David and Gloria Martinez
moved deep into the Choco area in 2005 in the dangerous country of Colombia to
share the gospel, give Bibles, and plant churches. They studied the local language and learned
to live off the land, building relationships among the region’s large
Afro-Colombian population and with numerous indigenous people. They eventually learned to live in close
proximity to right-wing paramilitary groups and armed rebel groups, such as the
National Liberation Army (ELN) and Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC). They began to train church leaders and
establish churches in the area. Many
came to faith in Christ. “That’s when
it got difficult,” Gloria said. “The
devil was mad. So the spiritual attacks
started; the witchcraft and the different armed groups started to
intervene.” The couple had a 9-month old
daughter at the time, so they began imploring God for protection.
They had met while attending
a missionary school in central Colombia.
David felt called to bring the Gospel to the jungle. And Gloria, his girlfriend at the time, had
already visited Choco on a short-term mission trip. After their marriage in 2004, they moved to
Choco, a jungle area, one of the poorest regions in Colombia—and it was a hub
of violence and drug trafficking. The
mission school provided 180 Bibles to get them started, but they received
little money. “God showed us the way in,”
David said, smiling.
The thick rainforest of Choco,
the large rivers, and lack of developed roads make it inaccessible, even to
Colombian security forces. So it became
an ideal spot for boats transporting cocaine, where it went to Central America
and Mexico. The few Christians in the
area had experienced persecution in the past.
In 2002’s “Bojaya massacre,” the FARC bombed a church, killing more than
70 people, and displacing 6,000 people—they were fearful about staying there. About a year after David and Gloria moved to
Choco, a prominent guerrilla commander in Colombia declared all pastors in the
country’s “red zones” (which Choco was in) “objects of war.”
When locals figured that
David and Gloria knew who helped transport cocaine, they threatened them. David said “we had to decide if we were going
to leave or stay. We decided to stay and
spread the Gospel.” Then, one day a
rebel leader with about 60 guerrilla soldiers came to the couple’s house and
told David he had to support them. “They
knew everything about me,” he said. “They
knew all my wife’s family members, all of my family members. They knew the offering I was receiving every
three months, the exact amount.” They
told David that they would triple his salary and allow him to continue his
pastoral work if he would join them, as other pastors already had. David was bold. “If they are collaborating, they are no
longer considered pastors. I won’t do
it; you kill people. The only person who
should have power over life is God.” The
rebel leader didn’t appreciate David’s words.
“You are lucky it’s me and not some other guerrillas, as they would have
shot you in the head already,” he said.
“We are going to talk tomorrow.”
Holding their daughter,
Gloria began to pray for protection from God.
“A lot of the guerrillas are famous for taking kids,” she said. “I feared for her.” The next day, the rebel leader and 60
guerrillas returned to David and Gloria’s house, but this time the leader had a
changed attitude. He told David that his
mother was a Christian. Though
surprised, David relaxed as the two began to discuss the Bible. David said, “I became good friends with this
man. I told him to listen to God. He said, ‘I will only come to Christ when I
am injured in the war.” David urged the
man to place his faith in Jesus as Savior before he died in conflict, but he
resisted. Still, before the rebel leader
left, he accepted 60 Bibles from David to share with the other fighters. Fifteen days later, the rebel leader was
killed in an attack by a paramilitary group. David hopes he read the Bible and
came to faith. “When he received his
Bible, he remembered his childhood. He
thanked me.”
After developing a
relationship with the rebel leader’s replacement, David continued to supply
them with Bibles. He and Gloria gave
them 400 Bibles over the next several months as guerrilla fighters rotated in
and out of the group. But the superior
of the new leader finally burned the Bibles.
Since the commander told David that he had read a few pages, “then those
Bibles burned have not been a waste.”
The rebel groups watched
David and Gloria’s movements. To buy
food and other goods, they had to walk through both FARC and paramilitary
territories. “Every time we passed the
paramilitary, they thought we were collaborators with the guerillas,” he
said. “They threatened us. They told the indigenous people they were
going to kill us.” Finally they decided
to transfer to a safer part of Choco.
But in five years there, they had raised up four indigenous pastors and
planted churches in two communities. And
70 people had come to faith in Christ.
So the believers would carry on well when they left.
Even after they moved, David,
Gloria and their children continued to experience persecution from all sides as
the government, paramilitaries, rebel groups, and organized crime syndicates
vied for control of territory and the money income. “There were weeks we had to run out of the
community,” Gloria said, “because the drug situation was really bad. There was a lot of fighting.” But at their new location, for the first few
years, most of the persecution surprisingly came from a local religious
group. “For four years, they wouldn’t
rent us a good house,” David said. “We
always had houses that were falling apart.
I would fix them, and then they would kick us out once I fixed it.” Then, a group of indigenous village leaders
prohibited David and his family from entering their community. The village even sued them, claiming David’s
family was “damaging their cultural identity by introducing and spreading
Christianity.” David said, “We have been
able to demonstrate with those who are believers that we are not here to damage
their culture. We always try to teach in
their language. We talk to the kids in
their language.” To keep the peace,
David and his family moved out of the indigenous community and into an
Afro-Colombian community—still in Choco.
Those people were descended from those brought to the Americas from the
slave trading days. Some of them
continue to practice African folk religions, which involve much superstition
and questionable medical practices—besides heretical views about Jesus.
Among this community, David
and Gloria now lead a mixed congregation from indigenous and Afro-Colombian
backgrounds. They still minister to 20
indigenous believers in the community they left as well. “Those people can’t kick us out again because
we are already out,” David quipped. In
2019, David and his family visited 25 of the 28 indigenous communities in the
area, often receiving threats as they passed through guerrilla and paramilitary
territories. Although the Colombian
government and the FARC signed a peace agreement that was ratified by the
nation’s congress in November 2016, the peace deal has not brought peace,
especially in Choco. In fact, they said,
the guerrillas are taking the opportunity to regroup and rearm. “Right now we are a military target for the
armed groups because we were not born in the area,” Gloria said. “We are always praying to become invisible. Actually, the Christian indigenous people experience
a lot more persecution--from their community, and in many cases from the armed
groups as well.”
On a spiritual level, David
and Gloria are battling the guerrilla groups for the minds of the region’s
youth. Guerilla groups lure the children
into their ranks with the promise of weapons and cash. Thousands of Colombian children have fought
in the country’s war; many were raised in guerilla camps and trained as
fighters from a young age. The FARC
alone has reportedly recruited 3,700 child soldiers throughout its history. To help children follow Christ instead, David
and Gloria started teaching a children’s Bible class two years ago. At first they held the class in an indigenous
village, but after receiving threats, they decided, with parents’ approval, to
pick up about 200 children each weekend using a boat that Voice of the Martyrs
helped provide. David picks up 50 children
at a time, takes them to their home for the Bible lessons, and then returns
them. David and Gloria also watch for
vulnerable children whom the guerrilla groups might target as recruits. They help the children’s families enroll them
in school and even transport them to and from school when possible. David thinks they have prevented about 10
children from joining the guerrillas.
“God helped us to save these kids,” he said.
As for their own children,
David and Gloria bring them wherever they go, relying on God to help them
recognize risky situations. “There was
only one time that God showed us they shouldn’t accompany us on a trip,” David
said. Although Samantha, now 13, has, in
the past, occasionally expressed fear
and anxiety when traveling through guerrilla territory, even having nightmares,
her parents said she has largely overcome those fears as she has gotten
older. “I am not afraid,” she said. “Because I know that God is protecting us and
there are a lot people praying for us when we do this. I really like being in the ministry, the
adventure of so many rivers, so many challenging places, and I like it with the
family.” Juliana, 10, and Daniel, 7,
help their mom with Sunday school and share the gospel with children in their
own ways. “I am a little embarrassed to
say a lot to them, but when I play with them, they see Jesus in me,” Daniel
said quietly. David and Gloria admit
that raising three children while ministering in a dangerous area has been a
challenge, but God has helped them.
David says, “Sometimes people say they don’t go to the mission field
because they have kids, but we say, “You can work, you can do ministry, and
your kids will be fine. God will help you… Right now in school, our kids all
have very good grades.” Samantha takes
online classes, and Gloria plans to homeschool the others until they are in
fourth grade. “I will go to the city to
download all the homework; I take it to the jungle, and I upload that onto the
platform they gave me.”
David and Gloria know their
children are getting a spiritual education by being a part of their ministry
work. “We don’t limit what they see as
we minister,” Gloria said. “They also
must have their own personal devotion.
They need a personal relationship with God and not just what they see
their parents do. I learned it that way
when I was growing up. If I didn’t have
a personal relationship with God, I wouldn’t have felt the call.”
About two years ago, Voice of
the Martyrs helped the family attend a retreat with other pastors and their
families. It was their first “break”
from the intensity of their jungle ministry in 14 years. “We give the glory to God,” David said. David asked us to pray for their protection
from the armed groups and from spiritual attacks. And for those they’re reaching with the
gospel. Gloria thanked Voice of the
Martyrs. “Through your prayers, we go together. We don’t do this alone. If it weren’t for you guys praying for us, I
don’t think that God could make us invisible. “
Acknowledgement: Voice of the Martyrs magazine, June, 2020
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