For the Hocutts, sharing the gospel is a way of life. In fact, it’s led them to adapt to a new lifestyle in another country with a different people group.
Keith Hocutt, wife Carolyn and daughters Marion and Hannah first left for Peru in 2000 as International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries to start churches among the Chiquian Quechua people. The family’s home church is Lakeview Baptist, Auburn, in Tuskegee Lee Baptist Association.
Because the people of Peru are so kind, gracious and ready to please, Carolyn Hocutt said they learned they had to establish relationships with them before presenting the gospel — to prevent the people from agreeing to accept Christ without fully understanding that Jesus is “the way,” not a way. The Chiquian Quechua, descendants of the ancient Incas, have multiple gods already and do not need another one, she said.
According to the Hocutts, less than 5 percent of people in the area have responded in faith to Jesus Christ.
“In the Great Commission, Jesus tells us to ‘make disciples, teaching them whatever I have commanded you,’” Keith Hocutt said.
The missionaries accomplish this through the use of Bible storying and the inductive Bible study method. This method presents who, what, when, where and why questions, prompting listeners to understand the passage through the answers.
In 2006, the Hocutts’ emphasis was on Bible distribution, with almost 4,000 copies dispersed. Efforts were made to place a copy of the Bible in each home in 27 villages, and New Testaments were distributed in schools to children grades four and up.
This year, they plan to concentrate on discipleship by teaching the commands of Christ.
With each Bible story the missionaries teach, they help listeners make the connection to Jesus through examples of obedience or disobedience, such as the command to share one’s faith in the story of Cornelius’ family and the command to be baptized in the story of Philip and the eunuch.
“With the storying method, instead of telling someone what they need to do, the learner is able to realize the application themselves,” Keith Hocutt said.
According to the Hocutts, baptism is a difficult issue for the Peruvian people because it symbolizes the final break from the accepted belief system — namely the Roman Catholic Church. The Chiquian Quechua adhere to a version of Catholicism mixed with their ancestral beliefs — something that has created bondage for the people.
In Peru, baptism outside the Catholic Church is seen as “a mortal sin,” the Hocutts said.
The first person to be baptized among the Chiquian Quechua was baptized in a kiddie pool two years after accepting Christ.
Typically baptisms occur in a river near the town of Chiquian, which is located at an elevation of about 12,000 feet.
Throughout the Hocutts’ time in Peru, the whole family has contributed to the ministry. At one time, Hannah Hocutt, now 18, hosted a two-hour Christian radio program three days a week.
The broadcast featured programming for children and adults, and through it, a group of people on the other side of the mountain from the Hocutts’ home heard the gospel for the first time.
Currently students at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., Hannah and Marion Hocutt, 20, also helped lead worship, cooked for events, wrote and directed puppet presentations, renovated missionary homes and helped with children’s programs during their time in Peru.
In addition, they led many of their Peruvian friends to Christ.
“We have to look at it as a family call,” Keith Hocutt said. “Marion and Hannah were always involved in praying about where we were to go.”
When they first answered the call to missions, the family served in Belize for two years as missionaries with the International Service Corps, a short-term IMB missions program.
Then the Hocutts lived in Wake Forest, N.C., for three years while Keith Hocutt completed his master of divinity at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary before moving to Peru.
And though the two daughters were the only Hocutt children when they first went to the missions field, they now have a little brother.
In 2004, the family adopted Joshua, 3, a native Peruvian.
The Hocutts are currently on stateside assignment until Jan. 20, during which time they will participate in Global Impact Conferences in churches and speak at On Mission Conferences in Baptist associations, educating Baptists all over the Southeast about their missions work in Peru.
The family recently moved from Chiquian to Huaraz.
Upon returning, the Hocutts will work to develop a base of English-to-Quechua translators to help them plant churches in the more remote mountain areas near Huaraz.
According to the Hocutts, the Chiquian Quechua of Peru are moving away from the Quechua language and toward more Spanish but Quechua is still spoken in the remote mountains.
As the Hocutts work to spread the gospel, they pray the Peruvian believers will grow in faith and carry on the work on their own.
“We hope national churches will now take up the vision and reach their own people,” Keith Hocutt said.
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