The Mission Society

In this land of extremes, the Andes Mountains separate Peru’s desert plain on the west from her jungles on the east. Many Peruvians, particularly those in the rural areas of the Southern Andes, live in poverty. People are hungry for God’s Word. The Mission Society’s Peru team, working with the Peruvian Methodist Church, is committed to training pastors and church leaders, planting new churches, ministering to youth and children and doing medical evangelism through a mobile clinic and Community Health Evangelism (a program in which nationals teach their communities simple methods of disease prevention and, simultaneously, introduce the Gospel). There is a need for children’s ministry, evangelism and possibly medical assistance at almost every location listed below, in addition to the other needs described.

Peru Projects

Center for Production and Renewal
Project Location: Zapan, Canta Valley
Estimated Costs: Approximately $500 per person, per week, plus airfare and any specific project monies.
Dates Available: Teams welcomed all year. Recommended trip length from departure to arrival in the U.S. is nine-to-sixteen days.
Project Description: They Ivey family has been working with their partner Peruvian ministry, NEWMA (Misión-Amen), and medical teams from Mayo United Methodist Church and Morehead United Methodist Church to open works in the Canta Valley. This valley has been very closed to the Gospel until 2004 ago when Christ worked through the combined efforts of these groups to break open the doors. There are now eight new churches in this valley with a plan to plant 15 more among its communities. There is a desire to create a center for production and renewal that would research business and agricultural opportunities to help create a sustainable income to support the ministries in this valley and provide a place for training local and international Christian workers. In addition, the center would help to provide a means to help provide community development throughout the valley, like potable water projects and electrical service to small communities. This center would hopefully become a model for similar projects in other locations around Peru to help to create self-sustaining ministries. Work teams are needed to help with the construction of the center, participate in evangelism and children’s ministries, and medical teams.

Classroom Construction & Evangelization Project - Casa de Oración Qechua
Project Location: Chilca, Huancayo
Estimated Costs: Approximately $500 per person, per week, plus airfare and any specific project monies.
Dates Available: Teams welcomed all year. Recommended trip length from departure to arrival in the U.S. is nine-to-sixteen days.
Project Description: The Lord Jesus has blessed the Ivey family with a relationship with the Casa de Oración Quechua in Chilca, Huancayo. This church is approximately 16 years old and is made up of a large population of Quechua-speaking peoples from the south of Huancayo. The native tongue of many of these people is either; Quechua Huancavelica, Quechua, Ayacucho, Quechua Cusco, or Quechua Wanka. Through one of the pastors, Genaro Puente Ayala, the Iveys have involved this church in their discipleship program. There are 47 of their members, mostly young adults, participating with the Iveys in this ministry. Forty of these persons are almost to the point that they are ready to begin leading groups of their own. This combined with an opportunity to work with 200 non-Christian families (approx. 1000 persons) which are supported through Compassion International. This partnership has given the Peru team a unique opportunity to evangelize and disciple in an area that has traditionally been very closed to the Gospel message.

The Casa de Oración Quechua is in need of additional facilities. They own the land in Chilca and have a small sanctuary that is almost full on Sunday nights. All of their other buildings are provisional adobe construction and are too small to meet the current demand. They have contracted an architect and have made a master plan and detailed plans for expansion of their facilities. They have decided that they would like to build the classrooms first to provide places for their children, youth, and young adults, but also have plans to use these spaces as a training center to send out workers to the south to advance the Kingdom of Jesus Christ into these little evangelized areas.

The new education center is proposed to ultimately be three floors of five classrooms each. This construction has an estimated cost of $170,000. Many of the members of the congregation are skilled in construction and plan to reduce these costs by providing their skills and talents to the project in place of paying outside construction workers. By working with mission teams this would further reduce labor costs on this project. Financing for this project would come through grants from Compassion International, support from short-term mission teams and from tithes and offerings and other fund raising activities of the congregation. The first phase of this portion of the project would be to construct the first five ground-level classroom buildings.

Work teams are needed to help with the construction of the center, as well as to participate in evangelism and children’s ministries.

Colegio El Camino Christian School
Project Location: Huancayo
Estimated Costs: Approximately $500 per person, per week, plus airfare and any specific project monies.
Dates Available: Teams welcomed all year. Recommended trip length from departure to arrival in the U.S. is nine-to-sixteen days.
Project Description: The Colegio El Camino is the Christian education ministry of the Peru team in Huancayo. It provides education in a Christian environment for preschool through high school-aged kids. The Peru team is also working on developing a Bible Seminary in conjunction with the school. The building and systems are in great need of renovation and improvement. Plumbing work and installation of a water reserve system are needed. The electrical system is in need of complete renovation. The floors and finishes are also in poor condition. Work teams are needed to help with the renovation of the physical plant, participate in evangelism, children’s ministries, and teaching ministries.

Missionary Training
Project Location: Lima and Huancayo
Estimated Costs: Approximately $500 per person, per week, plus airfare and any specific project monies.
Dates Available: Late January through February and late August through September. Recommended trip length from departure to arrival in the U.S. is nine-to-fourteen days.
Project Description: A missionary training school, EMLA, trains Peruvian missionary candidates in missiology. Each candidate that completes the training program receives a BA in missiology. Individual pastors or teams of pastors and other trained persons are needed who can volunteer a week or two weeks of their time and resources to travel to Peru and provide teaching and training in different areas of theology. Spanish training materials are needed.

Youth and Young Adult Ministry
Project Location: Various locations
Estimated Costs: Approximately $500 per person, per week, plus airfare and any specific project monies.
Dates Available: Teams welcomed all year. Recommended trip length from departure to arrival in the U.S. is nine-to-fourteen days. For evangelism teams the maximum is sixteen people.
Project Description: Teams are needed to work along side of and train young adults to be effective evangelists, discipleship leaders, prayer warriors, and leaders of cell groups. This training can take the form of on-the-job teaching, classes, or combinations of these methods. Training events are scheduled throughout the year, as well as ongoing weekly training. Funds are needed to purchase training and discipleship materials in Spanish, as well as good quality Spanish tracts for evangelism.