Peru: Terrorists killed a Christian couple’s children in front of them, but God’s Word overcame their bitterness

By Mark Ellis

When they married, Jorgé and Maria dedicated their lives to serving God and raising their future children in a Christian home. Little did they know their faith would be severely tested by a terror group intent on stamping out their Christian witness.

It was arduous for them to make ends meet in the city, so they moved to the jungle where they could work cultivating legal coca, a cash crop in Peru.

There was a group of believers in this community, so they began to meet for church. However, terrorists in the area didn’t want them to hold church services, so they threatened them and firebombed their church, according to a report from Faith Comes by Hearing.

But, Jorgé, Maria, and the other believers continued to meet in private homes. The terrorists retaliated by rounding up the men and taking them to their camp. There, they mistreated them for two days and subjected them to forced labor before letting them go.

After this, the believers began to pray only within their own homes. Still, the terrorists killed one of the men and his wife, leaving two small children who witnessed the act traumatized and orphaned.

One day Jorgé and his family were praying at home. The terrorists discovered them, burst in, and murdered Jorgé and Maria’s two children in front of their eyes. To see such a thing profoundly disturbed Jorgé and Maria and shook their faith to the core.

“I started to renounce God and became hard of heart. I didn’t want to know God anymore because I believed He had killed my children. My children were consecrated to God; they didn’t deserve this,” Jorgé told Faith Comes by Hearing.

The violent act also led them to uproot. “We left all our property in the jungle and returned to town. It was very difficult to overcome this trauma and I became a prisoner of resentment and hatred toward God. Many people came to talk to me, but I never wanted to open up my heart to Him again,” Jorgé recalls.

Like Job, he soon endured another trial when the house they moved into burned down. He, Maria, and their new child would have been homeless, except a local church stepped forward and displayed Christ’s compassion to them. Remarkably, the church helped replace everything they had lost.

When the church delivered their donations, they held a small meeting of thanks in Jorgé’s house and asked Jorgé and Maria to listen to a recording of the Scripture produced by Faith Comes by Hearing on a device known as “The Proclaimer.”

The power of God’s Word heard in their language affected Jorgé in a new, fresh way. “When I was listening to the Beatitudes, God touched my heart. At that moment I felt like I was being rescued from the devil — the devil who made me a slave to feelings of hatred toward God. I asked God for forgiveness, and for the first time, I thanked him for the death of my children, because I knew they were in His Glory.”

Since then, Jorgé and Maria returned to the Lord and their only living child accepted Jesus into his heart. They began holding cell groups for their family and neighbors, where they listen to God’s Word on the Proclaimer.

“We believe that in the way that God touched my heart through the Proclaimer, He will touch the hearts of my neighbors too, because it is the Word of God. It is comfort for our lives.”

Faith Comes By Hearing is committed to reaching the nations with the Word of God in audio, offering the Bible in a format that will connect with the world’s 50% illiterate population. To accomplish this enormous task, the Lord has assembled a group of committed leaders and dedicated servants of His Word to develop into a reality the vision of bringing His church together and making disciples.