Beth Tehillah Vetikva (House of Praise & Hope)

Santiago Cuellar

Born and raised in Miami, Florida my family origins are from Spain, more specifically, the Canary Islands. My entire family, both on my mother’s and father’s side, are descendants of Sephardic Jews from Spain, who were raised as Christians / Catholics. I was not raised Catholic, rather Pentecostal as a child but I am a Seventh-day Adventist and have been since the age of about 20. So I guess that makes me an Adventist Sephardic Jew. I am part of the Jewish Adventist Ministry under the General Conference of the SDA … that’s right, I said Jewish Adventist! Recently I have been appointed by the Florida Conference of the SDA as Lay Pastor for Beth Tehillah Vetikva (House of Praise and Hope), a Messianic Adventist Community. We are an Adventist Messianic Congregation made up of both Jews and non-Jews who believe that Yeshua is Messiah. We worship the living God in the context of our Hebraic heritage and believe that we are to live our lives by the word of G-d. Our congregation is both multi-ethnic and multi-lingual and by its diversity it is strengthened. I have been married since 2001 to my beautiful wife Jael who has given me 3 handsome young men, Isaac, Ben and Nathan.