Get to Know the Peren Family

Ministry Description

Learn more about the ministry in Panama.

About Gilberto

I was born into a Catholic home, and from a very young age I was close to the church—even serving as an altar boy. However, growing up surrounded by religion didn’t mean I truly knew God.
At 17, I walked away, focusing on my work and my own path. I would return to church only in moments of guilt, trying to “clean up” what I had done… but in reality, my life was far from God. I knew He existed, but I didn’t know Him. I didn’t know Christ.
Over time, my life became completely centered on me: my business, my goals, my desires. And among those desires, sex became an escape. I lived in promiscuity, moving from one relationship to another, trying to fill the emptiness inside me.
For a moment, it seemed to work… but it always ended the same way: more emptiness, more guilt, more loneliness.
Even though my life looked admirable on the outside, I was broken within. Surrounded by people, yet completely alone. Achieving things, yet living without purpose.
Until one day, in the middle of that emptiness, someone said something that changed the way I thought:
“Jesus is not a religion… He’s a relationship.”
That statement deeply confronted me. I thought I understood what a relationship was, but deep down I knew I had never had one with God.
So I decided to seek Him.
In February 2014, everything changed. That day I understood the weight of my sin. I realized it wasn’t just “my lifestyle”… it was rebellion against God. But I also understood something that broke my heart: the punishment I deserved, Christ took on the cross out of love.
In that moment, I was forgiven, cleansed, and made new.
I made the decision not to go back.
God didn’t just change my habits; He transformed my heart, my identity, and my purpose.
In 2016, I married my wife, and together we began to pray for something that felt impossible: to serve God full-time. We started with what we had—supporting ministries and placing all our resources in His hands.
Since 2021, God has used Word of Life as part of the answer to that prayer.
Today, we live convinced of this: if Christ could transform a life like mine, He can transform any life. That’s why we want to give everything we are so that more people can come to know Him.

"From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love". Ephesians 4:16

Contact Information

gperen@wol.org

Address:
Gilberto Peren
Word of Life Panama
PO Box 600
Schroon Lake, NY 12870