Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

WORLAND – Worland resident Jeff Anderson will soon be headed to Arequipa, Peru, as a missionary on a long-term mission. A missionary is someone who goes to another country to promote religion, usually Christianity.

"Missionaries are sent out by a church like ours," Big Horn Independent Baptist Church Pastor Ron Fanning said. "The congregation votes to officially send and commission him. He will go to churches similar to ours and explain his plan," he added.

"God has been working in my heart to work with the Spanish speaking peoples," Anderson said.

Following the calling in his heart, Anderson spent 6.5 months in Arequipa in language school. While there he worked with the local church and visited many of the small churches in the mountains surrounding Arequipa. "The pastor of the local church took me on a trip to visit the surrounding churches, we did a loop. Some of the surrounding churches were doing good and others, I saw, needed some help," Anderson said.

When Anderson gets to Arequipa he will start working with the local church. As time goes on he will branch out to the surrounding villages, to work with those smaller churches. He will be dependent on those churches for his livelihood. "In faith missions you depend on God to provide," he said.

Anderson learned that the basic principles of Christianity in Peru is the same as here. The main difference is the culture. "The people in Peru have the same desire to learn God's word, but the culture and the way things are done is different. The villages in the mountains are Quecha, descendants of the Incas. A lot of their traditions and customs are associated with the Incas," Anderson said.

The food that Anderson will be eating will be much different than the food that he is accustomed to. Meat is a treat and is only eaten on special occasions. "Potato, rice and corn are the main staples. For special occasions you will get meat, usually guinea pig," Anderson said.

The climate in Arequipa is not much different than the climate in Wyoming. "It's a lot like the Big Horn Basin, the hills there look like the hills here," he said.

While this will be Anderson's first time being a missionary, he is no stranger to the concept, having visited many missionaries in the field. "I got to thinking that we always wait for the missionaries to come home to report how things are going, but that no one ever thinks to visit the missionaries," he said.

In 2005 he went to Poland to visit a missionary friend there and in 2012 he went to Bolivia to visit another missionary. "It was at this point that God put it into my heart to work with the Spanish peoples," Anderson said.

Anderson was born in New Mexico but grew up in Worland, at least his teen years. "I went to high school in Worland and then went to Bible school at the Frontier School of the Bible in LaGrange," he said.

He spent four years in the Army before moving back to Worland in August 1997.

Sunday morning, during Sunday school there will be a question and answer period for Anderson at the Big Horn Independent Baptist Church in Worland.

The date that Anderson will be leaving for Peru has not yet been set but it should be soon. "I look forward to going back, I miss being down there," Anderson said.