Pastor, Lima, Peru

Martin is the pastor at the Baptist Church of the Savior in Barranco, the church originally planted by Paul Washer.  He is the HeartCry director of the work in Lima and also mentors twenty pastors in Lima.

Testimony and Calling

I remember when I was about five years old, my parents were about to divorce. My home was always full of screaming, fighting and drinking.  I also remember my father crying and trying to find a solution for all these problems.  It was then that God’s grace reached my family through some brothers that came to preach an evangelistic campaign just beside my house and, thanks to this, my father was the first one to profess Christ as his savior.  Not much later my mother also surrendered to Christ.

From that moment on,  I began attending Sunday school.  These were some of the most wonderful years of my life because I grew up learning about the Bible and about God in a family that loved Him and each other.   At the age of  nine, I understood that I was a sinner and thanks to God I never departed from His side even though I was sometimes carnal and would look at other Christians and not to Christ for inspiration to live a better life in Him.

One day some missionaries from the Word of Life ministries visited my church and they started teaching us how to love and serve God with our lives and this touched my life deeply.  Up to that point, I had been one of the leaders of the youth group, but I knew I was ministering in my flesh and not allowing the Spirit to lead me. From then on, I and others started to serve with love in our hearts and to preach the message of salvation anywhere we could.  We preached on the buses, hospitals, parks, markets and we started to disciple young believers, something we had not done before.  My entire life and testimony were changed.  My relationship with my father  (who was the pastor of the church) and with my girlfriend (now my wife) was changed as I began to be led by Christ.

When I was married and my wife and I had our first daughter, God started to ask me  to lay down everything in my life before Him and for His glory. At first I thought God was asking me for too much - my job, my family, my possessions and future.  But then I understood that they belonged to Him anyway and that He was the only one I could trust with it all.  God was calling me to serve him in the ministry and my desire became to follow Him.

In His time, God opened the necessary doors, and in 1990, I traveled with my family to Argentina to the “Word of Life Institute.” There, my wife and I prepared ourselves to serve God full time.  We returned to Peru in 1993 after having experienced God’s blessing, provision and love during the time we were away from our country and families.  Not much later, I was called to pastor my home church for three and a half years during which God continued to pour out His grace.   At present, I serve as one of the pastors of The Church of the Savior in Barranco (Lima) and as Director of the Grace Bible Institute at the Church.

I thank God for saving my soul and giving me three children and a wonderful wife. My greatest desire is to be a good steward of all these blessings and to be able to one day stand before the throne of God and give a good account of myself and be found faithful.