Most of us have heard of Machu Picchu, an abandoned 15th-century Inca citadel set upon an 8,000-foot-high mountain ridge in southern Peru. Last year in August, almost six hundred years after the fortress’s construction, the former Inca stronghold was visited by 14 young Israelis, four of whom were Believers who used the occasion to introduce the Gospel to their counterparts, in accord with the commission of Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation.”
This, at first glance, improbable scenario—Jews evangelizing Jews in southern Peru upon the abandoned mountain-top site built by the largest empire in pre-Columbian America—was made possible by Jews for Jesus’ Massah (from the Hebrew, מסע, “journey, or passage”) Peru program, the “Israeli cousin” of its Massah program. (Massah Peru is conducted in Hebrew and all its participants are Israelis.) “During those three days [our participants] got to share the Gospel with most of the group…” reads a Jews for Jesus internal report on the experience. “As that group came back, we could see the excitement of being able to bring the hope we have in Jesus to their fellow travelers.” Although the interaction may seem unlikely, it was no coincidence.
