South Peru Mission
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Image not found or type unknown South Peru Mission JOEL GÜIMAC Joel Güimac The South Peru Mission (Misión Perúana del Sur or MPS) is an administrative unit of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) located in the territory of the South Peru Union Mission (Unión Perúana del Sur or UPS). The South Peru Mission’s headquarters is located at 110 Alameda Dos de Mayo St. in Tingo in the District of Arequipa in the Province of Arequipa in the Department of Arequipa in the Republic of Peru.1 This administrative unit is responsible for leading the advance of the preaching of the Gospel in the departments of Arequipa, Moquegua, and Tacna. In its ecclesiastical field, the MPS administers 196 organized churches with a membership of 34,787 Adventists in a population of 1,418,454.2 In another words, there is an average of one Adventist per 40 inhabitants of this field today. The MPS, which is committed to the transmission of values and eternal principles, has seven educational institutions in operation in its field that are part of the Red Educativa Adventista Región Sur (Asociación Educativa Adventista Peruana del Sur - ASEAPS) [Adventist Educational Network of the South Region (Adventist Educational Organization of the South - ASEAPS)]. These institutions are: Eduardo F. Forga Adventist Academy (Institución Educativa Adventista Eduardo Francisco Forga), established on 202 Jerusalem, Jacobo Hunter, Vallecito, Arequipa; Majes Adventist School (Institución Educativa Adventista Majes), located at A-10 Amazonas Manzana St (Mz), Lot 48, Majes, Arequipa; the General Jose de San Martin Adventist Academy (Institución Educativa Adventista General José de San Martín), located at 111 García Calderón St., Vallecito, Arequipa; the Fernando Stahl Adventist Academy (Institución Educativa Adventista Fernando Stahl), located at Ilo 333 St, Cercado, Moquegua, established in 1992;3 the El Faro Adventist Academy (Institución Educativa Adventista El Faro), located at 1454 Tarata Ave., Gregorio Albarracín Association (Asociación Gregorio Albarracín), Tacna; the 28 de Julio Adventist Academy (Institución Educativa Adventista 28 de Julio), located at 184 Miller, Cercado, Tacna; and the Maranatha Adventist School (Institución Educativa Adventista Maranatha), located on Juan José Castillo Crespo N/N, Comité 16 Mz 61, Lot 27, Ciudad Nueva, Tacna.4 In the area of evangelism through communications, in the MPS mission field, the program “La Voz de la Esperanza” [“The Voice of Hope”] is heard through four broadcasters of the New Time Radio Productions on the following frequencies: Arequipa, 91.9 FM; Moquegua, 96.9 FM; and in the cities of Ilo and Tacna on 92.3 FM.5 Regarding the number of staff members, the South Peru Mission has 355 employees. Of these, 57 are pastors (29 with ministerial credentials and 28 with ministerial licenses); 10 workers with missionary credentials and two with missionary licenses; and 286 employees work in the administrative and educational areas.6 The Origin of the SDA Work in the Mission Territory The history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) in Peru began on June 26, 1898. The General Conference Foreign Mission Board of the Seventh-day Adventist Church voted to add the territories of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador to the West Coast Mission in South America. This was decided so the West Coast Mission in South America could extend its activities to the Peruvian territory.7 Due to this, the SDA Church’s work in Peru began with the departure of two self-supporting missionary groups that started a trip from the Valparaíso port, Chile, heading to Peru.8 The first group was led by lay missionaries José and Liborio Osorio. These men arrived with their families9 in the port of Mollendo, the capital of Islay Province that is located in the Department of Arequipa. Immediately, they traveled 85 km from there until they arrived in the city of Arequipa. After settling in the city, the next morning, they saw they were in front of the market so they took advantage of that and started their missionary activities by distributing leaflets.10 However, the Arequipa citizens received them with hostility. After a few minutes, they were surrounded by a gang that was intending to lynch them. Before anything bad could happen to them, the police intervened and took them as prisoners, and they were later deported from the country.11 Due to what happened with the missionaries of the first group, the second group, comprised of carpenter José Luis Escobar and his wife; Víctor Thomann, a young volunteer lady; and brothers Luis and Víctor Osorio were more cautious when evangelizing. They arrived in port of Callao and settled in Lima, the Peruvian capital, and there they worked in diverse occupations to support themselves while fulfilling their mission.12 As a result of the work of these missionaries, three people were baptized by the end of 1898, or early 1899, by Brother Escobar.13 However, before the arrival of the first missionary group to Arequipa, there was already someone who was aware of the word of God in the city. It was Eduardo Francisco Forga who, in the year 1896, returned to his homeland, Arequipa, after studying for 12 years in Germany and Switzerland. Forga arrived in the city ready to promote temperance, religious freedom, and defense of native population rights.14 Forga was not yet executing his purposes until 1898, when he was contacted by Adventists of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Argentine Adventists had begun to publish a missionary review called El Faro [The Lighthouse], and in order to sell it, they needed subscribers. Thus, they turned to a list of names of people who had bought Bibles from Bible Societies publications. One of the names on the list was Forga’s, who was later contacted and invited to subscribe to the El Faro review. From then on, Forga began to reprint many of the review’s articles in his review called La Reforma [The Reform].15 Once subscribed, Forga became a vigorous promoter of health reform and also of the Adventist literature. He enrolled in more subscriptions that he could give to his closest friends.16 He also published brochures promoting religious freedom and separation between Church and State. Millions of his publications were distributed in Peru, and some even reached other countries.17 However, the content of some of his publications generated negative responses from local clergy and some authorities. For this reason, Forga was forced to leave the country, heading to England in March 1906, where he converted and became an SDA Church member.18 Nonetheless, his departure di not end the work done in the region, but instead paved the way for Adventist missions through the distribution of his publications. Further south of Arequipa, in the department of Tacna, the Adventist message was also spread through the Publications Ministry. In 1902, Brother Thomann, who was in charge of editing the review Las Señales de los Tiempos [Signs of the Times], visited several cities in Chile and eventually went to Tacna. Thomann arrived in Tacna at ten o’clock on a Saturday night. After his arrival, he dedicated himself to getting subscriptions for the annual review delivery. In one week of his work, he had signed up 83 annual subscriptions and had sold individual copies in a Department that, at that time, had around 7,000 inhabitants.19 As for the Moquegua Department, the first Adventism presence was recorded in 1914. In that year, in the Alto de la Villa sector, Luis Gonzales and his family began to carry out worship meetings in their home after receiving teachings from a Chilean Adventist. However, the meetings could not continue in that place due to the hostility of local Catholics. This made them move to another sector, this one called “El Molino.” There, the Gonzales family tried to continue studying the Bible, but the hostility from locals prevented the family’s faith from being rooted there. This is how the Adventism developed in the present MPS.20 The MPS is one of the oldest missions of Peru. From the establishment of the Inca Union Mission (Unión Inca or UI, nowadays the South Peru Union Mission) in 1914,21 the Lake Titicaca Indian Mission (Misión India Lago Titicaca or MLT) emerged in 1916, and it was based in the city of Puno.22 Some time after the MLT establishment in 1932, the Mission sent a missionary to Moquegua. This missionary conducted a series of conferences, and after it, nine people decided to be baptized. Among them was Roberto Ordóñez Sagardía, who was rejected by his father and stepmother when he started to attend the meetings at the Gonzales’ house years before. Thus, the first Adventists in Moquegua were Roberto Ordóñez, Carlota Valdivia, Clara Maura, and Delfín Tala among others. To gather as a congregation, they rented a room on the sixth block of Calle del Medio, now Calle Moquegua [Moquegua St.]. The monthly payment cost them seven soles of gold (approximately US$ 1.23 back then).23 The Adventists of Moquegua did not suffer systematic persecution by members of other religions, but they were still mistreated. The believers of the dominant religion used to throw dried feces from their pack animals at any member of the congregation who dared to encounter them on the streets. Members of an order called “Los Capuchinos” [“The Capuchins”] used to interrupt the meetings of the Adventist congregation by throwing stones at the place. However, the church continued its mission. In 1945, missionaries José María Linares, Roberto Ordóñez, Rufino Amesquita, and other brothers went to the Torata District to hold a series of conferences. The arrival of this group disturbed the local priest. He warned his believers to watch out for the “lies” of the Adventists, and he sent some young men to throw stones at the calamine part of the conference location.