Reaching Peruvians for Christ is a family enterprise for the Hocutts, Southern Baptist missionaries from Alabama.
High in the Andes, Keith and Carolyn Hocutt, along with daughters Marion and Hannah, are ministering and spreading the gospel to the Chiquian Quechua people group. A former 4-H agent, Keith Hocutt now devotes his agricultural efforts to planting churches.
“My (agricultural) training wouldn’t do much good here,” Hocutt pointed out. “Most of the people do subsistence farming. They farm potatoes and eat potatoes; plant corn and eat corn. They still farm with a one-row wooden plough pulled by a cow or horse on slopes that are at least 45 degrees.
“With my degree in animal science from Auburn, I could probably help them with their rabbits or cows, but they only have a few anyway,” he said.
Hocutt said when the family arrived in Bolognesi — the provincial capital of Chiquian — in early 2000, there was no Baptist church. The Hocutts began a Bible study, which helped lead some in the study to Christ.
First baptism service
“We held our first baptismal service in a mountain stream just before we left Peru in May (2003),” Keith Hocutt said. “With baptized believers, we incorporated the Baptist Church of Chiquian. We have about four other major Bible study groups that we hope will mature into churches.”
The Hocutts are commissioned as associates — an International Mission Board (IMB) classification for those entering the missions field past the age of 45.
The couple met when he was working for 4-H in north Alabama and she was visiting her brother’s family from her college teaching job in Georgia. The two married in 1985. Later Keith Hocutt changed jobs, serving for seven years as building superintendent at Lakeview Baptist Church, Auburn.
“One Wednesday night we were watching a missions video and saw a promotion about working overseas,” Keith Hocutt said.
“We decided to pursue it. That was in October 1994. By January 1995, we were in Belize, Central America, serving as International Service Corps volunteers. We returned home when my dad’s cancer recurred,” he said.
Keith Hocutt attended and graduated from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., before they were appointed to Peru in late 1999.”
The Hocutts’ teenaged daughters are an integral part of their ministry. Home-schooled by Carolyn, who has a doctorate in education, the girls have time to work with children in Chiquian and to hike into more remote villages for Bible storytelling sessions.
They also spread the message of salvation to Peruvian friends.
“During our first three months in South America, we had intensive language training,” Keith Hocutt said. “Hannah prayed that her language tutor, Herena, would accept Christ, and she was able to lead Herena to the Lord — in Spanish.”
Keith Hocutt said he has had more difficulty with the language than Carolyn, who had a college minor in Spanish, or the girls, who now speak Spanish fluently.
Aside from communications barriers, he said understanding the Scriptures is a major obstacle.
“Catholicism is the national religion, so the people are religious,” he said. “But they have no understanding of what it means to be saved or to be born-again believers. And they mix a lot of superstition into their Catholic religion.
“I usually begin by holding up a Bible and using it as a starting point. When they say it’s God’s Word, we can go to the Bible and see what the Scripture says. So they learn to consult the Bible for truth.”
Another obstacle to converting the people is baptism. “Baptism (in an evangelical church) is the final break with Catholicism. Those who take this step are told they’re committing a mortal sin,” Keith Hocutt said. “I don’t want to push people into baptism, but for them to think of it as obedience to God.”
The congregation in Chiquian meets in the home of a church member. Attendance averages 20 or 25, although it has been as high as 40.
During the Hocutts’ stateside assignment, an International Service Corps couple, Jeremy and Rachael Blackketter of Tucson, Ariz., and IMB journeyman Christine Keve of Cairo, Ga., are serving in Chiquian.
“But we’re really trying to work ourselves out of a job,” Keith Hocutt said. “We are emphasizing to the church leadership (in Chiquian) that it’s not our church, but their church.”
Funds from the Cooperative Program and from the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering provide the Hocutts with a house, truck, supplies and income.
Keith Hocutt, who said he sees representatives from other religious and secular organizations sent out without appropriate training or financial support, is grateful for backing from Southern Baptists.
“The IMB is a great missionary organization,” he said. “We can return to the States, attend missions conferences, and be with family without worrying about raising money to return to the missions field.”
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