ULTIMATE SACRIFICE - Gregory Gomez IV, 22, was killed in a bus accident July 5.
Peru (MNN) ― Near Abancay, Peru on July 5, student missionary Gregory Gomez IV of Natchez, Miss. was killed in a tragic bus accident. He had been researching unreached people groups with International Mission Board's REAP South team for the summer.
Lydia Shivar, another IMB student missionary, and Claudia, a national translator, received minor injuries in the accident.
Gomez, 22, recently graduated from the University of Mississippi with a degree in mechanical engineering. He was living near St. Louis, Mo. before his service in Peru. He deferred a good job offer in order to go to Peru, said Mo Baker, director of the Baptist Student Union at Ole Miss.
"Greg was doing what he considered to be the will of God," Baker said. "He knew God wanted the nations to hear the Gospel, and he was willing to forsake or delay a career -- opportunities to make money -- so that he could fulfill a mission to preach the Gospel to all the nations. This was his one big opportunity to do that, and that's why he chose to go. He went out doing what he felt called to do."
Gomez had been employed by the Nestlé Purina PetCare Product Technology Center as an engineering intern. The team on which he served in Peru is implementing a church-planting strategy called the Rapid Entry Advance Plan, or REAP. The strategy aims to establish indigenous church-planting movements among thousands of South American people groups that have no viable access to the Gospel.
"Our researchers do all the footwork to provide us with the information we need to know what areas to enter, how long it takes to get there and what we're going to find when we get there," said missionary Kathy Weaver. "It's been the crowning glory of our ministry to have these students here every summer - they're such an asset. It overwhelms me to see the spiritual depth that they have."
Gomez was also a member of Bethel Baptist Church in Troy, Ill., and had attended North Oxford Baptist Church in Oxford, Miss. He had served on the Baptist Student Union leadership team as campus chapter president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, vice president of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity, and a member of the Engineering Student Body Executive Council. He was involved in discipleship and small-group Bible studies.
He is survived by his parents, Elida and Gregory Gomez III, of Glen Carbon, Ill., and two sisters. Funeral arrangements are pending.
