Ready to Serve

God placed a passion for the Wounaan and Embera people in Einer & Girlesa’s hearts. They were both discipled by MB Mission workers Trever & Joan Godard and served on mission trips among these indigenous people groups on separate occasions before getting married.

While they were engaged, Einer & Girlesa’s focus was not on what kind of wedding they would have or what kind of house they wanted. Their conversations were about living with and serving the Wounaan and Embera people and figuring out how they would get around in the jungle.

After getting married, Einer & Girlesa approached their regional supervising committee in their home country of Colombia. They told them of their desire to serve as missionaries, but the committee refused because Einer & Girlesa were both very well-educated. They didn’t want to send them to work with people in the jungle so Einer & Girlesa were instead asked to pastor a church in a small town in Colombia.

Einer & Girlesa viewed their time at this church as a time of transition before they could become missionaries. They were careful to not buy too much stuff because they wanted to be free to leave at any time. But by their fourth year of serving at this church, Einer & Girlesa started to think that they would never be sent to minister to the Wounaan and Embera people.

So they began to have a new focus for their church – a missionary focus! Their Sunday school was focused around missionaries and they had prayer vigils for missionaries. They made a prayer guide and prayed for a different country every Sunday.

At the end of their sixth year at this church, Einer & Girlesa were approached by the regional committee and asked, “Are you still interested in being missionaries?” Their answer was, “YES!”

Einer & Girlesa Zuluaga have now been serving as missionaries in Panama for seven years. Pray for them as they move to the town of Yaviza to establish a church among the large population of Embera and Wounaan people that are living in this town. Einer & Girlesa also plan to start a ministry development centre for discipleship programs and Bible teaching in order to strengthen and support the church in Panama, and a small radio station to spread the gospel to villages and towns along the rivers. Pray that God will open doors for these ministries and open the hearts of many people to trust in Jesus.

“I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.” – Acts 13:47