How did a Peruvian from the jungle end up marrying a Mexican from Morelos?
The first time our passports were together in the same bag, we were just beginning to plan our life as a family. We were two people who spoke the same language, with customs different enough to confuse us several times a day — “ahorita” does not mean the same thing in Peru as in Mexico, and that is only the beginning.
What we did have in common, even before we met, was a question neither of us could shake off: why are there whole peoples without the Bible in their own language, and why don’t they have enough help to properly understand the portions they do have? Each of us arrived at that question on our own. At some point, the two paths turned out to be the same — the one Revelation 7:9 describes: a multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language, before the throne. That “every language” is not a poetic figure. It is the reason we exist as a family.
José Rosas (Pepe)
Pucallpa, Peru · Language Technology Coordinator · SIL Global
I grew up in Pucallpa thinking about computers, not missions. What changed me was not something sudden: it was nine years wrestling with the idea of serving in missions, while God tore down my fears one by one. When He finally gave me the strength, He also gave me the conviction not to turn back. The trip to visit some missionary friends in the jungle was the confirmation: seeing a DirecTV dish on the roof of a house in the middle of the jungle was the sign that there really was room for technology in missions. Since 2013 I have worked with SIL Global in language technology, supporting translation teams across the Americas. Today I coordinate that area for the continent.
Miriam Maya
Cuautla, Morelos, Mexico · Language Development Team — South America · SIL Global
I grew up in Cuautla, Morelos. I trained to teach English, which was what I knew how to do and what I loved. I did not imagine that road would lead me to languages with no complete Bible, no well-established grammar, and no readers with a solid enough foundation to understand what they read. Since 2018 I have worked with SIL Global in Language Development, and at the BMA I work directly with the nomatsiguenga community. It is not abstract work: it is sitting down with people to work on their own language, in their own place.
2025: we arrived at the BMA
Already serving as trainers in projects across the Americas with SIL, we felt the Lord’s call to focus our work on one specific indigenous group. With that in mind, we visited the Antioquia Mission Base (BMA) a year earlier to weigh becoming part of it. The answer came, and in 2025 we packed up — quite a bit more luggage than when we were single.
The BMA is a community of missionary families who live, work and make mistakes together, alongside the nomatsiguenga people. Since we arrived, the field and the network stopped being two separate worlds.
Get to know the fieldSIL Global, with whom we also serve, has no denominational flag: it works shoulder to shoulder with churches and missions from different traditions that share this same cause.
Get to know the network