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
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
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.
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.”
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 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.
Help Start Churches in Peru
A husband and wife with a native ministry walk many hours three times a week to help shepherd remote congregations and proclaim the message of eternal life, and they are winning souls to Christ. In another area, seven workers travel through the Andes, braving hunger and cold to bring the gospel to places inaccessible to most people.