Cristina Maria Pfuntner

Maria Cristina Pfuntner passed from this life into eternal life and into the arms of her beloved Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, on Tuesday, January 19th at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin. She was 47 years old. Cristina was born on July 20, 1973 in Saltillo, Coahuila in Mexico to her parents, Humberto Esparza Contreras and Maria de Jesus Esparza Castro.

Cristina received a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering with a specialty in Administration. She attended Texas A&M Kingsville on an interchange scholarship and completed her degree in Saltillo, Mexico at La Universidad Autònoma de Coahuila. Soon after beginning her professional career, Cristina received a higher calling to serve her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ which led her to come to the United States and eventually to Texas in 2011 when she accepted a job in Georgetown, Texas.

As a member of Crestview Baptist Church in Georgetown, she used her spiritual gifts and talents to serve in many ministries and missions through the church including Texas Baptists Men Disaster Relief, Celebrate Recovery, Pacific Northwest Missions, the English as a Second Language program, and many other various service missions and projects. She also worked as a translator for nonprofit organization, Key2Free, helping victims of human trafficking. She met and fell in love with her best friend, Rick Pfuntner, through the singles ministry at the church, and they were married on April 7, 2018.

As a missionary, she touched countless lives wherever God called her to go. Wherever there was a need she would be the first to volunteer herself. Because of her humble, compassionate nature there was never a job too small for her to do or any person that she did not try to love and help.

Cristina is preceded in death by her father, Humberto Esparza Contreras. She leaves to cherish her memory her husband, Rick; her mother, Maria de Jesus; her loving siblings, Maria Concepciòn (Conchis), Humberto, Salvador, Antonio, Angel, Lila, and Maria de Jesùs (Gorda), many beloved nieces and nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, foster brothers and sisters.

She also leaves to cherish her memory her father-in-law and mother-in-law, John and Brenda Pfuntner, brother-in-law, Scot, and his wife, Tina, and their children, and brother-in-law, John Mark, and his wife, Lissa, her church families at Crestview Baptist Church and La Iglesia Alpha y Omega, and a host of loving friends.