Sharing the Hope of Christ in Peru, Even Through Deep Loss

Carolyn Pace has served as a missionary in Peru since the 1960s. She’s lived through military coups and violence in the streets.

“We would hear an explosion, and we're sitting at the table eating … and somebody would say, ‘Oh, I wonder what building or what place that was.’ And then we would pass the potatoes or something.”

Not much fazes Carolyn, but she and her family recently experienced back-to-back losses that could have led them to say goodbye to Peru for good.

Listen in as Carolyn—along with her son-in-law Rick Anderson—shares a story of deep faith in the midst of heartbreaking loss.

You can connect with us through email at gps@billygraham.org or on Billy Graham Radio on Facebook.

Transcript

MUSIC STARTS

Carolyn Pace:
00:00:00 We got so used to hearing explosions that, you know, we’re sitting at the table eating, and this horrible explosion, and somebody would say, Oh, I wonder what building or what place that was, and then we would pass the potatoes or something. It just was so everyday.

Phil Fleischman: Carolyn Pace is an American missionary who’s been serving in Peru since the 1960s. Not much fazes her. But, she recently experienced the kind of loss that would stop most people in their tracks.

Carolyn:
00:00:34 Well, naturally, it does affect you, and at times, it’s hard, but I have to say the Lord has just been so faithful. He has been so good.

Phil: Carolyn, along with her son-in-law, Rick Anderson, is about to share her story with us. It’s a story of deep, abiding faith, even in the midst of heartbreaking loss. I’m Phil Fleischman.

Jim Kirkland: And I’m Jim Kirkland. You are listening to episode number three of our November GPS series, “Going Into All the World.” GPS: God. People. Stories., it’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Phil: Billy Graham didn’t know our guests, but he did know of the type of work they were doing in Peru …

Billy Graham:
00:01:19 As I’ve traveled through Latin America, I’ve been particularly burdened for the great cities of Latin America. Some of the most dedicated Christians I’ve ever known in my life are here in Latin America, living in great difficulty, but living gloriously and triumphantly for Christ.
Jim: There will be more from Billy Graham in this episode. I want to make sure that you know that you can subscribe to GPS, wherever you listen to podcasts. So, be sure to search by the full name: GPS: God. People. Stories., and you will be set to hear every single episode. And, feel free to share them too, as friends come to mind as you listen.

Phil: And also keep this link in the back of your mind: FindPeaceWithGod.net. That’s our interactive website where you can ask spiritual questions and get answers in real time. Again, that’s FindPeaceWithGod.net.

Intro: GPS: God. People. Stories.

MUSIC TRANSITION

Carolyn:
00:02:22 I was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Phil: Carolyn Pace grew up in a Christian home and went to church every Sunday. And that is where she met a boy—a toddler, actually—named Tom.

Carolyn:
00:02:35 I met Tom in the nursery. I was 1 and he was 3. 

Jim: Carolyn’s family and Tom’s family were close, and the two of them grew up together. In high school, they started dating.

Carolyn:
00:02:47 I was 15 and he was 17, and we dated for about a year and a half.
 
Jim: Then Tom graduated and headed to LeTourneau (luh-TURN-oh), a Christian college in Longview, Texas—more than 700 miles from Albuquerque.

Carolyn:
00:03:03 He went off to college and we decided that was not fun, so we got married.
 
Phil: Carolyn finished high school in Texas before enrolling at LeTourneau with Tom.

Jim: Even though Tom and Carolyn were raised in the church and were even attending a Christian college, they both came to realize that they had never fully put their faith in Jesus Christ alone. Tom came to that realization at LeTourneau.

Carolyn:
00:03:27 He had a very good Bible teacher that challenged him to read the Bible. And for the first time, he also realized that the Bible had a plan. It wasn’t just stories. And, he started reading the New Testament. When he came home that first semester from college, I noticed a real change in him. And I said, Wow, Tom, you’re really different. I think you’d make a good preacher. He got really upset with that. He said, Don’t even think about it. Well, he went back to college and he walked into the dorm, and his best friend was standing by a window looking out, and he was crying. And he went up to him and he said, Neil, is everything okay? And he said, I don’t know why I’m living. He said, I don’t know. I don’t know. And Tom thought at that time, he thought, you know, I don’t know either. He went to his room and he kneeled down, and he said, God, if You can use me, I give my life to You. He got up the very next morning and went and changed his major from mechanical engineering to missions.
 
Jim: Carolyn was also in college when she made the decision to trust in Christ alone, and not in her own goodness or actions.

Carolyn:
00:04:53 I was in church all of my life and thought I was saved—even to the point that, you know, I was pretty, pretty sure that—I was baptized, I was, I participated with the young people and everything. So it was very difficult for me to accept the fact that I was trusting in my works and not in Christ alone. And it wasn’t until I was 20 that one day, I, you know, I just had it. I thought, if you can know you’re saved, I’ve got to know.
 
Phil: She started to go and talk to one of the professors at the college.

Carolyn:
00:05:31 And Tom said to me, Where are you going? So I told him, and he said, Why don’t you read 1 John? That’s what it was written for. And so I said, Oh, all right. And I go back and I start going through, and really, those first chapters I didn’t catch, I didn’t get it, but I got to chapter five, and it says, “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life … this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life … he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” And I thought, Oh! It doesn’t have anything to do with baptism, and it doesn’t have anything to do with church membership. He that has the Son has life. Thank You. Thank You. And I really believe that that day I trusted Christ and Christ alone as my Savior.
 
Phil: With those crucial decisions made, Carolyn and Tom were both on the path to becoming Christian missionaries.

Carolyn:
00:06:32 LeTourneau has a program, it’s missionary technology, and it was set up to prepare missionaries to take care of themselves no matter where they were, if they were in the jungle and had to do mechanics and electrical wiring and all those other things. We were in that program, and in that program, one of the requirements was that we spend a semester on the mission field somewhere outside of the United States, and the only missionary we knew was from Peru. And so we wrote him and asked him if we could come, and he said yes, and we came to Peru, and that was it; it downhill all the way. [laugh]

Jim: After completing college, Tom and Carolyn would say they simply took the next logical step towards serving God as missionaries.

Carolyn: 
00:07:24 It was just a very practical thing to start looking for mission boards—that was what our missions course had taught us to do. So we started writing different mission boards and ended up applying to two or three of them, but, Baptist International Missions in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is the one that we decided on if they would accept us. And so we went and they did accept us, and so they asked us where we planned on going, and we told them Peru, and they said, We don’t have any other missionaries in Peru, but they, you know, the Lord worked it all out, and they allowed us to go to Peru.
 
Jim: They spent the next year in Bolivia studying Spanish. It was 1967. The following year, the young couple headed to Peru.

Carolyn:
00:08:13 We got here in ’68, in August, and in October there was a military coup. They took over the government. They got the president up in his pajamas at 2 o’clock in the morning, sent him to Argentina, and for the next 12 years, we were in a military, under a military rule, socialist.
 
Phil: The following years brought protests, riots, and another coup.

Carolyn:
00:08:38 You know, and it was nothing to see guards with their shields and guns and stuff on the street. You just kind of got used to that. But, the Lord took care of us and we were able to continue preaching and teaching and doing everything that we needed to do. And then in 1980, they had free elections. We got a new president—actually, the one they had deported came back and he was president again, but the Shining Path guerillas were trying to take over the country.
 
Phil: The Shining Path was a radical and violent Communist group that spread fear and chaos all across Peru.

Carolyn:
00:09:18 So you had the Shining Path guerillas blowing up electrical towers, blowing up buildings, blowing up police stations, to the point that we got so used to hearing explosions, that we would hear an explosion and, you know, we’re sitting at the table eating and this horrible explosion, and somebody would say, Oh, I wonder what building or what place that was, and then we would pass the potatoes or something. It just was so everyday.
 
Jim: There were times when Tom and Carolyn only had water for an hour a day. Power outages were common. So were the sounds of gunshots.

Carolyn:
00:09:59 Seventy thousand people were murdered during that time, mostly in the mountains, the jungle, but here on the coast as well. And they also, in their project of trying to take over the country, they would go into these different towns all over Peru, and they would, at midnight or at 2 o’clock in the morning, get the mayor of the town up, take him to the plaza, have a kangaroo court, and murder him on the plaza, right there. So out of the 29 provinces that we have here in Peru, 27 of them were without mayors. Nobody wanted to be the mayor, you know, that was asking for trouble.
 
Jim: Carolyn sounds remarkably calm and matter-of-fact as she describes the violence and uncertainty that marked her daily life. It really is extraordinary, and Carolyn is quick to give all the credit to God for blessing her and Tom with supernatural peace. 

Phil: And protection, because there were certainly some close calls, like when armed groups had violent confrontations on Tom and Carolyn’s street.

Carolyn:
00:11:12 You know, the group coming up the street and another group, the soldiers coming down the street, and they met very often right in front of our house. Tom would say, All of you get in the kitchen, so we ate our supper on the kitchen floor, sometimes.
 
Phil: And sometimes they didn’t find out exactly how much danger they were in until after the fact.

Carolyn:
00:11:34 After we moved from Jauja to Lima, somebody did tell us that our house was one of the houses on the blacklist to bomb. They never did do that, but it was after we moved out that we were told that.
 
Jim: The Paces lived in several different parts of Peru over the course of their time there. They spent 13 years in the mountains, 11,000 feet above sea level, starting churches and all kinds of ministries, depending on whatever the local needs were.

Carolyn:
00:12:03 We were doing church planting, but Tom had a very broad vision, you know, and things would come up and he’d say, Oh, we need to do this. We need to take advantage of this open door. So we ended up doing a multitude, a variety of things besides Bible studies and children’s meetings and youth meetings, all of the, all of the normal things that you do with, in a church ministry. He saw an open—they just started, they had a brand new TV station in Huancayo, which is the larger town down the valley from where we lived, and they didn’t have a lot of programming. And so, Tom and the other folks that we were working with, said, We need to produce a program. We had a program, 30 minutes at 7:30 Saturday night, every Saturday night, and it was amazing what the Lord did.

Jim: Tom and Carolyn had five children as they served in Peru. It could not have been easy, but Carolyn says they never considered a different life.

Carolyn:
00:13:09 I don’t even think we thought about that. We were there, and that was where the Lord called us, and we just never—one time we went back to the States for furlough, our support was kind of low; it was pretty low. So, Tom’s dad had a business, and one day after we had been there several months, and we were kind of ugh on the finances, and one day Tom came home and he said, You know, if we were to stay here, I would inherit this business, and I would be making $50,000 a year. I laughed at him. I said, You’re only here for two months, and you want to go back to Peru! What are you talking about?! [laugh]

Phil: They never did move back to the States, but some of their children moved to the U.S. after they grew up. Their daughter, Kathy, went to New Mexico to live with her grandparents after graduating from college.

Jim: Like her four siblings, Kathy had grown up in Peru as a missionary kid. She didn’t experience life in the U.S. until she was an adult. And that’s where we’ll let Kathy’s husband—and Carolyn’s son-in-law—Rick Anderson pick up the story with how he and Kathy met.

Rick Anderson:
00:14:20 Her grandparents just happened to live right next door to my best friend. So all of a sudden there was this beautiful woman living next door to my best friend. And it’s kind of funny, but we tried to figure out how we can meet her, so we put together a Bible study with the sole purpose of inviting her to the Bible study. I think we only met like three times, but that was long, long enough to meet her, and within a little while we started dating, and my car that was always parked front of my best friend’s house moved in front of her house. So … [chuckle]

Jim: Just like Carolyn and Tom, Rick had grown up in Albuquerque, in a Christian home. He accepted Christ in church when he was 12 or 13, but had never given any thought to missions work until he met Kathy.

Phil: Yeah, Kathy gave Rick a book about the American missionary Jim Elliot. Elliot was killed in 1956, at age 28, by an isolated, indigenous tribe in Ecuador. He died trying to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the tribe.
Jim: After reading about Jim Elliot’s life, Rick ended up going to Pensacola Christian College in Florida, where Kathy had studied. 

Rick:
00:15:27 For the first time in my life, I saw a real missions conference with real missionaries from all around the world, and it was my very first semester at the Christian university that, yeah, I realized that that was for me also.
 
Jim: A while back we heard Carolyn explain how her husband, Tom, switched majors from mechanical engineering to missions. Well, Tom’s future son-in-law made a similar switch.

Rick:
00:15:51 I was a computer science major, but that first semester, after going to the missions conference, I went and I switched to a missions major and computer science minor.
 
Phil: Rick and Kathy got married, and—this story will sound familiar—they decided to serve together as missionaries. 

Jim: After initially attempting to avoid Peru, where Kathy had spent so much of her life already, they just could not deny that God was calling them there.

Rick:
00:16:17 God obviously opened up the doors for us to be able to head to Peru, and in the long term, it was a huge blessing. We had four young girls, little girls that we took to Peru with us, and they were able to grow up in the same country with two of their grandparents, with an aunt and uncle, and their cousins. And so, God really worked out the details there, for us to go back to Peru.
 
Jim: Three generations of the same family were serving alongside one another in Peru: Tom and Carolyn; their son, Andy, and his family; and Rick and Kathy and their girls.

Rick:
00:16:50 We came as church-planting missionaries, with the idea of starting churches, and God allowed us to be part of multiple different church plants. When I got here, I realized as I was working in these different churches that I was more of a support pastor than a main pastor, but it allowed us to be able to help start multiple churches, currently working with an English service, an English church that we have started here in Peru. And that’s what I was working with Tom. We would tag-team, take turns preaching, and it sounds kind of funny going to a different country that speaks Spanish and having an English church, but it was definitely an opportunity that we can’t ignore, to be able to reach some people here in Peru, and some people that came with the embassy and business here to Peru to be able to work with.

Phil: Rick and Kathy also helped Kathy’s brother, Andy, with a Christian school.

Rick:
00:17:41 So we agreed to participate in that and have been with it ever since. And it’s an amazing, it’s definitely, for me, one of the most powerful ministries I’ve been able to see or been involved with, reaching people for Christ and feeding them right into the church, so it’s been exciting.
 
Phil: You can imagine the joy that Tom and Carolyn experienced as they served together as husband and wife, and also with several of their children and grandchildren in Peru.

Jim: But there was a time when joy turned to sorrow. It started with Kathy, and a scary diagnosis she received.
 
Rick:
00:18:19 So my wife did have colon cancer, and a couple years before we knew she had colon cancer, I remember having a conversation with her where she basically said she wasn’t afraid to die. She was ready to go to Heaven. She said the only thing she really feared was if she ever got cancer, and then she ended up getting colon cancer. We didn’t know she had it. She had started to have some pains that were getting uncomfortable, so at one point, we were at the beach for a little time away, and they were getting a little too strong. So when we got back to Lima, we went in and had her checked, a little checkup and turned out that she had a very extensive colon cancer, but we were able to get some good medical treatment here.
 
Jim: Kathy had a lifesaving surgery in Peru and initially appeared to be cancer-free. She and Rick decided to take their branch of the family back to the U.S. for a yearlong furlough.

Phil: Back in the States, Kathy wasn’t feeling well and after several doctor’s visits, she received troubling news.

Rick:
00:19:21 It was essentially stage 4 colon cancer and spreading very, very quickly. So there wasn’t really anything at that point for her to do. They gave her essentially a six-to-eight-month time frame. But even in that, God blessed us; we were in the States to travel, and that’s when COVID hit. COVID shut everything down, so we were not able to travel, to visit churches, so it gave us basically a year—the way we look at it, the way I look at it, honestly, is that she could have died with the first diagnosis of cancer. In fact, she almost did, but God gave us a year, almost a year and a half, extra with Kathy during that time. And having COVID, as bad as that was, it allowed us to live in the same city with all four of our daughters for a time. So it was definitely a wonderful, almost relaxed, time that we were able to say goodbye to Kathy.
 
Phil: It was on Oct. 28, 2020, that Kathy passed away, at age 51.
 
Rick:
00:20:21 I remember one of the last looks that she gave me, essentially on her deathbed, that I kind of got her attention and she looked up at me and, you know, her look was more like, Oh, I’m still here? [chuckle] You know, that was how the look came across. It was like, she was ready, she was ready to head on, she was ready to be in Heaven, so it was amazing.
 
Jim: Kathy left behind Rick and their four college-aged girls. She also left behind her parents, Carolyn and Tom.

Phil: And Tom was having some health issues of his own by that time. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and then with mesothelioma—that’s cancer that was caused by working with asbestos when he was younger.

Jim: Tom died on Nov. 8, 2022, two years after his daughter, Kathy. He was 79 years old and recently celebrated his 60th wedding anniversary with Carolyn. He died in Peru, where he had dedicated his entire adult life. About 600 people attended his wake … a testament to the impact he and his family have had there. 

Carolyn:
00:21:20 And the next day, I don’t know, 2- or 300 that went to the cemetery. And the thing was that the service itself was not sad. We sang and just praised the Lord, and people would give their testimony and tell Him how thankful—there really weren’t a lot of tears, you know? They were just so thankful that God had brought Tom here and that he stayed and that he, that through him, they had come to know the Lord, and it was just a real blessing. It was amazing.
 
Jim: We talked to Carolyn about losing both her daughter and her husband just two years apart. Once again, her deep faith was on display.

Carolyn:
00:22:08 Well, naturally, it does affect you. And, at times, it’s hard, but I have to say the Lord has just been so faithful. He has been so good. Even though I really, really miss both of them, and yet Tom would say, he would say, You know, it’s just like changing addresses. [laugh]

Phil: It’s been just three years since Kathy ‘changed addresses,’ and only one year since Tom joined his daughter. Both Carolyn and Rick are back in Peru, continuing the work they started with their spouses.

Jim: We asked them about the source of their strength as they continue to minister to the people of Peru.

Rick:
00:22:48 Well, for me, it’s the relationship with God, knowing that He’s in control and He’s in charge. And then also with Kathy, especially as she went through, knowing that she had cancer and knowing that she was going to be headed to Heaven. I think even before that, even with the conversation I mentioned, our focus, her focus was that, hey, God’s in control. He’s allowed us to be here. He’s protecting us. We are doing what He wants us to do. And yeah, so I can’t imagine going to another country or even going through something like cancer or a death of a loved one without knowing Christ, without knowing God, so it’s definitely relationship with God that has allowed it, so much to go well. 

Carolyn:
00:23:25 I think ditto. [chuckle] That really is true. You know, just the Lord is so faithful, and He’s faithful in good times, and He’s faithful in the bad times. No matter where we are or what it, we know that He’s close by and that we can call on Him at any time, and that nothing’s going to happen that He doesn’t allow. And, He’s just faithful. He’s wonderful.

MUSIC TRANSITION

Jim: You’ve been listening to Carolyn Pace and her son-in-law, Rick Anderson. They both lost their partners in life and in ministry. But it’s clear that they are trusting God in the midst of those losses—and they’re both continuing to serve Him in Peru.

Phil: If you want to have the same kind of strength and peace that Rick and Carolyn have, we want to let you know that you can, but it only comes through faith in Jesus Christ. He is the One who makes it possible for us to be reunited with our loved ones in Heaven. 

Jim: If you feel a call on your heart to put your faith in Jesus Christ, you can make that decision right now. Go to FindPeaceWithGod.net to take that next step. Once more, that’s FindPeaceWithGod.net. In just a moment, you’ll hear a quick word from Billy Graham and from next week’s guest in our “Going Into All the World” series.

MUSIC STARTS

Voice-over: You’re listening to GPS: God. People. Stories., a podcast production of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Billy Graham:
00:25:06 “Go … and teach all nations,” Jesus said.

Voice-over: Billy Graham …

Billy Graham:
00:25:10 Nations, like individuals, are either being drawn nearer to God or they’re being drawn away from Him by their own apathy, indifference, materialism, and secularism. As I’ve traveled through Latin America, I’ve been particularly burdened for the great cities of Latin America. Some of the most dedicated Christians I’ve ever known in my life are here in Latin America, living in great difficulty, but living gloriously and triumphantly for Christ. We’re to teach the truth about man and his sin, about God, His holiness, His judgment, His love. We are to teach that Christ is the way, the truth and the life, and that no man cometh to the Father except by Him. We are to teach that man is a sinner, Christ a Savior, that there’s a Heaven to gain and a Hell to shun. Will you trust the Savior today?

MUSIC FADES

Jim: If you’d like to know more about what it means to trust Jesus as your Savior, we are here to help. Go visit FindPeaceWithGod.net. Or, call our 24-hour prayer line: 855-255-PRAY. That’s 855-255-7729. 

Phil: Our November series, “Going Into All the World,” continues next week. You’re going to hear from a husband and wife who have been working to help women in Southeast Asia who’ve been caught up in human trafficking.

Debbie Stutzman:
00:26:33 One thing led to another and we ended up taking our prayer meeting from people’s living rooms to the red-light district and began walking the streets there and going into the bars and talking with the women who were basically trapped in that situation there. 

Phil: God is using this couple to help change lives. We have to be careful how we tell their story because of security concerns. You don’t want to miss it, so be sure you’re subscribed to GPS. 

We want to thank Rick Anderson and Carolyn Pace for sharing their story with us on this episode, and we want to thank you for listening. I’m Phil Fleischman.

Jim: And I’m Jim Kirkland. GPS: God. People. Stories., it’s an outreach of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association—Always Good News.

CLOSING MUSIC

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