How God first led us to serve in missions

Shane grew up as a missionary kid in Indonesia where his parents did church planting. The Lord used this first hand missions experience in his life to foster an interest in missions. As he attended Bible school in the U.S., the Lord confirmed in his heart that serving as a missionary overseas was His plan for Shane.

Libby went on two short term missions trips to Bolivia in 1992 and 1993. These trips are what God used to help her “catch the vision” for what God is doing in the world.  


How and when He led us to where we are

In 1996, after hearing about the Quechua people and many needs to reach them, we as a couple along with another couple and several singles began to talk and pray together about going to Peru. As we researched this people group the Lord began to direct us more specifically to information and other missionaries who knew of the specific needs.

Over the next few years the Lord changed the first original “team”, we joined Pioneers mission and we were put us in contact with some SIL missionaries in Huanuco Peru who had an interest in helping us. By 2002 we our team consisted of us and our children and our partners, the Casteels. We moved to Peru in July of that year and began studying Spanish with the goal of moving to Huanuco to begin learning the Quechua language.

In 2003 we moved to Huanuco and since then have been in the process of getting to know the Quechua people of the Ambo-Pasco dialect region, beginning to understand the needs and opportunities to meet those needs. Currently we and our partners are beginning to learn the Quechua language and culture. This language is a difficult one and has not been written down in a way that we can just take classes to learn it. So we are in the process of learning their language and culture by spending time in a Quechua village with the people.

The goal of our team is to learn the Ambo-Pasco Quechua dialect well enough to teach the Bible in a chronological approach IN QUECHUA to the people. In this particular area the Bible is only being taught in Spanish to people who don’t speak it very well. The Bible is being translated into Quechua and we desire to also use that when we begin teaching.

Our ministry

We are currently involved in learning the Quechua language and culture and developing relationships with the people, especially in a small village about 2 hours from Huanuco. The Lord has also brought along opportunities to help one of the churches in this village, sometimes with groups of people from the church or just individuals or families. These opportunities have provided a way to also get to know them and their culture better.
Here in Huanuco we have also been able to be involved in reaching out to children who have been abused or abandoned, many of them are Quechua.

Everyday life

Our everyday life consists of working on our goal of learning the Quechua language and culture. We sometimes have a Quechua couple come down from the village to help us for a few hours every day for a week with practicing simple sentences, words and phrases in Quechua, as well as listen to them read or tell simple stories in Quechua. In addition, we spend time asking them questions about their culture so we can begin to understand it.
Shane has been given the job on our team for the time being to wade through the information we have on Quechua grammar and begin to develop lessons for all of us on our team to use in Quechua language study. This is a HUGE task and it has been hard to make progress at this point not knowing much Quechua. We are praying that as we meet with our Quechua friends and begin to understand some of the simpler things that the Lord will give Shane and all of us creative ideas for making this huge task of learning this language a little bit easier.

Libby also home schools our two older boys everyday. We usually spend our mornings working on school when our minds are fresh. ☺ Of course cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping and caring for the little kids is also part of her everyday life.  

What God is doing in our life, family, & ministry

We are beginning to learn that God’s timing in our lives is perfect. So many times over the past few years we have made our plans and then God has show us His. And over and over again we realize just how much better His is!

Another thing we are learning is that we are in a battle here! Satan is NOT happy and does not want to give up his territory. He does not want the Quechua people to hear and understand the Truth. We are therefore constantly under attack. Even though many times we feel overwhelmed with this we also know that we are more than conquerors in Christ. More and more we are realizing how much we need to cling to Christ and ask for His help and His strength as we face the enemy.

What God is doing in the lives of believers and non-believers

One young Quechua couple whom we have been getting to know have expressed to our team their burden to teach their own people in Quechua so that they might really and truly understand what the Bible says in their own language. It has been neat to see how God is leading believers like this couple even as we are in the beginning stages of language learning. What a help they are to us in this process!
As we dip our toes into Quechua we are beginning to realize just how confused these folks are when it comes to the Bible. 

Contact info

libandshane@eroam.net

Our mailing address:
Shane and Libby Rosengren
Casilla 345
Huanuco, Peru