Working Together to Follow the Great Commission

By Evelyn Stone

“May you be the mother of a thousand sons.” In India, these words are the traditional blessing spoken to a bride at her wedding.

During the recent commissioning service for my dear Peruvian friend and colleague*, who was going to South Asia as a missionary, I spoke similar words to the traditional Indian blessing:

“My blessing and prayer for you is: ‘May you be the mother of a thousand spiritual children.'”

Before going to the mission field, this courageous single Peruvian woman volunteered at our new Life Prenatal Center in Lima. Of her work there, she wrote, “What has impressed me most about my work at the Center is that it has given me more chances to witness than I had at church or work or anywhere else!” During her time at the Center, she recognized her gift of evangelism and her call to foreign missions, and is doing the work of the ministry in one of the ‘uttermost parts of the earth.' She arrived in South Asia in May of 2004, fully supported by Peruvian churches, and now works with prostitutes rescued from the streets of a major city. In supporting her, the churches in Lima, Peru, took another step in fulfilling the Great Commission.

First to Jerusalem

The vision that inspired my colleague to take new life to the streets of this South Asian city is the same vision that motivated ABWE missionaries fifty years ago to begin the La Victoria Baptist Church in the center of the urban metropolis of Lima, Peru, where there was only a minimal evangelical presence. God blessed the cooperative efforts of American and Peruvian missionaries and the number of churches in Peru has multiplied incredibly. Today, hundreds of Baptist churches there are reaching out into the surrounding area–their “Jerusalem.”

Then to Judea

In 1992, reaching out to our "Judea," my husband, David Stone and I began a new church, called the “Chapel on the Rock” New Life Baptist Church, on the other side of the mountain from Lima. Slow church growth and the deep conviction of a need to reach millions of unsaved who would never darken a church door led me to also begin the New Life Prenatal Center. The target group? The sixty percent of women in Lima who face an unplanned, unwanted, or crisis pregnancy; the forty percent of women who terminate that pregnancy with abortion; and the entire family that suffers the devastating consequences of abortion. But how could I ever reach them alone?

I first shared my vision with a Peruvian doctor, Miriam Lainez. She was enthusiastic and helped me with the initial project to offer Biblical and medical counsel to women in crisis. But the need was so great that it left the two of us overwhelmed, until we realized that local church volunteers could help with this ministry. Two of our supporting churches in Lima promised money to pay the rent for a facility where we could meet, and we announced the first training seminar for volunteers. I didn't know whether to plan for ten or twenty, and you can imagine my joy and surprise when forty women showed up.

During the past six years, 227 volunteers have trained to serve in various aspects of the New Life Prenatal Center ministry, doing everything from cleaning and reception to providing counseling and medical services. These volunteers, each a member of one of twenty local Baptist churches, freely give their time to serve their community and reach the lost without payment of any kind. These dedicated national believers are what make the ministry work. Not only has this ministry helped our churches grow in numbers through evangelism, but also to grow spiritually as the volunteers themselves study, prepare, witness, and counsel.

And Samaria

From ABWE's first church plant in Lima, the La Victoria Baptist Church, God called Pastor Francisco and Rosa Acho to go into missions. After planting a new church in Lima, they applied to a Peruvian mission and were commissioned as our first “foreign” missionaries to Colombia (Dare we call that “Samaria”?). At a recent pro-life conference in Bogota, they expressed their desire to begin a pregnancy care center ministry there. Meanwhile, back home in Lima, the La Victoria Baptist Church had just completed training of their first volunteers for the newest Pregnancy Care Center in Peru.

And the Uttermost Parts of the Earth

Now groups of volunteers are ministering in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and even, as in the case of the missionary mentioned at the beginning of this article, in South Asia. The church in Peru is taking seriously their mission to carry the gospel to the “uttermost parts of the earth.”

*Some missionaries and their location cannot be named due to security concerns.

The concept of developing a Pregnancy Care Center that offered Biblical counseling to combat the devastating physical, emotional and spiritual impact of abortion was something totally new in Peru. Now this dynamic evangelistic ministry reaches over 1,000 women and their families with the gospel each year and hundreds are saved. Since the first center was begun in 1999, three more Centers have been started in Lima, one in Asia, one in Ecuador, and plans are underway to begin one in Colombia in 2005.

To read a past article on the Pregnancy Care Center by Evelyn Stone, click here.

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