Salvador Blanco-Mendez (January 16, 1962 – October 5, 2025)
In the late night of October 5th, Salvador Blanco-Mendez’s joyful faith turned into sight at 63 years of age. He was born to Agustín and Vertalina Mendez de Blanco on January 13, 1962. He was the oldest of four siblings, Anibal, Miriam, Aracely, and Cesar. He also had a half-brother name Tito.
Salvador was born in 1962 in a rural village called “La Maquina” in Retalhuleu, Guatemala. He came to know Jesus at 11 years old in an Assemblies of God church in La Maquina. He was the first of his family to convert from Protestantism to Catholicism. After marrying the love of his life from Mazatenango, Dina Milagro-Perello, he decided to provide for her by immigrating to North America to work and bring his family over to start a new life there. Salvador and Dina were married on February 20, 1982. In 1986, he immigrated to North America. Making his long trek through Mexico he finally arrived at the Rio Grande, the fourth longest river in the U.S., where he had to navigate a dangerous crossing through violent currents.
Once he crossed, he walked through Texas until he reached Houston where he settled and found a job in construction. He developed a routine working construction with other immigrants, and things started to look up as he landed a higher-paying job in Florida. He arrived to the Sunshine state only to be arrested, detained and deported. Despite this setback he would go on to immigrate back to America yet again enduring his way back to the U.S. before a year had passed.
Salvador settled in West Los Angeles, CA, where he worked construction, then as a newspaper deliverer, courthouse worker, an interstate driver, and finally as a truck-driver transporting mulch all over California all to bring his wife and first son from Guatemala. He then settled and bought his first home in Compton, CA. He gained his residency in the mid 90s and began faithfully serving at a Pentecostal church in Los Angeles.
In early 2005, his life changed when a bulldozer tipped a 4-foot concrete wall over him. During recovery his visitors at the hospital would leave encouraged by his joyful suffering. He would joke around and turn his friends’ tears of sorrow into tears of happiness and laughter. Some even came to know Jesus at his hospital bed.
After close to twenty years in the big city of Los Angeles, the Blanco family moved to Roy, Utah for a quieter life. Salvador became a citizen in 2006. Salvador recovered, served at a church in Ogden and got involved with mission work in different Latin American countries. Through a friend on these short-term trips he heard of a small town in Alabama called Russellville where Hispanic culture was rapidly growing. He visited and preached at a local church and decided Russellville was the next stop for the Blanco family.
The Blancos moved to Russellville in 2007 and opened a music and bookstore, House of Faith. Two years later he started a church to minister to the large Hispanic population in Russellville in 2009. The last 15 years of his life were spent working bi-vocationally at Pilgrim’s Pride and pastoring Iglesia Aliento de Vida. In his spare time he loved fishing, story-telling, joke-telling, evangelizing, studying the Bible, talking to anyone about the Bible (especially his sons), taking trips with his family, visiting his granddaughter of 7 months old in Birmingham, playing guitar, piano, and singing, and drinking coffee with people he loved with Guatemalan and Mexican pastries.
He died leaving behind a wife of 43 years (Dina), 3 sons (Christian, Jonathan, and Salvador), 2 grandchildren (Josue and Lydia), and a church that he planted and pastored for 16 years (Iglesia Aliento de Vida).
Salvador was known for his joy, encouragement, jokes, laughter, and endurance through suffering. He always made it a point to make eye-contact and encourage those around him. He outdid people in showing honor and complimenting them in his humorous way. Even in hard days as an immigrant and later as an amputee, he was happy in Jesus and his joy uplifted others. When he sat down to eat with his family or friends, he always worshiped both in prayer before eating and while he ate singing and eating his bread with joy (Ecclesiastes 9:7).
“I have been young, and now am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread” (Psalm 37:25).
