About Us
Guillermo's Story
When I was a young boy I can remember my grandmother volunteering most of her free time to helping others. She spent a great deal of time in VA Hospitals helping to take care of veterans and seeking to make their life in the hospital better. She always had her eyes on things to make sure that they were treated right and if she suspected that they weren t being treated right, she was a force to be reckoned with. She had a way with people quite unlike anybody else I have ever known. She was able to interact with anyone without reservation or fear and was quite free to tell someone what she thought. She would even tell the doctors when they weren´t cutting it, and the amazing thing about it is that they would respond! Everybody knew that she loved the veterans and did the work out of the love that she had for them.
Although she was only a volunteer, everybody in the hospital knew her and respected her. They knew that she had a heart of gold and that she was a remarkable person. I know that it would be easy to write off my thoughts about my grandmother as a bias of a loving grandson, but I think the fact that several times she received San Francisco´s Kabel Citizen of the Day award makes it clear that I am not the only one who saw her in this light. She was a remarkable woman and she had a profound impact on my life. She took care of those who were not able to take care of themselves and fought for those who were not able to fight for themselves, and I learned from her that I must do that also.
Something else that had a great impact on my life when I was young was a group called Teen Missions, which is a Christian organization that sends teenagers all over the world to serve people. They send teenagers into difficult conditions to build churches and to share the gospel. Their ministry is to change the lives of the teenagers by showing them how to serve the Lord and how to serve others. Often these teens find out who they are and are also able to find out who they want to become through their experience with Teen Missions. Teens are taken beyond the comfort of their own world, and are invited to step outside of a self centered way of life to serve others. It helps the teenagers (and the adult leaders) to understand what true need is, and it often exposes how spoiled we are. For me, my experience with Teen Missions was life changing. I began to see the world in a different way.
A third thing that greatly impacted me when I was young was going to bed hungry at night. This has helped me to understand the perspective of those here who are without food and clothing a little better. I know what it is like to go without food and have shoes with holes in them. Also, I know what an impact it had on my life when God provided for us in situations like these. One night when I was young, I told my mom that I wanted hot dogs. She said with a smile, "You hear that, Lord? He wants hot dogs." That night some people came by our house to bring us food and you can guess what they brought: hot dogs. It was little things like these that affirmed in my heart the love that God had for me. I knew that He was providing for us.
All three of these were significant factors that led me to believe at the age of thirteen that God was calling me to missions. At this time, I was on working with Teen Missions and was beginning to understand a little of what God had in store for my life. When I completed high school, I did not waste any time getting started, and moved to Mexico to work at a place called Rancho Santa Marta, which is a home for children, and to tell people about the Gospel. After three and a half years there, I went to work with another ministry. My time there was brief, and soon after I joined a Christian theatre company called covenant players. I had made a quiet commitment to the Lord that I would work with Covenant Players for five years. We toured different countries in South America doing plays to communicate spiritual truths to people. After a couple of years working with them I had to come back to the United States to take care of my grandmother who was dying of Emphysema. This was a very low point in my life. It was difficult to see this woman whom I loved and respected so much suffering. After several long months of taking care of her, she passed away. The grief was tremendous, but I knew that there was no reason for me to wait to go back to the mission field. I returned to South America to continue working with covenant players. My time with them was a learning experience and fruitful, but it was very clear to me when it was time for me to leave. After five years with Covenant Players and a great deal of prayer, I left Covenant Players to go work with churches in Bolivia. Covenant Players was a blessing for me and taught me a great deal about ministry (and Spanish). The way in which Covenant Players enriched my life most, however, is that I met my wife there. Beatrice is a beautiful and strong women of God, whom I developed a friendship with while I was working with Covenant Players. We had been friends for some years, and I had been in love with her for much of that time. I knew when I left Covenant Players that I wanted to share the rest of my life with her and to have her working alongside me for the Glory of God. After I proposed, she spent some time in prayer and then told me yes. I went ahead to Bolivia to work alone and after a year, came back to marry Beatrice. We then returned to Bolivia together.
The work that my wife and I did in Bolivia was also very fruitful and rewarding. We worked to establish churches and served as counselors to a convention that unified churches. We planned retreats, worked together to communicate the Gospel to the lost, and worked together to unite the churches there. We also helped to start churches while we were there. We made some wonderful friendships there during our time in Bolivia. Along with the many positive aspects of our time there, we also faced some serious challenges and obstacles. There were a few nights that our family faced trials much like I faced when I was young. We were without food and without money on some occasions, and had to trust God to provide for us. He always did so. One day, we were out of money and food and were not at all sure what we were going to do. My wife was praying and asking the Lord to provide, and that very day a friend of ours who owned a store called and said that they were closing their store and asked if we wanted to come and take the food that was left. We could not believe it. The things that we were given were of the best quality. It was as if God was saying again, "Trust me. I will take care of you and your family." Life was not perfect by any means, but it was very rewarding. After 10 years of ministering there, we felt the Lord leading us back to Peru. We were not positive that the people who were supporting us to minister in Bolivia were willing to support us in Peru, but we felt strongly that the Lord was leading us there.
A friend in Peru told us about a church in a city called Tuman which needed a pastor and we went there to talk with the church. After talking with them, they decided that they wanted us to come to pastor the church. We accepted and began to shepherd the church in Tuman. Very early on, we could see that there were serious problems. Some of the doctrine that the leaders were teaching was very bad. One of them did not accept the deity of Jesus and many in the church were having convulsions "in the Spirit" during the church service, which was acceptable to those teaching before we arrived. We began to focus on basic doctrines and the teachings of the scriptures, while also spending a great deal of time with the members of the church. The Holy Spirit began to change the hearts of people and to help them to understand the love of God and the grace of God. With a great deal of work and teaching, people began to understand basic doctrines and to understand better the message of the Gospel. As more people came into a deeper understanding of their faith, more people also began to live out their faith. In actuality, many people were coming to faith for the first time, for faith that does not express itself in our lives is really no faith at all. As James wrote, "Faith without works is dead." So the people began to live out their faith by loving and helping each other and those who were not in Christ. It was a long road but the Spirit did a great work in the lives of the people there, and by His grace He will continue to do so.
About a year ago, a missionary friend of mine who runs a Christian school and several breakfast programs to feed needy children told me that he had the funds to begin another breakfast program and was still trying to decide where to put it. He asked if I had any ideas, and I shared with him about the need in Tuman. We both agreed that this would be a good place to put the breakfast program, and they provided us with the supplies and trained us on how to run the program. With all that the Holy Spirit was doing in the church, we had passionate believers who wanted to serve the Lord and, therefore, had people willing and able to help with the work.
Not long after coming to the church, I also began helping with evangelism with a ministry that digs wells to give fresh water to people. In the summer of 2003, the well ministry had a group from the United States come down to do medical outreach and to help with evangelism. I was asked to be a translator for one of the groups and developed friendships with people on the team. After spending time working with the group and getting to know the people, they asked me what dreams we had in our hearts for ministry and I shared with them that many of the people are not able to feed their families because there is very little work available. I shared that I would like to start a bakery and to train the people to run it to provide work for single mothers and children who have to work to help feed their families. To my surprise, he shared that he would like to help with something like that and we began to plan and to work things out to get the bakery started.
We have found that a bakery and breakfast program work wonderfully together. The bakery is able to provide the bread for the breakfast program at a cheaper price than they could find at other bakeries. Our dream now, is to place breakfast programs and bakeries together in other areas that are in need. We have also found that this must always be done through the church which is able to provide godly men and women to run the bakery and godly men and women to minister to the children with the breakfast program. With all that the Holy Spirit has been doing in our church, we have passionate believers who want to serve the Lord and, therefore, have people willing and able to help with the work. This is what we hope to have in other areas where we go to start breakfast programs and bakeries. We plan to make disciples and start churches wherever we are working, and when we have enough mature believers to lead these ministries, we will train them and begin the work.
Please feel free to write to ask questions, or better yet, come visit us to join in what the Lord is doing here. Contact us for more information. Thank you for visiting our website and for taking an interest in this work.
- Guillermo Lipman
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Changed By Love
215 Roberts Ave.
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
You can email Guillermo directly at guillermo@changedbylove.org.
U.S. contact information:
Dave Zarro
864-593-5095