John Bonner is the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Lima. He and his family have been serving in Peru since 1999.
John remembers raising his hand to accept Jesus as his Savior at four years of age in the Christian elementary school he attended. He also remembers making Jesus his Lord after a Thursday night Bible study given by Pastor Chuck Smith in 1979. "Chuck was teaching on the end-times. I left the study very upset with Chuck and angry with God," John remembers, "It's not fair! The Lord's return is so close, and He's ruining the plans I have made
for my life." Although Jesus was his Savior since age four, John had not yet made Jesus his Lord until the end of a three-day inner struggle, and he finally handed the reigns of his life over to Jesus.
Soon, John left his four-year job at Pacific Telephone Company and went to Mexico in 1981 to serve as a missionary. During his nine years of ministry there, he met and married Pilar Moctezuma, who was serving as a missionary to her own people. It was in Mexico where Michelle and Jason were born.
John's ministry in Mexico began at the Calvary Chapel Language School in Alamos, Sonora and also included many years in Mexico City working with Juan Domingo and Horizon Christian Fellowship under Mike Macintosh. These formative years helped John develop a lifestyle of faith and where he caught a vision for large scale evangelistic events.
The Lord took the Bonner family, unexpectedly back to the States for a four-year season of ministry at Calvary Chapel of the Verde Valley in Cottonwood, Arizona, where John served an assistant pastor, and enjoyed the oversight of the church's House of Ruth Crisis Pregnancy Center. Joshua, the Bonner's youngest child, was born in Arizona, and it was at this time the church sent John to Peru on the first of several evangelistic efforts in 1990.
Sensing a need to complete his Bible training, John moved his family to Twin Peaks, California to study at Calvary Chapel Bible College where he graduated in 1996. Patiently waiting for the Lord to lead them back to the mission field, John worked on staff at the Twin Peaks Conference Center while serving at Calvary Chapel of Lake Arrowhead.
It was at this time that John authored his first book, The Daily Discipleship Journal, and presented a seminar on personal devotions he's been blessed to share at hundreds of Calvary Chapel churches throughout the United States. John had no idea how God would use the book and seminars to prepare the groundwork for the upcoming time of fruitful ministry in Peru.
Having learned patience, the Bonners were finally sent to Peru in 1999 to establish an extension campus of Calvary Chapel Bible College, where the ministry has grown and has produced much fruit to the glory of Jesus.
