Hey! My name is Timothy, and I am so grateful to God I am finally part of the Go Deaf Missions team!
My life began in Lima, Peru, where I was born to deaf parents who were active missionaries, ministering among the deaf of Peru. I grew up attending church and going soul winning. When I was 6, my dad asked me, one Sunday, whether I was ready to accept Christ as my personal Savior. Not wanting to go to hell, I said I wanted to get saved. My dad explained the plan of salvation to me, and I made a profession of faith. I thought I was saved, and a week later was baptized, but I did not fully understand I was a sinner and needed Christ to forgive and cleanse my heart from sin.
Soon after, our family moved to another province called Huancayo in the mountains of Peru, where my dad was called to pastor a deaf ministry. As I entered elementary school, I realized having deaf parents made me different from the other children. Being the child of Baptist missionaries made me stand out even more. The older I grew, the more I recognized, as missionaries, we could not afford many of the popular items other students possessed. Slowly, I grew resentful toward my parents and God for social and financial limitations I faced. To my advantage, I earned top grades in school and excelled in math so much, that at the end of sixth grade, I received a scholarship to a prestigious prep-school. The next scholarship was to Ingienería Academy to study engineering. Pride and a desire for self-reliance led me away from God. I wanted the things of the world
I had no plans for God, but He had plans for me.
In my childhood, I aspired to become a preacher like my dad, but as I entered my teen years, I had no intention of answering any call of God on my life. I knew how a missionary’s kid was expected to behave, and I made sure I kept up appearances at church and at home.
The first time I fainted I was fourteen. About a week later, I fainted again. My parents were worried. We went to several doctors but did not get satisfying answers. The spells came frequently. Over time, the severity increased, and sometimes after an episode I was too weak to walk. Test after test came back negative and some doctors thought my symptoms had to be psychological. School was getting harder, and I was often absent, sometimes for days at a time. After a while, the fainting spells became seizures. When I was finally diagnosed with epilepsy, I began to consider I might need God after all.
The Go Deaf Missions team came to Peru in April for a deaf conference at our church in Huancayo. It was the week before the start of my studies at the engineering academy. Since I was fluent in sign language and could speak well enough, I was selected to be the liaison for the team. In just one short week, I could see they really had a heart for God. They found deaf ministry exciting and fun. What I viewed as a limitation, they found to be a strength.
It began to dawn on me that the circumstances of my life were all by God’s design.
As the weeks went by, I stayed in touch with Go team. The night of June 17, 2019, the Holy Spirit grabbed my attention, I knew the Lord was telling me He wanted me to serve Him. As I began to open my heart to God and surrender to serve Him in the next couple of months, I realized I had a more important decision to make. I was not sure I was truly saved as a child; I needed Christ to forgive me of my sins and become my personal Savior. I was saved on May 12, 2020.
God confirmed His call on my life over and over and in January 2022 I joined the Go Deaf Missons team. Like the United States, my native country Peru has been blessed to have multiple opportunities for the Deaf to hear the Gospel, but in many countries the Deaf have no access to a Gospel witness. I am excited that God has called me to reach the Deaf for Christ worldwide.