The Quechua people are an Indigenous people in the Andes area of South America who speak the Quechua language, which includes various dialects. There are approximately 8 million Quechua people. They mainly live in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, with small pockets of people living in Argentina, Chile and Colombia.

The Quechuas are also descendants of the Incas, who once reigned in South America. After the Spanish Conquest, the Quechua became marginalized. They tend to live in more rural areas and often depend on farming for their sustenance. However, a large number of Quechua people also live in larger metropolitan areas.

The majority of Quechua people groups are considered least reached in that less than 4% of the population are evangelical Christians. People widely embrace traditional religious practices. The Quechua have also blended Christian beliefs into their practices, leading to a highly syncretistic belief system.

The Quechua also share a common spiritual belief system with other people in the Andean area. This includes a belief in Mother Earth, who grants fertility and to whom the people make offerings and sacrifices. Mountain spirits are also important to and venerated by the Quechua people.

The vision of the Quechua Initiative

We’re asking God for a growing and sustainable gospel movement among each of the Quechua tribal groups in South America in our generation.

1. Identify and resource Quechua leaders. This goal involves identifying Quechua leaders who God is raising up and coming alongside them to resource them so that they can accomplish their God-sized visions.
2. Develop teams who will serve among all the major Quechua people groups. This goal includes raising up teams, including Converge global workers and Quechua partners who will provide servant leadership among Quechua people groups with a population of over 50,000.
3. Provide training on church planting movements among evangelical Quechua leaders. This goal involves working with church planting partners, such as The Timothy Initiative, to train people to plant churches among the Quechua people so that they can be reached and grow.
4. Mobilize existing churches to raise up church planters to plant churches in their cultural group or a similar cultural group and help these churches become more outreach-/evangelistic-oriented.
5. Initiate community development projects so that Quechua people are cared about and loved holistically. These community development projects will serve as platforms for bettering the lives of Quechua people and will open doors to share the gospel with them.

We are asking God for a gospel movement in every metropolitan region with over a million people in Argentina, Uruguay, and Southern Brazil in our generation. 

We define the Southern Cone as a geographic region in South America located east of the Andes Mountains and south of the Tropic of Capricorn that encompasses Argentina, Uruguay, and Southern Brazil, whose people are primarily of European descent and who are considered to be mostly least-reached.

Goals

• Identify and serve gospel movement leaders in 10 key cities throughout the Southern Cone
• Deploy 20 new missionary families into the Southern Cone by 2023 

The Bajio Initiative targets a five-state region in Central Mexico which is 2.5 percent - 3.5 percent evangelical. While much of Mexico has seen a better response to the gospel, the region surrounding Guadalajara, the second largest city in Mexico, has been resistant to the gospel.

Goals

• See beginning stages of a multiplying gospel movement in the Bajio region.
• Work with evangelical movement leaders in this region to assist them in sending missionaries to the unreached and unengaged people groups in Mexico.

The Latin America Regional Impact Team seeks to come alongside partners in Latin America and the Caribbean to resource and assist them in building and strengthening gospel movements among the least-reached people groups in Latin America and around the world. It seeks to tap into the passion of the existing Latin America church to see gospel movements developed around the world.

Goals

• Work with high-capacity leaders in Latin America, assisting them to see movements in which they raise up disciple-makers who, in turn, train disciple-makers
• Work with evangelical movement leaders in Latin America to recruit, resource and train global workers who will go to least-reached people groups in Latin America and around the world
• Identify specialists who can work across national boundaries and who can come alongside national partners to help resource them in areas where they are requesting assistance