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 Send the Message of Redemption in Argentina
Native Christian workers are finding creative ways to bring the message of Christ’s salvation to women through such activities as conflict resolution workshops and breakfast meetings with non-Christians. One of the ministry’s congregations held a recent evangelistic event where 50 children and 20 adults heard the gospel and received biblical literature. The ministry recently mobilized its main church to fan out in the streets of Luján with the gospel, and 20 people put their faith in Christ. Workers need donations of $25 or $50 to share the gospel and disciple those who believe. Pray that new Christians will grow in knowledge and love.
Help Provide Bibles and the Gospel in Mexico
Translators of the Bible into 26 indigenous languages also produce and distribute various materials to help build the kingdom. Workers at one ministry who translated all four Gospels into an indigenous language provided 1,000 copies to tribal people.
Help Power Gospel Proclamation in Colombia
A 48-year-old man with a short temper was rude and aggressive to his wife and children until native Christian workers began sharing the gospel with him, and he received the Word of God and opened his heart to Christ. The kindness he showed to his family and others led to his wife and children also putting their faith in Christ.
Provide Critical Aid in Peru
Alcoholism, drug abuse and poor nutrition devastate families among the Quechua and other tribal peoples, but native Christian workers recently helped them to survive with distributions of shoes, clothes and food.
Provide Aid to the Needy in Peru
More than 60 children living in extreme poverty have received food every weekday from native Christian workers. “Before each meal, we sing as a choir, and in prayer we thank God,” the ministry leader said. “Also, on the weekend in Bible classes we share the Bible with each child in depth. Our desire is that they grow up knowing and trusting God, as they are the future of our ministry and community.”
Help Proclaim Christ as Lord in Brazil
An ethnic woman maligned a native Christian worker and tried to keep her from spreading the gospel until severe illness drove her to seek her help. The worker explained the gospel, and the villager gave her life to Christ; her health was restored, and she now leads a women’s ministry.
