Ronald's Story

My name is Ronald Chauca; I am Peruvian and I am 29 years old. As a child, I was taken to a small church where my family worshipped. I grew up learning from the Bible in Sunday school but I left the church when I was a youth.

At the age of 18, the Lord found me and brought me back to Himself. I was miraculously healed of a neurological disease. Through that experience, I came to personally know Christ. I’ve been a follower of Jesus ever since.

At 19, I began to serve the Lord in children’s ministry and I also finished my studies in Industrial Maintenance. At the same time, I began studying art and working as a designer for a Christian publication. I got involved in the ministry of The Gideon’s International which focuses on distributing Bibles in schools and other places. I worked in my profession of fixing machinery in factories, even in the Peruvian navy, until I decided to devote more time to being an artist.

In 2006, I began studying at the Latin American Biblical University because I felt a strong desire to serve the Lord on the mission field. It was then that I began to learn about Anabaptism and took some correspondence courses. I was interested in finding a church in the Anabaptist tradition but I couldn’t find one in Lima. The small church where I worshipped grew to become a mega church of nearly a thousand members and I began to feel a bit unhappy.

In the second year of my studies, I met Pastor José Manuel Prada. He invited me to visit the only Mennonite Brethren Church in Lima; Lima International Community RETO. A while later, motivated by my work and my studies, I moved and became part of this small congregation in which I am very happy. I will be completing my studies in Biblical Sciences and I am serving the Lord in the ministry of evangelism and missions in our church.

Some time ago I felt "called" to be a missionary in a continent away from Peru and to travel and learn about some ethnic groups in the Amazon region of my country. Now I have discovered my true calling. I have come to understand that missions in not only for missionaries who are serving in places far from their homeland, but also for those who serve near their people in their own country. My country is a mission field and has urgent needs that must be attended to primarily by Peruvians, so I believe it is necessary to educate our churches about these needs and then engage in holistic mission projects.

The example that the Lord left us in Scripture is that the salvation of human beings and their environment has its beginning here on earth and is completed in eternity. We need to be saved from our sins, but also from what oppresses us in this world. This is the call I feel as a follower of Christ and as a church worker in Lima; that Peru will be completely transformed.

For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations. – Isaiah 61:11