Peru | One New Believer Opens a School District to Jesus

Jessica was a mover-and-shaker in her mission organization focused on mobilizing prayer across Latin America for unreached people groups. But she’d never stepped into the strategic missional space of making disciples through Discovery Bible Studies (DBSs) before attending the Novo Disciple-Making Cohort. After that training, Jessica invited 17 non-Christian women from her neighborhood to join a 6-week DBS. Amazingly, 13 of the 17 women became believers.

One of those new believers, Carmen, became the vice principal of the school she worked at soon after. She became convinced that the parents at her school needed to hear about Jesus. She asked Jessica and the other women if they would help her launch a DBS at her school. After prayer and fasting, they decided to start with the parents from just two elementary classrooms and see what would happen.

The first meeting went great! When parents gathered for the second time, the principal of the school also showed up. “What’s happening here?” she asked. The principal was not a believer. Jessica sent out an emergency text asking for prayer as she went to the principal’s office to explain their goal of doing Bible studies with the families. Amazingly, at the end of the meeting, the principal threw the “doors” of the school wide open! She even gave instructions that teachers should stop their lessons when the women showed up to lead a DBS with students during the school day.

Word got out about the Bible studies and other schools wanted in! Just two months after the first parent DBS, the women were leading DBSs at four different schools. Both parents and kids were accepting Christ and being transformed as they dug into the word of God. In one morning alone, 17 students gave their lives to Jesus, and there are new followers of Jesus almost every week! Believers from local churches dropped everything to start volunteering with the women because they recognized God was doing something amazing.

There are now over 1,000 people every week attending these DBSs in Lima schools. Over 100 parents and students have started following Jesus and over 60 “lapsed” believers have repented and returned to God. There is even a waiting list of five other schools wanting Jessica and Carmen’s team to come. All this has taken place in just a matter of months. And five more schools are waiting to join—all because two women had hearts for their community and said “yes” to God.