With our missionary calling, I never thought I would be living in the “corner of death.” But, that is what Ayacucho means. But isn’t that where all of us, as followers of Christ, are called to live? Luke 9:23 says, ‘“If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
God laid it on my husband Rick’s heart to come to the Ayacucho region because of requests from people he had met on previous mission trips begging for someone to go and teach them the Bible. Through lots of prayer, we felt the calling of Jesus to go and share the good news to the people of Ayacucho— to bring “life” to the “corner of death.”
After language school, we went into the Ayacucho region, expecting to work and partner with a particular pastor. However, that did not happen. Death to plan. Death to expectation.
Rick and I moved to the city of Huamanga in 2017 and began interviewing people to learn what they thought a good church would be and what the city needed from Christians. From there, we began Bible studies in our home, and we reached out to university students through English classes and activities together.
We spent a long time waiting for a Peruvian pastor. During that season, another SAM missionary, Julio Chang encouraged Rick that we may just have to start on our own. So, we did. We held a “practice” church service in a restaurant in the town and haven’t stopped since. Through a series of events and other connections, we were able to connect with the IBC, a Peruvian evangelical association of churches, which then helped us to connect with a Peruvian pastor.
In 2023, after many years of doing ministry on our own, Pastor César and Vanessa joined us, being sent by their mother IBC church in Lima. Pastor César is now the pastor of IBC Huamanga. He is doing a phenomenal job, and through the course of their time they have had various outreaches, many of them focused on children.
Pastor César’s vision is to reach their community and raise up leaders through the children. They have now planted an annex church on another side of town. They are sharing Jesus with the kids and families. The people there know them, the mothers are coming, the older children are beginning to be raised up leaders to help them.
Rick and I went to Ayacucho expecting to plant a church, but we have discovered we are more catalysts than traditional church planters.
Pastor Cesar has been doing an incredible job establishing this church plant and has a vision to plant more churches. In a way, it has meant a “death to our roles” and to what Rick and I originally thought we had come to do. Yet through it all, God has proved himself so good and so faithful.
Through the years, we have come to enjoy and love the people of Ayacucho. Though it is a religious city and the people are entrenched in religion, they don’t know much about having a relationship with Jesus, being saved, and knowing him personally.
We continue to pray that we are bringing the salt, light, and life of Christ to the “corner of death.”
Donna Martin and her husband, Rick, have served with SAM since 2012. Their passion for evangelism and discipleship moved them to join a church planting team in the Ayacucho region of Peru, where they desire to see beautiful churches planted that help bring God’s shalom to broken cities and lives.
