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 the National Liberation 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; we were making an impact. 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 they also ran off 6,000 people from their homes—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) that is, “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 those pastors 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 the couple decided to transfer to a
safer part of Choco. In five years from
the time they began, 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
Note: This couple’s faith in God’s protection, even with
children around, is noteworthy, and seldom seen. They see God as few people see
Him. They did have to abandom some areas, but that’s the direction the Holy
Spirit gives us, when danger gets too close. Matthew 10:23:
Note 2: Massacres of Christians are also going on currently in
Syria. There are dedicated missionaries like David and Gloria there too. Syria
has a significant history; Christians were first called that in Antioch,
Syria. Paul’s conversion to Christianity was in Syria. Christian missions
dominated the whole area from Israel to Turkey, bringing many to the Lord, but
that was slowed down to a trickle since Islamists conquered the whole area in
the 7th century, radically changing the culture to a foreign god, Allah. You don’t read about this
persecution in the alphabet media, of course, since only 8% of them are reportedly
Christians themselves. Besides the probability that with national newscasters,
personal views are coloring what they present.
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