Buried Alive: A Story of God’s Amazing Grace

Sixty-seven years ago, a baby was born in a remote indigenous tribe in the Peruvian Amazon. The mother, at the moment of giving birth, dug a hole and buried him alive. At that precise moment, the chief of the tribe appeared providentially, rescuing him from certain death.

The Shipibo ethnic group produced a resentment towards my mother. When foreign missionaries brought the gospel to native communities, infanticide stopped being practiced.

I was ten years old, when a Shipibo woman spoke to me about God’s love in my own language. I understood the gospel message, and gave my life to Jesus, and forgave my mother. The Lord began to heal my wounds. At the age of 12 I was baptized and at 16, after completing my primary education, I left my community for the city of Pucallpa. I entered the SAM Mission Bible Institute, where I began to learn to read, write and speak Spanish with the patient help from foreign missionaries. I was the only one who graduated from the class. I remember that they preached about Gideon, a poor peasant, the last of the family, but God used him greatly, and I identified with him.

Later, the Lord opened the doors of the Alliance Theological Institute for me, where I learned to live among Spanish-speakers, in a context very different from mine. Many times, I felt frustrated because I did not know how to conduct myself or I did not understand the Spanish language well because my classmates spoke very fast. The teaching system was very different from mine, where you learn by seeing and practicing, in a relational way. What I did not know was that here the Lord was training me to learn about the Western world, since years later I would meet Rebeca, a missionary from Lima, Peru, whom I asked to be my wife after giving her a papaya. We got married in 1991. The Lord gave us a son named David, after four miscarriages.

I received the missionary call through Matthew 16:26. “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” Then I answered the Lord: “I will give you my life and my youth to serve you, no matter what, until the last days of my life.”

I studied a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in Missions, because I knew that the more preparation an indigenous person has, the better he can serve the Lord and his people. During my missionary work I learned that the ministry that Jesus carried out was integral, because he identified himself with the physical and spiritual needs of the human being. For this reason, the missionary ministry that I have been developing among my people with my family is integral.

I participated in the Bible translation team in the Shipibo language and led a cross-cultural missionary training program, mobilizing teams for short-term missions to indigenous communities. And currently I’m carrying out community development projects in my village.

We are concluding the construction of the third health post for primary care in a Shipibo community. The Shipibo Indians also make use of their traditional medicine, which has been wrongly demonized by many believers. During the pandemic, my family and I were hospitalized for almost a month. At this time, I wondered: “What challenges and opportunities does the practice of traditional medicine present for the indigenous church in the context of COVID-19?” Traditional medicine has generally been judged as “diabolical”, without making a responsible and informed evaluation of indigenous knowledge.

In his grace, the Lord allowed us to leave the hospital, and after recovering, I decided to carry out the research work, to obtain a Ph.D degree in Theology from the South African Theological Seminary (SATS), entitled: “Traditional Medicine Practice in the Shipibo Community of Cantagallo in the Context of COVID-19: An Approach from the Perspective of the Integral Mission.”

The subject was approached from a biblical-missiological reading, evaluating the two worldviews: the indigenous animist and the evangelical Christian, in their encounters and disagreements, making it necessary to provide guidance to the Shipibo church that uses traditional medicine.

As a researcher on the subject, and being an indigenous person, I have personal knowledge of the health problem and the worldview of my people. In addition to having had as a father the Kuraka Sankensheka (Teófilo Márquez), who was a shaman before converting to Christianity. After his conversion, my father continued healing the sick, but now, without evoking the spirits of the plants, but praying to the God Creator of the plants. He built the first evangelical church and bilingual school in the community.

Given the physical and spiritual needs of my indigenous Shipibo brothers, the parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus told to the indifferent doctor of the law, challenges us when he said: “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).

To conclude, I ask for your prayers for the unpublished autobiographical book that I am writing. Irake, Riosenbi mato akinbanon. (Thank you, God bless you.)