I grew up in Arequipa where my dad had a very good job.  We were financially secure and I had everything I wanted.  But when I was 7 years old, my dad had trouble at work, and to escape the consequences he took off and disappeared.  He left my mom with us kids and we lost everything.  I had a lot of anger in my heart against my dad.  At eight years old, I had to start working to help support our family.  We moved to live with my grandma, where I was the youngest kid in the neighborhood by about five years.  With older teenage friends, I started to drink and smoke when I was eleven years old.  My life throughout my teenage years revolved around parties, fighting and playing soccer.  I became cold and hardened, and soccer was my release for all the anger I had.

When I was nineteen, my dad came back.  And he came back a Christian.  Things were different, the family wasn't back to normal, but slowly God worked a healing process in us.  My sister started going to church and became a Christian.  My mom was next, and then my younger brother.  I was the last, and I received Christ during a trip to Cotahuasi with my dad, visiting the Shaw family.  My Christian walk started slowly.  It wasn't a radical change, but slow steps towards God - some steps forwards, some backwards.

Once I was committed to God, He used me very quickly.  I'm not a shy person, and I understood and accepted God's word easily, so had a lot of opportunities speaking at youth group.  I was really hungry for God's word, and prayed a lot.  About a year after being baptized, I started working seriously for God, running youth events and outreach in Arequipa.  Each weekend I traveled to a village in the Colca canyon to run church services.  I ended up moving to this village for four months, and saw a lot of young people come to Christ through the work there. 

Returning to Arequipa, I fell from God, and spent a year far from church.  When I came back to God after this time, I had to make the choice - it was going to be all or nothing for God.  I chose to give my all.  I studied His word even more seriously and God did a restoring work in my life.  God has called me to His work, and I'm now working as a full-time missionary.  I don't know where, how or what God has planned for me- only He knows - but I've learned that if I put God first all else will follow.

Church planting in 6 Quechuan villages, radio programming, youth & children's work, preaching and teaching are included in his responsibilities.

Jonathan (6-21-81) is from the city Arequipa, where he became a Christian at nineteen.  Early on in his Christian walk he sensed the call to serve God, and has moved to Cotahuasi to follow this call.  He uses his gifts and talents of preaching, teaching, evangelism and music to support growing churches in rural villages.