Spiritual Harvest in Peru

Editor’s Note: The Pneuma Informer (newsletter for Pneuma Foundation, the parent organization for PneumaReview.com) is pleased to share a report from First Nations leader Richard Twiss about a recent ministry trip to Peru.

It’s hard to believe the national Peruvian tour we have been planning and praying over for the past eighteen months is now finished. We could not have imagined the spiritual impact we would make. It was truly remarkable in every respect.

In just nineteen days our Dancing Our Prayer team of eighteen First Nations believers completed a marathon trip to thirteen cities and jungle towns making 70 presentations of Christ and His Kingdom. We give thanks to God for a genuine “loaves and fishes” miracle of increase on this trip. We successfully transported our team around the country via planes, buses, river boats, vans and trains, while providing food and lodging for everyone, renting venues & equipment, printing posters and flyers, all on a miniscule shoe-string budget. The incredible amount of work we accomplished with so little is hard to believe. Please know how deeply grateful I am to each of you who gave financially toward this trip. It was money that was well invested toward reaping a spiritual harvest.

From private meetings with national and local government leaders, to large stadium events, 1370 people made decisions for Christ. More than thirty thousand people were challenged to see the indigenous people of Peru in an entirely different light; not as poor needy Indians who are the mission field, but as co-equal partners in the life work and mission of the church of Jesus Christ in these days of harvest.

For this Peruvian tour, team members came from across North America representing Chiricaulla Apache, Lakota/Sioux, Lipan Apache, Mohawk, Cree, Choctaw, Shoshone, Cherokee, Karuk, and Houma tribes. This diverse team of front-line servants came from various theological backgrounds including, Grace Brethren, Foursquare, Charismatic, and Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada.

The first leg of the tour took place over four days in the capital city of Lima. The team held twenty-three meetings at thirteen locations that were attended by more than 11000 people where several hundred were born-again. Along with the gospel message, a strong challenge on racial reconciliation, was shared throughout the city including two national press conferences, two mayors’ offices, three radio programs, the Peruvian national congress and in five different churches. The second week took place in three jungle regions and the final week in Cusco.

As I reported earlier I had the opportunity to share with the President of the House of Congress of Peru in a specially arranged private meeting, along with his team and several key congressman involved in Indigenous Affairs in Peru. I told him, as I did leaders across the country, that we had come to support the efforts of the Indigenous people of the Peru in their pursuit of dignity, justice and equality in the nation. I said as a spiritual people we recognize the only hope for a better future was a spiritual one. As followers of the Jesus Way we had come all the way to Peru, at God’s leading, to tell them Jesus Christ is the Waymaker for all tribes and nations and only through Christ can God’s destiny for Peru be fulfilled.

Our team was then escorted into the rotunda area where numerous congressman, government leaders and workers gathered, asking for prayer from the team. I said we would dance their prayers for God’s wisdom as they are faced with making many difficult decisions for their people. Mohawk musician, Jonathan Maracle, then sang a drum song as the entire team danced before the Lord.

Pedro Ferraro, the father of the national Peruvian prayer movement and a highly respected Christian leader in the country, made a very powerful commentary about our team. He said the team had done more good for the national evangelical movement in their country than we could ever know. He said because our team of Native North Americans had presented such a clear, credible and unique perspective of the Gospel of the Kingdom at the highest levels of national government leadership, the cause of Christ was strengthened at a very deep level in his country.

One evening in Cusco, a group of revolutionary militants clad in army fatigues came to our evening meeting, unknown to us, to disrupt and prevent us from making our presentation. However, as they saw us welcomed and honored by the president of the regional tribal leaders association and me honoring her with an eagle feather from my dance stick and then gifted with a beautiful pipe by Karen Cummings, the Holy Spirit touched their hearts. That night we shared the stage with a traditional Quechua dance group and then taught them the couples “Two-step” dance. There was a lot of joy that night. As a part of my message, I affirmed our support for the struggle of the tribal people of Peru for dignity, respect and liberty and shared that Christ was our only hope. The Spirit of God moved powerfully and four hundred people responded and embraced Jesus as Savior. Afterward, the revolutionaries all wanted their pictures taken with us and the next morning two leaders came and did an extensive interview for their national paper with Bryan Brightcloud, David Gomez and myself. We shared our testimonies of how Christ had set us free from hate and bitterness to love those who wounded us. Again, the Sprit of God touched their hearts and they expressed their heartfelt gratitude for what we are all about.

I have been saying for several years that when we, as First Nations believers, would respond by faith in obedience to Christ’s command to go, that He would prove Himself strong in our weakness. The Father gave us such undeserved and exaggerated favor in the land, accompanied by an abundant harvest, that more than ever I am committed to see our people become engaged in world missions!

By God’s grace, Wiconi International is now going to establish a First Nations International Outreach School to train, equip and send our people to fulfill the Great Commission to go to the nations. Not only short-term helps/training teams, but long term Native church-planters and pastors. We need to see an Indigenous Church Planting Network established throughout the Americas. This is our time! Yes, we have huge challenges among our reservations and Native communities across Turtle Island, however that does not dismiss us from obeying the Lord. While there remains a mountain of work to be done here at home, let us not mistakenly make it an “either or” dilemma, but a “both and” dynamic of extending Christ’s Kingdom among us.

We have numerous invitations from Indigenous community leaders in Peru who desperately want our help training/equipping their leaders. In many tribal situations our problems here at home pale by comparison to what our Indigenous cousins face every day. There are less than four million Native North Americans in the U.S., Canada and Alaska combined. However, there are fifty-five million in the “Americas.” Nearly half of Peru’s population of 28 million is Indigenous Native peoples. The Quechua Nation, spread out between Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, is nearly 20 million. The scripture declares, “Give and it shall be given to you, pressed down, shaken together and running over, shall people give back to you.” I believe we owe a spiritual debt to now serve and assist our Indigenous cousins that remain captive under the oppressive subjugation of Spanish and Catholic systemic colonialism.

Please join me in praying into existence this First Nations Center and church planting network that will reach beyond North American into Mexico, Central and South America. I have never seen fields white and ready for harvest like we saw in Peru. Pray for laborers, release of long-term funding and collaborative partnerships with various ministry organizations.

Again, thank you for you generous prayers and financial support.

Your brother,

Richard Twiss
Wiconi International