In February of 2013 we started a church in Cusco. We are humbled to be partnering with a Peruvian named Wehrner Pancorbo, through HeartCry Missionary Society. Wehrner is a native of Cusco but has pastored a healthy church north of Lima for 12 years. He had been praying for 5 years for the opportunity to move back to Cusco and start a church but everything failed until God providentially brought us together. We rented a building for the church to gather and for our offices.
We have service from 10am to 1pm every Sunday and a prayer meeting every Wednesday night. We are active in teaching, preaching, evangelism, discipleship, and fellowship. Once a month we have a pot luck and the whole church hits the street to share the gospel. We baptized the first two converts in May of 2014 and the church continues to grow. God is blessing His people and we are seeing lives changed and disciples made.
This is what we do but we do realize that nothing will happen unless the Spirit of God awakens people from the dead. We have no ability or strategy that can accomplish anything real so our dependence is only and totally on God to raise up His church in Cusco. Check out a short video of our work below.
We are also doing work among the indigenous tribes in the jungle called the Ashaninca. We work with villages on a remote river in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. There are only a few believers in this part of the jungle, which is saturated with witchcraft, animism, terrorists, and narco-traffickers The few Christians are hungry for the Word of God and some travel a whole day by hiking and canoe to hear us teach. Why do we do this? Read more HERE. We are working with and supporting a pastor named Miguel in the jungle town of Satipo. We partner with my friend Scott Dollar and go in at least four times a year for 1-2 weeks to teach in the villages. Every trip into the jungle we find more scattered believers located much deeper and farther from the river. We are now working with a village called Nazaret that takes four days to get to from Cusco. The last leg of the trip is a 20k hike through the jungle.
Our church in Cusco and Scott Dollar's church in Tennessee started a training center in the jungle town of Satipo. We call the training center Reforming Peru. We bring all the leaders from the villages, as well as the leaders in the Satipo area to Satipo for each conferences. Our first conference in May or 2015 was tremendous. We had Ashaninca people from 10 different villages and made a contact that will bring 30 more leaders from the Yanesha people group to the next conference. We teach three, one week conferences, three times a year for three years.
This is what we do but we do realize that nothing will happen unless the Spirit of God awakens people from the dead. We have no ability or strategy that can accomplish anything real so our dependence is only and totally on God to raise up His church in Cusco. Check out a short video of our work below.
We are also doing work among the indigenous tribes in the jungle called the Ashaninca. We work with villages on a remote river in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. There are only a few believers in this part of the jungle, which is saturated with witchcraft, animism, terrorists, and narco-traffickers The few Christians are hungry for the Word of God and some travel a whole day by hiking and canoe to hear us teach. Why do we do this? Read more HERE. We are working with and supporting a pastor named Miguel in the jungle town of Satipo. We partner with my friend Scott Dollar and go in at least four times a year for 1-2 weeks to teach in the villages. Every trip into the jungle we find more scattered believers located much deeper and farther from the river. We are now working with a village called Nazaret that takes four days to get to from Cusco. The last leg of the trip is a 20k hike through the jungle.
We are very grateful for men like David Sills who has mentored us and corrected a lot of our bad ideas and prevented us from learning a lot of things the hard way. Our vision is to bring the saving gospel of Jesus Christ, not only to Cusco but to the many remote places in the Andes and the jungle.
In this vision, the Peruvians, who are able to plant churches far better than us, will be the leaders of the churches and we will be working behind the scenes. Our vision is not to see American churches planted and sustained by Americans, but to see God work amongst the Peruvians to start biblical churches that are sustained by the Peruvians relying on the grace of God.
The Need for Missions in Peru
The needs are tremendous here. Pastors need training and accountability. We are spread way to thin and cannot effectively disciple, mentor, and train pastors when we are so far away. What we are doing now is similar to living in Montana and trying help a church plants in Seattle, WA and Casper, WY. The pastors that we are working with want help and simple training like how a biblical church functions, the roles of men and women, basic doctrine, and countless other things. Often we walk into a church and see many problems and we know the solutions but we are unable to help effectively because we are so far away. We really believe that we must invest in these pastors by pouring everything into them; from teaching doctrine to modeling Christ-like behavior to demonstrating how a family should function. These things cannot be done effectively by showing up for a week, four times a year. We live here and find ourselves overwhelmed in trying to balance everything and be effective in our work. To read more specific about the need, click HERE.
The End
What is the end goal of our work in Peru? It is the same purpose we all have in life, which is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We are not in Peru necessarily to rescue lost and depraved sinners from a wrathful God. We are here out of a love for our precious Savior Jesus Christ and out of obedience to God to go to all nations, lead by Christ, to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. (2 Corinthians 2:14-15)
We primarily want to see the name of our Sovereign God glorified and made great instead of being blasphemed in Peru. God has His people in every tribe, tongue and nation, which includes Cusco. We are confident in God that He will use the preaching of His Word to save sinners. We understand that the Bride of Christ has been built by they blood of the martyrs and that anyone who desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. We have sacrificed everything for this move and pray that God will use our weak, lowly bodies for His glory and good. We are very privileged to pour our lives out for the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ and His glory.
The Means
The works of George Muller had a big impact on shaping my philosophy on depending on God for provision. I have never asked people for financial support or for an opportunity to present our ministry. We simply go to our mighty God, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and knows what we need before we ask it, and ask Him to raise up senders to live lives of radical sacrifice at home so we can pour out our lives out in the field. Even though we have never asked for support, God continually answers our prayers and supplies our daily bread in the same way He is faithful to feed the sparrows. All of our needs are met by prayer alone.
We are confident that God will finish the good work that He has started and continue to raise up individuals and churches to give and pray sacrificially for the equal privilege of being obedient to God in the great commission to take the gospel to all nations. We are fully trusting in God to raise up the senders He wants to support us. It is a test of faith and through it, God will get all of the glory for providing for us. Although we have chosen this support strategy, we do not require other missionaries to do the same or look down on anyone who does it different.
We are currently living in the States, but still involved in supporting the work in Peru through our local church.
