into Spanish and visited other mission fields, sometimes traveling to places to help build new churches but always teaching the Murillos. Sister Janette and other ladies in the church cooked for every event. Ronald and Brother Bill served together planting churches and spreading the gospel for twenty-one years. 

Ronald and Damaris continued the work in Costa Rica even after Brother Bill and sister Jannette felt the call to leave Costa Rica. A few years later Ronald was called to be a church planter in Panama. Ronald Sr. died suddenly in 2010 while serving there.

Damaris says, “After Ronald’s death, I was afraid that because his passing had such a huge impact on my children that they were going to take it hard and backslide. But to God’s glory, all that didn’t happen. And now they have places of service with the Lord. Ronald Jr. took over the work in Panama for his dad and continues a wonderful work with his wife and son.” 

“I’ve always been so thankful for Brother Bill and Mrs. Jeanette, for God bringing them to my life.They weren’t just our spiritual parents. They were mentors. And I always admired Brother Bill that he never lost an opportunity to share the gospel with someone, and Sister Jeanette, even though she says she can’t do a lot or she doesn’t say a lot, just the fact that she was there and I knew she was listening to me and letting me share was important. To me she was a sister and a mother. I am who I am today because of her. Together the Gibsons always had the missionary heart and spirit.”