Partner with
Local Missionaries in Peru

Map of Peru

Population:

32.4 million

Evangelical population:

14.4%

People groups:

104

Unreached people groups:

81

Peru

Peru’s varied landscape is home to a diverse number of ethnic groups, some of which are completely isolated from the rest of society in the dense forest of the Amazon. Approximately one third of Peru’s people live in the coastal region along the Pacific Ocean, where the capital city is located, and around half of the population lives in the highlands of the Andes Mountains.

While Peru’s overall economy has been growing in recent years, extreme poverty exists in rural areas. Many children drop out of school to help support their families. Up to one third of Peruvian children between the ages of 6 and 14 work, often performing dangerous mining or construction jobs.

The Quechua people comprise the largest of the ethnic minority groups in Peru. Descendants of the wealthy and renowned Inca people, the Quechua people battle acute poverty and alcoholism.

Christian Aid Mission assists indigenous ministries working in high-altitude Quechua villages. Indigenous missionaries often travel by horseback, donkey, or on foot to deliver desperately needed food, clothing, and school supplies to these villages. They also provide free medical and dental care and share the message of the gospel at multi-day evangelistic events. Collectively, they have planted hundreds of Quechua churches.

One of these ministries has successfully spread the gospel to entire Quechua families through its feeding center, where approximately 100 children receive a daily nutritious meal—often their only meal of the day—and learn God’s Word.

Another ministry is successfully planting churches among the Ashaninka people who live in the Amazon forest and are fearful of outsiders due to past oppression. When this ministry first began working among the Ashaninka, they discovered a disturbing and pervasive practice. Witchdoctors often accused children of bringing bad luck upon entire villages, ordering parents to abuse their own children or expel them from their village to die alone.

Through the ministry’s compassionate care and persistent witness, many Ashaninka people have accepted Christ as savior, and as they’ve grown in God’s Word and been set free from the fear of evil spirits, they have abandoned their old cultural practice of child abuse. Today, the ministry trains Ashaninka believers to reach their own people for Christ.

Sources: Joshua Project, CIA World Factbook
Peruvian girls wearing hats sitting in a valley holding their school supplies in their laps

How to Pray for Peru

  • Pray that God would open doors for indigenous missionaries to reach Peru’s last remaining unreached people groups—people who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ.
  • Pray that God would raise up many more missionaries among ethnic tribal groups who will spread the gospel to their own people.
  • Pray that God would grant continued wisdom and guidance to indigenous missionaries who are developing curriculum and training ethnic tribal believers as church leaders and missionaries.
  • Pray that God would provide the resources requested by indigenous ministries to grow their outreaches, including funding for a mission base and classrooms in the Amazon forest region, boats to reach people living along the Amazon River, support for their workers, and assistance to continue providing the poor and needy with compassionate, life-saving aid.

More stories from Peru

Send the Message of Eternal Life in Peru

After praying and fasting to discern where the Lord would send them, local missionaries set out to proclaim Christ and planted 27 congregations in the mountains, jungles and on the coasts. At the same time, their radio program daily reached about 200 towns in one area and 121 villages in another, with listeners calling into the station for prayer and some trusting in Christ as Lord and Savior.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

Bring Salvation to the Broken in Peru

A 22-year-old man who devoted himself to pornography and throwing stones at a native ministry’s church building was tormented by nightmares and what appeared to be ghosts. A neighbor invited him to a church service, where a native worker spoke about the peace of Christ.

Read More »
Christian missionary in Peru handing a Bible to a Peruvian man in a building with a tin roof

Transform Lives with the Gospel in Peru

A rural villager who belonged to a sect opposed the gospel, saying only members of his religion would be saved. When he fell ill, he accepted a worker’s invitation to attend a church service, where he responded to the gospel with tears and gave his life to Christ.

Read More »
Peruvian women sitting on a hill wearing traditional clothes with large hats

Send Workers to the Spiritual Harvest in Peru

A four-night evangelistic event earlier this year resulted in 150 people putting their faith in Christ, one of many outreaches that native Christian workers recently undertook. One worker preaching at a similar event saw 57 people accept Christ, while another went to a village with a small church and carried out a campaign where nearly all the residents repented and joined the existing congregation.

Read More »
Peruvian missionary reads a passage of the Bible to a man in the woods

Enable Evangelistic Outreach in Peru

A woman who accepted Christ at one of the churches of a native ministry shared the gospel with her husband for years, but he was not interested. Her death left the 60-year-old widower in a remote village in the Andes deeply anguished, and the gospel seed planted in him began to germinate.

Read More »