Luis Palau Jr. (1934–2021) was an Argentine-American preacher and evangelist whose international ministry shared the Christian gospel with millions over more than six decades. Born on November 27, 1934, in Ingeniero Maschwitz, Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was the eldest of seven children of Luis Palau Sr., a construction executive, and Matilde Balfour de Palau. His father died when Palau was 10, leaving the family in financial hardship, after which he worked at a bank in Córdoba to support them. Converted at age 12 through a missionary-led summer camp, he began preaching on street corners as a teenager and hosted a Christian radio program by 19. He moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1960 to study at Multnomah Bible College, graduating in 1961, and married Patricia Scofield that year, with whom he had four sons: Kevin, Keith, Andrew, and Stephen. Palau’s preaching career took off after serving as a Spanish translator for Billy Graham in the 1960s, with Graham providing seed funding in 1970 for the Luis Palau Evangelistic Association (LPEA), incorporated in 1978 in Beaverton, Oregon. He preached to over 30 million people in person across 75 countries, with more than 1 million registering decisions for Christ, and reached over 1 billion through radio and television broadcasts on 5,000 stations in 48 countries, including his Spanish-language program Luis Palau Responde. Known as “the Billy Graham of Latin America,” he held massive evangelistic festivals, such as a 1999 event in Portland drawing 80,000, and was among the first to preach in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and ’80s. Diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer in 2018, Palau died on March 11, 2021, in Portland, leaving a legacy as a preacher who bridged cultures and generations with his message of faith.