Andrew Palau grew up backstage at crusades. His father, Luis Palau, preached to millions across Latin America and beyond. Andrew had front-row seats to every altar call, every tearful conversion, every miraculous story. And he felt absolutely nothing.
The Problem With Growing Up in Ministry
For 27 years, Andrew existed in a strange spiritual no-man's-land. He wasn't hostile to faith — he just didn't have any of his own. He went through the motions. He knew the language, the songs, the theology. But none of it had penetrated from his head to his heart.
His parents prayed. His father, a man who'd watched thousands respond to the gospel, couldn't get through to his own son. There's a particular kind of helplessness in that — seeing God move powerfully in strangers while your own child sits unmoved.
Jamaica, 1993
Andrew reluctantly agreed to join his father's crusade team in Jamaica. He wasn't there for spiritual reasons — he was just helping out. But something happened on that trip that he didn't expect.
He watched people come forward with genuine, raw need. He saw transformation that wasn't performative — people whose lives actually changed overnight. Drug dealers. Broken families. People with nothing to lose who suddenly found everything.
The contrast wrecked him. These strangers had something real. He, the evangelist's son, had been faking it for nearly three decades.
The Turning Point
Andrew surrendered at 27 — not at an altar, but in the honest admission that he'd been empty. He now leads the Palau Association, continuing his father's legacy but from a place of personal conviction rather than inherited obligation.
What This Means for You
Sometimes the children closest to faith are the furthest from experiencing it personally. Growing up in a believing home doesn't automatically produce belief. But it does plant familiarity — and sometimes familiarity becomes the bridge when the right moment arrives.