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 Spread the Word of Life in Latin America
While thousands of people flee economic chaos in a Latin American country, native missionaries remain to bring hope in Christ. Besides providing aid to children and the elderly, workers have shared Christ in home visits, Bible studies and public events.
Brazilians Desperate for Gospel Despite Dangers
Visiting a town downstream years ago, a tribal leader in Brazil had sold many of his goods and spent the earnings on alcohol. Though drunk, he was heading out in his small canoe to the tribal village he had founded. “Unable to paddle, he was swept away by the current of the river,” the leader of a native ministry said. “He lay on the hull of the canoe, and he was taken downstream far from his village. He was swept away by the wind and the river.”
Mother Fleeing Evil in Peru Pleads for Prayer
Lucero* had fled the occult and abuse and was addicted to strong drink when she tearfully asked native Christian workers in a remote village in the Andes to pray for her wrecked life. Workers learned that the 48-year-old Lucero had been estranged from her six children since abandoning them for alcohol years prior. “Her parents were witches,” the leader of the ministry based in Peru said. “She and her younger sister used to watch the evil rituals that her parents performed.
Help Send the Message of God’s Grace in Mexico
Many young people see working in poppy fields for drug cartels as their only way to make a living, but a 20-year-old man recently left that work after a relative discipled by a native ministry led him to Christ. Now Christian workers are discipling the young man, who is sharing the gospel with his parents and siblings and wants to bring the message of eternal life to other areas.
Provide Aid to the Poor in Guatemala
More than 60 children whose parents lost their jobs due to the pandemic are living in extreme poverty, but native Christian workers are providing them meals twice a week. They are also helping the children catch up on schoolwork that dropped off due to COVID-19 lockdowns.
Help Transform Lives with the Gospel in Peru
A 67-year-old villager in the Andes had spent his life worshipping ancestors and was addicted to coca leaves and alcohol. Native Christian workers found him no longer providing for his family and emotionally broken, and when they shared the gospel with him, he tearfully gave his life to the Lord.
