Reaching with the Gospel to the Quechua speakers in South America

The Board of Directors approved at the beginning of this year a project to reach with the Gospel to the Quechua speakers in South America. Currently this language is spoken by several indigenous ethnic groups in Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Argentina. In Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru this language has the status of an official language. Since our previous missionary conference in Lima, Peru, in 2013, was raised the need to reach the Quechua speakers with the Gospel since it is well known that there is a huge lack of written Christian or audio material. Although certainly the Bible has been translated to this language, a large percentage of people do not read, therefore, they rely only in their oral traditions. Among this culture, those who do not abide by their cultural customs should not be trusted. This reality raises the question, how to reach the approximately 10 million of people that speak this language? At the beginning of this year, after the project was approved, our Director, Daniel Sandoval, traveled to Peru to meet Valentín Quispe. Rene Hurtado, our missionary in Peru, highly recommended Valentin, due to his wide ministry experience among the Quechua speakers. Since March, Valentin and his wife joined our team of missionaries. He has started the process of translating and recording of our programs in Quechua. Since there is a huge lack of production of Bible programs in Quechua, our goal is to have our programs available in this language to be distributed by our missionaries among radio stations in Quechua all over the six countries where it is spoken.

Valentin, who was born in the Quechua culture, came to know Christ as his savior when he was 12 years old. Since that time, the Lord put in his heart a sincere desire to learn more about the Scriptures to share it with others. In the process he realized that there was not Christian material available in Quechua. Few years later he decided to study in a seminary in Cusco. After he graduated, for eight years he was sent as missionary to Calca, a Quechua region. After this time he served as professor in a Baptist Seminary in Cusco. During four years he was part of a project of translation of the New Testament to Quechua. Currently he is the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Cusco. The Lord opened a valuable tool to expand the proclamation of the Gospel among the Quechua speakers in Cusco as the church opened a radio station to broadcast in Quechua. Monday through Friday he provides a Bible teaching in Quechua over the radio. Now through the translation of our programs to this language our trust is that many Quechua speakers will understand in their own language. We will appreciate your prayers for this new project, for Valentin and his family, and for their desire to reach more people all over the Quechua regions with the powerful message of the Gospel.