COLUMBUS - Reaching the nations of the world with the gospel is at the heart of all the work at Victory Christian Fellowship, 14th Avenue East north of Highway 30.
Evidence of the focus is seen in the display of flags representing 36 nations members of the congregation have visited or support.
The latest flag to be added is Peru where Pastor Jim Bates and parishioner Richard Kudron recently spent nine days.
Bates, Kudron and Rick Roy of Grand Island left for Peru July 23 and returned to Columbus July 31. Their trip was accomplished with the help of JungleMaster Ministries.
They said they landed in Lima, Peru, after an eight-hour flight and settled in a hotel for the night.
“The next morning we went out and began passing out some of the 15,000 gospel tracts we had brought with us,” Kudron said. “The Spanish tracts really helped us to bridge the language gap.”
From Lima, the men made their way by plane to the city of Iquitos. Bates said the goal of the trip was to spread the gospel through tracts and to help churches.
“With a population of 400,000, Iquitos is the world's largest city that is not accessible by road,” Bates said. “The only way into Iquitos is by plane or by transport up the Amazon River.”
Kudron said the people of Iquitos were receptive to the tracts and would often stop what they were doing to sit and read the material as soon as they got it.
The next leg of the journey took the men on a 19-hour boat ride up the Amazon River to Santa Rita. They said a highlight of the river jaunt was spotting pink, fresh-water dolphins on several occasions.
“I was really surprised that we got to see so many of the pink dolphins,” Bates said. “This particular area is one of only two places in the world where you can see these animals. It was quite an experience.”
Before leaving Iquitos the men purchased a 16 horsepower engine to be used by Pastor Javier at Santa Rita to make a “Peke Peke.” Bates said the engine would be attached to a six foot shaft and installed on one of the church's dugout canoes to propel it upstream.
“We were told the plans are to provide ministry and medical services to the even more remote villages along the river, and the engine we were able to provide is going to be a huge help in making that work possible,” Bates said.
In addition to the engine the men delivered some medical supplies, hand generated tape players with taped Bibles, duct tape, crayons and some clothing to give to Javier who would then distribute those items in Santa Rita.
The men spent three days in Santa Rita, a small village with a population of about 2,000. They said they ate lots of rice, chicken and fried eggs. They described the village as primitive with housing consisting of huts with thatched roofs and a main street that was just a four foot wide walking path through the village.
Kudron said they slept on the floor at the church and battled spiders the size of a man's hand and the biggest cock roaches he had ever seen in his life.
Kudron said the people in Santa Rita also were receptive to the gospel tracts and to the flutes and flute music Roy had given away and used as his entrance to sharing the gospel.
“Se la luz,' or bring the light was the main theme of everything we tried to do in Santa Rita and is based on Genesis 1:3,4,” Kudron said. “That's the main goal for everything we should be doing in the church; to bring the light of the gospel to the nations.”
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