Wilber Centeno’s business consumed his life.
Uprooting his family from their town in the Peruvian jungle, he had established a successful furniture manufacturing company in Lima—but his skyrocketing financial achievement came at the cost of his marriage.
As relational fractures compounded, Wilber told his wife, Elizabeth, “We can’t go on any longer. Take the things you want, and I’ll keep what remains.” Angry and heartbroken, Elizabeth left him to raise their four children alone. Their teenagers rebelled, blaming him for destroying the family, and they began to encounter immoral influences at school. At a loss, Wilber convinced Elizabeth to return. They coexisted separately in the same house.
Elizabeth had always considered herself spiritual. While searching for a church, she struck up a conversation with a man in their neighborhood who revealed he was the pastor of an evangelical church two blocks away. Elizabeth and the children began attending.
Wilber watched them skeptically. His experience in the business world led him to believe churches were corrupt, only after people’s money. He criticized his family week after week until curiosity overcame his reluctance to visit.
“Everyone greeted me kindly, as if they had known me all my life,” he recalled. Their warm welcome shattered his preconceptions. He agreed to attend an evangelistic Bible study based on ABWE’s The Story of Hope.
“After three months, I understood that salvation was only through faith in Jesus Christ—that neither works, nor money, nor anything I can do would save me,” he declared.
Desiring to make his new faith public, he and Elizabeth joined the church baptism class.
“As I listened to Elizabeth, it became evident that she knew the gospel but had not actually made a profession of faith,” observed ABWE missionary Jon Stone. “I asked if she would like to do that, and she did, right there in the class.”
Wilber and Elizabeth began following Christ whole-heartedly. They reconciled and were baptized in December 2024. A year later, so were their children.
“This is a church of families,” said ABWE missionary Steve Frerichs. “We want to reach the hearts of the adults, youth, and kids.” Burdened for their neighborhood, Steve and his wife, Kelley, began this congregation in 2011 with six other missionaries and 30 believers sent from another church. Since then, it has grown to 250.
Wilber actively serves in the church and shares the gospel through his business. He attends an ABWE seminary to prepare for full-time ministry, whether by planting a church near his factory or by returning to the jungle as a Peruvian missionary.
“I am here because of God’s work,” he reflected, “and he will continue to guide me.”
