6/19/2025 Nicaragua (International Christian Concern) — In late December 2023, Nicaraguan Pastor Jose Luis Orozco Urrutia’s faith started being tested.

He and 12 others associated with the Evangelical Christian organization Mountain Gateway were charged with money laundering and other spurious charges.  

On March 19, 2024, the Fifth District Criminal Court sentenced Urrutia to 12 years in prison and fined him $80 million. The others arrested also received prison sentences and hefty fines. Their lawyers were barred from speaking with them or examining any files related to the case.  

A month before their arrests, 250,000 Nicaraguans attended a Mountain Gateway worship gathering. Members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (SNLF), led by President Daniel Ortega, considered the event a threat as Christian beliefs often challenged the SNLF’s efforts to merge Marxism with Christianity. Nicaraguan Christians also oppose the political party’s attempts to oppress free speech and religious freedom. 

Since 2018, Ortega and his wife, Rosalia Murillo, have targeted religious organizations, the Catholic church, and whoever speaks against the government and seeks to influence the country.  

Urrutia looks back on his nine months in prison as a time that stretched his faith and made him depend on God like never before.  

In “La Modelo” prison, the Mountain Gateway pastors and staff were given dirty water to drink and occasionally ate garbage. They weren’t allowed to see their families or possess a Bible.  

Still, they prayed, fasted, and ministered to one another. Eventually, more prisoners were added to their cell, and they shared the gospel with them. The pastors even led some police officers to Christ.  

“They [police officers] believed they were going to silence our mouths and put out our fire by putting us in that place,” Urrutia said. “We were in a maximum-security cell, but the fire didn’t go out, the fire got bigger than the problems.”  

Toward the end of their imprisonment, Urrutia said he felt that God was encouraging him that his story would change soon. Then the Mountain Gateway pastors and staff were released with another 124 prisoners.   

“The Lord had told me, ‘Don’t be afraid, José Luis. A wind will blow from the north, your chains will break, and the doors will open,” Urrutia recalled. 

Today, Urrutia and his family are rebuilding their lives in Austin, Texas. 

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