This year the Board of World Mission supported many Mission Grants, which are requests from partners to help develop leadership and support a global partner as they develop new ministries and begin their own mission outreach efforts. This post describes one of the Mission Grants supported in Peru.
Brandon Lee Valencia Rivera is the 22 year old son of the current President of the National Board of the Moravian Church in Peru, Christopher Valencia Alcantara. Brandon has known for a long time that he felt called to pastoral work, and four years ago began working with children in Ciudad de Dios (“City of God”), a community just out side of the city of Chiclayo where he lives. This ministry has grown to 40 plus children attending Bible lessons, and having chances to worship and play games…. basically, a pretty awesome youth group has formed.
Brandon has taken on this ministry while also being a key worship leader at the Rhemanente Moravian Church in Chiclayo as well. However, even as he functions in a Pastoral role for so many, he is not receiving a salary for this work. This is where the Mission Grant comes in.
Brandon is a very talented photographer and videographer. He had, with limited equipment, been able to build a small business to earn some money, and knew that with the right equipment, he would be able to exponentially grow this business, which would give him the flexibility and financial support he needed to also be more involved in ministry.
Here is an excerpt from the Mission Grant application Brandon sent to the BWM (in Spanish and then translated to English):
“Estoy seguro de quién soy y a quién quiero servir toda mi vida, y esta carta no es una solicitud de dinero mensual sino, una solicitud de herramientas para yo trabajar con mis propias manos y también poder aportar a la obra de Dios.”
“I am sure of who I am, and who I want to serve for all my life. This letter is not a solicitation for a monthly salary, but rather a request for the tools to be able to work with my own hands and also to be able to contribute to the work of the Lord.”
Brandon also stated, “For nearly my whole life I have loved to create things, and found myself to be creative… and then I discovered that creative things can earn money!”
The BWM has been continually impressed with Brandon’s creativity and passion as well as his hard work and follow through in many projects and ministries. So, the Mission Outreach committee of the BWM enthusiastically supported the funding of getting Brandon set up with proper cameras, a laptop, video cards, lighting, and other items to be able to do this work well.
From a very practical side, support of projects like this, as one time capital infusions mean the BWM can do more ministry over time. We can help provide larger up front funding to support efforts which will allow a new effort and ministry to thrive in its context, rather than feeling the pressure to provide an ongoing monthly salary. Similarly, for a global partner, they do not feel then that their first responsibility is to the BWM because “they send the money” but they can focus on their call to ministry and being true to the needs and opportunities before them.
The photos throughout this post are some examples of the early work Brandon has done with this equipment.
Beyond the opportunity to develop a self sustaining business to support his work in ministry, Brandon has also incorporated his videography skills when helping his father provide online seminary courses (worth a whole blog post of its own) as another ministry and sustainable ministry of the church in Peru. Brandon helps record the videos for the online lectures, and the quality of the sound and video is key to the experience of the students, 8 of whom are set to graduate!
If you want to see more (and I’m sure you do!) visit and like the Facebook page for this new enterprise: https://www.facebook.com/blproduccionesFV/