Beginning with the earliest Spanish conquistadors, Christianity was injected into the communities of South America. It was an imported form of the faith – high on ritual, ordained clergy, and elaborate church garb. Spreading through the mountains and jungles of South America, this European-looking Christianity must have sometimes looked rather conspicuously out of place.

About 50 years ago, many reports began surfacing about sweeping revivals in the Church of South America. In 1973, C. Peter Wagner, himself a former missionary to South America who is perhaps best known for his reporting of worldwide church-growth phenomenon, recorded the details of a start of one such revival:

“On the morning of January 14, 1909,” wrote Wagner, “a Chilean night watchman had fallen into a deep sleep in his home in Vaparaiso. Suddenly, Jesus Christ appeared to him in a dream, as clearly as if He had been standing right there in the bedroom. The sleeping man had been a Christian and a member of the local Methodist Church for some time, but this had never happened before.”

Jesus told this man, “’Wake up. …Go to your pastor, and tell him to gather some of the most spiritual people of the congregation. They are to pray together every day. I intend to baptize them with tongues of fire.’”

“The next day,” Wagner continued, “a group of dedicated believers met in the parsonage for prayer. They promised each other that they would continue to pray together at 5:00 each afternoon until the Lord fulfilled His promise. …Extraordinary things began to happen. …By mid-April the revival had begun. …The Pentecostal Movement had come to Chile.”

Stories like this one – about the history of God’s workings among the people of South America – is an important backdrop for this issue of Unfinished. The Mission Society’s work began on this southern continent in 1988. By 1997, a field was opened in Peru.

Here, John DeMarco spends time with the two missionary couples presently on the field in Peru. They tell of their call to this South American nation where, they have found, ministries are multiplying so quickly, it won’t be humanly possible to keep up with them.

Martin Reeves recalls that God was in hot pursuit for him to become a missionary. For two years he tried “recruiting others to go in his place,” before finally saying, “Yes.”

Now, Martin and his wife Tracy are serving in Peru, a land of extremes where the Andes Mountains separate a desert plain on the west from a cluster of jungles on the east. Many of the more than 28 million Peruvians, particularly those in the rural areas of the Southern Andes, live in poverty and possess a tremendous hunger for the Word of God. The Mission Society’s Peru team is committed to training pastors and church leaders, planting new churches, ministering to youth and children, and doing medical evangelism.

Martin is an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church (New Mexico Annual Conference). He first sensed God’s call for missions during the 1980s, while serving in a short-term music ministry. Tracy was living and working in Seattle when she started noticing missions information at her church, on the radio, and in her readings. When she and Martin met online in a Christian singles chat-room, she was not surprised to find he was a pastor looking to serve overseas. “Accepting God’s call on her life to missions work was very much tied into accepting Martin’s marriage proposal,” the couple recalls.

“Though Martin had been involved in short-term ministry in several countries, neither of us had ever visited Peru. However, through prayer and counsel with The Mission Society, we felt led to serve as missionaries in Peru,” the Reeveses add.

In Peru, Martin is involved in training local church leaders and pastors, Bible study groups, and discipleship. Classes he has taught include a general overview of both the Old and New Testaments and how to lead a cell group Bible study. He also leads the music ministry at the Methodist Church in downtown Trujillo, and preaches when the district superintendent (who also serves as pastor) is out of town.

In addition, the Reeveses lead a cell group in their home during the week and a new home church outside of Trujillo. They also work with children’s ministries in some of the more impoverished areas of the city, and Martin has started an adult Bible study in one location.

“We have many projects in the works,” the couple says, “including a children’s music ministry and are looking to take leadership training into the jungle areas of Peru where there are no established churches.”

Earlier this year, the Reeveses sponsored two Vacation Bible School programs at their satellite churches. “We ministered to 200 children and every available adult from the downtown church helped with the week-long ministry,” observes Martin.

“One of our greatest joys,” he adds, “has been to see the growth of the children’s ministry at the satellite church in Miguel Grau.” In less than a year, we have seen this ministry grow from 20 children to more than 50 children and adults. There are currently five new believers in a discipleship course preparing to be baptized.”

Hungry hearts
Seeing people hungering for God’s Word is a common sight observed regularly by others on The Mission Society’s Peru team, which presently includes the Reeveses; Billy and Laurie Drum; Arthur and Mary Alice Ivey; Ash and Audra McEuen, and Louise Reimer.

Arthur and Mary Alice Ivey are from Marietta, Georgia. Before serving in fulltime missions, Arthur was president of an engineering company, Cerny & Ivey Engineers, Inc., and Mary Alice was a homemaker with a degree in early childhood education and worked as a teacher’s aid.

“Arthur’s call began to be apparent shortly after he received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior in September 1980,” the couple recalls. “Through an evangelism program in our local church, we became more convinced of our call to share about the love of Jesus Christ with others around us. In 1986, we participated in our first short-term mission trip at the invitation of a good friend. All of these things were used to strengthen the call to full-time missionary work.”

For the next 13 years, the Iveys continued to participate in short-term volunteer mission work and prayed that the Lord would place a personal call on Mary Alice’s heart when the time was right.

In late 1998, God called Mary Alice through a Bible Study using the passage from Genesis 12 regarding the call of Abram. During this same time God was confirming the call to work in Peru in Arthur’s heart through some short-term work he was doing there, and through the passage in John 11:38-44.

That was 10 years ago. Today the Iveys’ ministry includes discipleship groups; micro-enterprise and self-sustaining ministries, such as a soft drink bottling plant and a discipleship book-sales program; evangelistic medical missions; Christian schools; classroom building construction; an agricultural experiment; and a missionary training school.

“We have a great need for help here in Peru,” note the Iveys who, because the size and scope of their ministry, spend about half of their time training Peruvian nationals, and about half of their time doing administration work. “There are thousands hungry to hear about the saving grace of Jesus Christ and the number of messengers is grossly insufficient. We don’t even have enough minimally trained pastors for the existing churches; much less for the churches we could easily plant. We need persons who can help with pastoral training, both short and long term.”

Dennis E. Brown, The Mission Society’s vice president for advancement, and Johnny Winkle, director of advancement activities, visited the Iveys in late April. Notes Brown, “During that time we were able to see firsthand the variety of ministries the Iveys are involved in. Needless to say, their work is effective and expansive. This seems to be possible because of their obedience to the call by God on them to this area and the fact that they are ministering alongside many nationals. They are giving these nationals ownership of the ministry rather than controlling it themselves or feeling obligated to give out money to get things done. In my opinion God has given the Iveys His wisdom for working with and empowering nationals. Through it all, the Iveys have servants’ hearts and believe that God has sent them to Peru in order to bless them.”

Ordinary people
“We love serving God here in Peru,” say the Reeveses. “The Peruvian people are so beautiful and loving. It is a great joy to be in ministry with them. They hunger to grow in their knowledge of the Bible and in their faith relationship with Jesus Christ.”

“We are ordinary people,” add the Iveys. “We are not super-spiritual or super-human. We are simply blessed to be called by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to carry the message of his love and saving grace to other persons in another part of the world. The work here is not ours, but is Jesus’ work. We are just participants in it, just like you.”

Without prayer, the Iveys continue, “we cannot accomplish even the smallest thing. Your prayers are the power behind our work. They open the storehouses of heaven. They defeat the worst the enemy can throw at us.” 

John Michael DeMarco is a United Methodist deacon and a freelance writer, speaker, and trainer based in Tennessee