WATSONVILLE – On a Friday night under the lights, young Julian Pizarro Jr. It was both a bitter and sweet moment for him.

As the final moments of the game approached, the Monte Vista Christian School Mustangs He made the game-winning shot He celebrated his 17th birthday for his team on October 11; it was a day of celebration that he already shared with his triplet siblings, Jonathan and Sarah.

But earlier that day, Julian’s father and pastor, Julian Pizarro Sr., 54, was jogging near Freedom Boulevard and Miles Lane in Watsonville when he was struck by a passing car shortly before 10 a.m. The accident caused a traumatic brain injury. She posted a smiling photo of her three children and “Happy 17th Birthday Kiddos!!” Less than two hours have passed since he posted his message. to the Facebook page. The 29-year-old driver involved in the crash reportedly remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators.

That night, Julian Jr. was carried on his teammates’ shoulders and spoke for an interview with the Sentinel after the game.

“I’m glad I could do this,” he said. “It makes me sad that my dad can’t watch this.”

Just 15 days later, Pizarro Sr. from Monte Vista Christian School. head varsity men’s soccer coach and pastor of Hispanic ministries at Twin Lake Church in Aptos for more than two years, He succumbed to his injuries and died while being taken to hospital. According to a online fundraiser At the Pizarro family’s expense, Pizarro battled pneumonia and never regained consciousness. As of Wednesday, the fundraiser had surpassed its original goal of $80,000.

The crash, unfortunately timed in the middle of National Pedestrian Safety Month, remains an open investigation, the Watsonville Police Department wrote in a social media post Tuesday evening.

Santa Cruz County searching for Pizarro family

Pizarro, Hired as head coach of Monte Vista Christian He was born and raised in Chile in 2022, according to the school’s recruitment announcement. Pizarro and his family moved to the United States shortly after serving eight years in the mission field, according to the announcement. Pizarro and his wife had previously lived in the area, and Pizarro coached the boys’ soccer team at Scotts Valley High School starting in 2000. According to the leader, Pizarro was lured back to the county following an international headhunting investigation conducted by Twin Lakes Church. pastor, Rev. René Schlaepfer. Many of Pizarro’s sermons were recorded – Including last service on 6 October – and continue to stream on Twin Lakes Church’s website and YouTube channel.

The church’s leadership envisioned adding a fourth service to its offerings, offered in Spanish and mirroring English-language services. In fact, “TLC en Español” services were planned simultaneously with their English counterparts and served as a successful strategy for congregational integration and even diversification of other services, Schlaepfer said. About three years ago, the church struck gold when it found Pizarro, who has long ties to the area, having served as lead pastor at a church in his native Chile and serving large Spanish-speaking congregations based in Houston.

“We all felt that he was almost created in a laboratory and was perfectly created for this position,” Schlaepfer said. “He was actually completing a doctoral thesis on exactly this strategy and had studied churches nationally and internationally that were doing what we were hoping to do. So he was literally an expert on this subject.”

Asked to describe Pizarro, Schlaepfer quickly listed a list of his former pastor’s positive qualities, including being lively, passionate, friendly, forward-thinking, smart, funny, loving, and committed to the ministry and its people. He added that Twin Lakes is committed to continuing its Spanish-language preaching and “building on the vision that Julian started,” and touted the church’s largest English-language baptism to date, where more than half of the nearly 100 people baptized were nonwhite. .

“It’s not just that he has all these qualities on paper,” Schlaepfer said. “His personality was so warm and engaging that he didn’t know these things in an academic or cold sense; he actually lived them and believed in them.”

Teams offer unity

Pizarro was quoted in the Monte Vista Christian announcement as saying during his recruitment that coaching football allowed him to “teach and model Biblical principles.”