The missions trip was supposed to be for medical and evangelistic purposes, but God had other ideas.
Fortunately, the 39 Americans on the Global Missions Fellowship (GMF) team that went to Peru in July were flexible.
When customs officials seized their medical supplies as they entered the country, they heard God say, “Here is what I want you to do.” And they did it.
For nine days this group of people — 21 from Dawson Memorial Baptist Church in Birmingham, one from First Baptist Church in Ashville, one from Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church in Springville and the remainder from churches in California, Ohio and Georgia — pulled together to help Global Missions Fellowship with its work in Pachacutec, Peru. GMF is a Dallas-based international ministry that mobilizes churches, pastors and lay people to plant new churches in 60 countries.
Three years ago, Pachacutec was nothing but empty sand dunes on the Pacific Coast about 30 miles north of central Lima. About 120,000 people now crowd those dunes in makeshift housing with no running water, poor sanitation and inadequate medical care.
A look at the landscape
“Basically, this is a squatters’ village,” said Claudia Adame, the GMF representative accompanying the team. “Lima alone has more than 4,800 of these formed by people who initially leave the rural areas because of terrorism and the economy and come to the city for protection and opportunities.
“They settle in unused land and form communities,” Adame said. “In some cases the government relocates them if their land is to be used for other purposes, but generally the issue is so huge the government lets them stay.”
When these rural squatters arrive, they usually build temporary shelters out of straw mats and plastic sheeting. Then, as their resources increase, they replace the thatch or plastic roofs and walls with wood, laminate materials and eventually mud or clay bricks.
“It’s difficult for the government to keep up with the demand for electricity, water, sewage and other basic needs in these settlements,” Adame said. “They do meet them eventually, but there is an issue of supply and demand and of government resources versus so many human settlement needs.”
One to three times a year, GMF combines its church planting ministry with medical missions, taking its own medical supplies into the country. Previous teams had declared their medical supplies as donated medicine upon arrival in Lima.
This time, GMF learned it needed to comply with new donations requirements. It took five days to get all the new paperwork done and retrieve the trunks full of medicines and eyeglasses.
Originally, the plan had been to open the clinic and start door-to-door evangelism on Sunday. The last day was set aside for shopping and sight-seeing in Lima.
With no medical supplies, the group devised Plan B. They decided to visit the native crafts market and attend a local church service on Sunday, in the hope that the medical supplies would come through in time to start the clinic on Monday.
When Monday arrived and the supplies were still at the airport, team members decided Plan B must have been God’s plan all along.
“Our God always has a better plan than we do,” said Mary Charles Capp, a nurse from Birmingham. “We were obedient to go to Peru for one reason, but other plans were already ahead of us.”
Like most of the medical personnel who traveled with the team, Capp felt unprepared for door-to-door evangelizing in Peru.
“I did not ever feel comfortable going door to door, but I was trying to be obedient and flexible just to see what God had in mind,” Capp said.
“It amazed me that when the words came out of my mouth to Mike (Mendendhall, a GMF volunteer staffer) that I would feel easier with a sick person, an acutely ill man in an impending diabetic coma was put in front of me,” she continued. “It was awesome. We took a medical team to his home, and we were able to minister to him and his family in a mighty way.”
Tracy York, a nurse from Pleasant Grove, was terrified of having to go door to door. “I figured I would just go to Peru and treat patients, and I would not have to witness too much,” she recalled. “I would have easily gotten on a plane back to the United States Tuesday evening, but God humbled me and changed my heart. This trip was a life-changing experience for me.”
Bill Cook, a pathologist at UAB Medical Center, said he was somewhat prepared to witness to patients but not for door-to-door evangelizing. “I don’t think I was scared, but I was very uncomfortable,” he said.
Work with churches
The missions team was divided into several smaller evangelistic teams to work with local churches. Each team had an interpreter, a local pastor and at least one of the pastor’s church members with them as they shared the gospel.
Using bilingual leaflets and a visual tool called the EvangeCube, these teams stood in doorways and sat in living rooms explaining God’s plan of salvation.
Team members let God’s Word do the explaining by reading Romans 6:23 and Ephesians 2:8–9. At the end of the week, there were 610 new Christians, one new church and dozens of Peruvian nationals in 10 existing churches who were trained in evangelism and strengthened in their faith.
Monday through Thursday nights, cell groups met in those 11 churches, most of which had dirt floors and hard benches. Church members and the American visitors led the eager new converts through some basic Bible study sessions designed to reassure them of their newfound faith and to start them on their walk with God. These services had an average attendance of 81 people each.
“I was especially concerned that the people were simply being polite rather than having any real interest in what I was saying,” Bill Cook said. “I have to admit that I felt much better about the witnessing by Wednesday, when more people began coming to the evening sessions, because I thought that signified serious interest in their salvation and spiritual growth.”
The medical supplies were released late Thursday, so the missions team got up before daylight on Friday, their last day in Peru, to hold a half-day clinic in Pachacutec. They treated more than 450 patients in five hours, with the aid of the Peruvian Red Cross and Peruvian doctors.
“I have thought so much since returning how we just think that God is calling us to do certain things and then discover that really all He wants is a willing heart,” said Jenelle Jones, a nurse from Birmingham. “When I am able to come to Him solely on His terms — as a child — then He has carried me to heights unknown , and this trip for me was certainly one of those times.”
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