Warden family leaves to help folks in Peru

MOSES LAKE - Peru is calling Brad and Lici Roth and their two sons, Mateo and Elijah.

The Roths have lived in Warden for the past five years and will spend a year in Cuzco, Peru, on a mission assignment for Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM).

For the past five years, Brad has been the pastor of the Warden Mennonite Church. Lici worked as an outreach coordinator for the Moses Lake Community Health Center.

It was Warden's large Hispanic population that drew the couple to Warden in the first place, said Brad. After he completed seminary in Indiana, he looked for a congregation doing cross-cultural ministry.

Now their interest in working with other cultures is taking them to another country.

"We've always had the desire to share some of the gifts we've been able to hone here overseas," said Brad. "We started looking around and saw that there were some possibilities for us to go to Peru."

The mission built a school in Cuzco and much of the Roth family's work will be there, said Brad. He will be leading a spiritual emphasis week for the kids and doing English language workshops with a spiritual emphasis for the school's teachers. The Roth children will attend the school as students.

Lici will work with La Fuente, a health clinic for low-income members of the indigenous population.

Brad met Lici in Peru.

"I studied my junior year in college in Arequipa, which is in the south of Peru, and I met my wife then when she came with another group of students for a conference that was going on," said Brad. "I made friends with that group of students and kept in touch with them and came to visit them in Lima. The relationship with my wife kind of continued to grow and after I returned to the United States and finished my studies, it kind of blossomed into something more than just friendship and we ended up getting married."

Cuzco, which is in the mountains of southern Peru, is quite different from Lici's native Lima, said Brad.

"It's kind of a different culture," he said. "Lima is a very large city - it's about 8 million people - whereas Cuzco is much more indigenous. A lot of folks there speak an indigenous language called Quechua, which is the language that was spoken in the Inca empire before the Spanish ever arrived. So there is kind of a different feel to the life in Cuzco than in Lima."

The presence of Mennonite churches in the Cuzco area has grown, said Brad. Often, indigenous communities in the area are not accessible by car, he said.

While the family is looking forward to the opportunities their time in Peru will give them, they also appreciate their time in Warden, said Brad.

"We are so grateful to have come to Warden," he said. "The congregation gave me the space I needed to grow into my role as pastor and the community welcomed us with open arms."

In addition to working as the pastor of the Warden Mennonite Church, Brad served as a coordinator for the Warden Food Pantry.

"That's been a way for me to connect with folks in need in the community," he said, adding that the food pantry is a ministry of the Warden Ministerial Alliance.

Brad worked hard to secure the pantry's status as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, said Wanda Dorsing, a Warden Mennonite Church member. Dorsing is working to help get the word out about the Roth's upcoming missionary work.

Last year, Brad wrote a vacation Bible school program based on the Biblical book of Revelation, which included original music written by another pastor.

Lici has worked to raise awareness of health and family nutrition issues among the Hispanic population in Moses Lake and Warden. She helped create the annual Children's Day festival in Warden, which started in 2007 as a health fair, said Brad.

When the event was branded as a health fair, not many people showed up, he said.

"But then she and some other people got the idea to do the Children's Day festival, which is a recognized Mexican holiday and something people are looking to celebrate," he said.

While the event featured many of the same health-related booths, the re-branded festival has had upwards of 500 people attend every year, said Brad.

"That's becoming something that has shown momentum and we're hoping to see that continue even when we leave," said Brad.

"We've been really grateful to be able to connect in the community of Warden and to be able to walk alongside folks," Brad said. "People have been very welcoming."

The Roth family will keep a record of their time in Peru online at www.facebook.com/rothsinperu.

Donations to support the Roth's mission to Peru can be designated for "Brad and Lici Roth" and sent to the EMM at PO BOX 458 Salunga, PA 17538.