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Did you hear the one about the high-powered Panamanian jewelry executive who threw a lavish party eight days after discovering that he had terminal cancer? His name is Carli Jelenszky, and 600 people showed up for his 49th birthday last August.

Jelenszky told guests that he wanted no gifts and no tears. "I wanted to celebrate God's goodness regardless of the cancer," he says.

The Jelenszky name is well known in Panama. His father started the nation's most prominent jewelry business in 1961. Carli Jelenszky's brother Pepo is a trusted adviser to the president of Panama. Another brother, Javier, is a prominent doctor.

Jelenszky is known most for his years of helping to run Mercurio Joyeros, the family store. But since cancer struck, the once high-living executive is increasingly known for leading Bible studies for crowds packed into his condominium overlooking Panama City's majestic harbor.

There, rich and poor alike are placing their trust in Jesus.

Jelenszky's journey with Christ began on September 12, 1986, because of misplaced hopes about a drug deal. The previous day he had met Jack Smith, a friend of three of his brothers, at a party. Noting Jelenszky's excessive drinking, Smith asked if he would like to have the same high with no side effects. Jelenszky agreed to meet him the next day in Smith's hotel room. He had no idea the presumed drug dealer was a missionary.

"I thought Jack had access to some new American drugs," Jelenszky says. "I was shocked when I got to his room and saw him sitting with an open Bible on the table." Smith shared the gospel, and after 20 minutes Jelenszky knelt to receive Jesus into his heart.

He notes, looking back, that he was ripe for conversion. "I was always looking for something and knew my life was empty. I had tried self-hypnosis, Silva mind control, and TM [Transcendental Meditation]. I would try the latest fads. I had everything but had nothing."

His wife, Gloria, who also later accepted Christ, says they considered themselves Catholic but didn't take their faith seriously.

"I hated confession, and I had no personal walk with God," she says. "Carli and I were caught up in the fast life of the rich. We both loved to travel, and I loved to shop."

Such is the life of Panama's upper class—the people Jelenszky had a special desire to reach as soon as he put his trust in Christ. "I felt I had an opportunity to reach into my own social and business world and bring the Good News to them. I could talk their language."

His conversion, however, created an immediate crisis for his family, and for friends and business associates in Panama. "There was a lot of gossip about me, and people were saying that I had gone crazy and joined a cult," he says. His longtime friend Rolando Domingo, along with one of Jelenszky's brothers, even formed a local branch of the apologetics organization Catholic Answers to counter Carli's message.

Relations with family and friends may have turned worse, but his marriage improved. Gloria saw how his love for the Lord dramatically changed him. "He quit smoking instantly, and he started to treat me with respect," she says. "There was a new romance in our marriage."

But tensions between Jelenszky and his father escalated—especially after he announced he was going to the United States to study theology.

"My dad told me that if I went through with my plans that it would cost me my inheritance and contact with my seven brothers and sister. It hurt to hear my father's words, and it was all a little bit scary, but we knew we were doing what God wanted."

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February 2004, Vol. 48, No. 2