Countries Where We
Assist Native Ministries
Overview
Latin America’s Protestant population is booming, yet the region is still home to high numbers of unreached people groups. Brazil tops the chart of Latin American countries with the most unreached people groups. Mexico is number two, followed by Peru and Colombia.
Mexico’s Oaxaca State, for instance, is the most ethnically diverse entity in the world. In one 36-square-mile area of the state, more than 200 languages and dialects are spoken. Peru is home to many “unengaged” tribes who live in the jungles of Amazonia, isolated from society.
In contrast, Peru’s evangelical population has dramatically increased from 1 percent in 1960 to 11.15 percent in 2017. However, Peruvian Christians suffer from a lack of trained leadership, leading to false teaching within some churches.
Poverty, gangs, and drug trafficking are some of the biggest challenges to the spread of the gospel in Latin America.
Many of the indigenous ministries we assist are addressing each of these challenges; for instance, in Ecuador, a ministry provides theological training to inmates at 12 prisons where they have planted churches. Former murderers and drug traffickers are now seminary students and leaders inside prison churches. Once they are released, they have an opportunity to learn a viable skill through the ministry’s rehabilitation program.
How You Can Make a Difference
Native missionaries in Latin America persevere in sharing the gospel in some of the world’s most dangerous mission fields—where gangs, drug traffickers, and hostile animist communities view them as a threat to their territories. They need your support to help them enter towns and villages through community engagement projects like small businesses and vocational training centers, which have proven effective in opening hearts to the gospel message.
Ways To Give
Evangelism & Discipleship
In Oaxaca State, Mexico, where over 200 languages and dialects are spoken, a ministry is training missionaries to reach the region’s many unreached people groups.
Community Engagement
In the slums of Guatemala City, an indigenous ministry provides more than 100 poverty-stricken children with afterschool recreation and discipleship in God’s Word.
Compassion
An indigenous ministry in the Peruvian Andes cares for poor children by providing them with nutritious meals, usually their only meal of the day, and tutoring.
Exclusive Stories from the Mission Field
Help Missionaries Build Relationships in Mexico
A native ministry trained its missionaries on practical ways to integrate with local communities and build relationships with the people. Now, those missionaries have begun to use that training to teach the people how to raise animals, vegetables, and micro crops. Missionaries are also teaching lessons on bread-making and textiles, as well as plumbing, electricity, carpentry, and blacksmithing.
Change Lives With The Gospel Message in Peru
A farmer addicted to alcohol and abusive toward his wife and children attended church with his family one Sunday at the invitation of his neighbor. When he heard the gospel preached that day, he and his wife accepted Jesus as Savior, and their life together was immediately changed.
Stand With Churches Through Challenging Times in Brazil
A native ministry received a letter—folded and smudged—with this message: “My brothers and sisters, covid came and we did not die. There is a lot of malaria in our region, but we are still alive. The illegal miners shot us, and we are still alive. The great famine came, and we are still standing. Foreign missionaries left because of the government ban, but we are still standing, and the church has been meeting all the time.
Help Feed Poor Children in Latin America
A nourishing meal helps impoverished children in Paraguay to learn, grow and hope for a better future. Every Sunday morning native Christian workers provide meals and Bible stories for poor children, then visit their homes to determine needs and share the gospel.
Help Power Gospel Outreach in Brazil
While native Christian workers establish new contacts with members of an ethnic group in one area, others have been working for more than 40 years in a village where another tribe has long resisted the gospel. In that area both children and adults are addicted to alcohol and drugs. “But suddenly we have been surprised by the miracles of conversion in the last five months,” the ministry leader said.
Help Form Well-Rooted Christians in Peru
Suffering stomach pains, a mother of four who made offerings to an earth goddess and was addicted to coca leaves visited a native missionary’s church. She accepted Christ, and after the worker prayed for healing, her stomach pains subsided a few days later. The woman now seeks to travel to share her testimony with other Quechua- and Spanish-speaking communities.
