Macedonia World Baptist Missions on the field preaching
the word of God and planting churches are often confronted with difficult
circumstances. This happened to the missionaries in Arequipa, Peru
on May 7, 1997.
Pastor and Missionary Austin
Gardner after having been hit by the aggressors leaving a wound that needed
12 stitches in three different places.
We were on the Bible College land with about 15 of our Bible College students
when over 150 Peruvian Invaders began to attack us. Several of our guys
were injured. We had been warned for days that something was going to happen
but our lawyer told us not to worry because he was sure that it was just
threats. After we had retreated and they had taken our land they began
destroying everything that we had built over the last few weeks. Then I
decided to go for help. They had blocked the road with large rocks and
so I went up and politely ask them to allow me to remove the rocks and
go to the Police station. With that they began hitting me with large sticks
and I did not even know how I escaped but the Bible College students and
pastors charged in and drug me out causing many of them to be injured as
well. About nine of us were sent to the emergency room once the police
came and helped us to get off of the land.
The picture below will show you what our land looks like. We own the
desert land on top of the mountain and the valley is farm land actually
a long ways off. Here we want to build a Bible College that will
train hundreds of young men and women for the gospel ministry. Please
pray with us that God will make that a reality.
This is the reason we are building a Bible College. There are many
young people willing to do something with their lives. They desire
to study and prepare themselves. We need a place to serve them.
These are the young folks and pastors that were with us on the land building
what we needed before the attack.
