Brotherhood. This was the lesson being taught in Jalapa, Guatemala, said IBSA Mission Director Shannon Ford. Four Illinois Baptist pastors joined Ford in April for a weeklong trip to the Central American country. Practical ministry training for Guatemalan pastors was the goal, but Ford said the trip to sparked a renewed sense of the importance of the mutual encouragement and equipping found in a network of brothers in Christ.
The group of five included Ford, Carlton Binkley of Tabernacle Church in Decatur, Noah Lee of Tremont Church in Tremont, Rob Mathis of Oak Grove Church in Pinckneyville, and Jesse Webster of Sugar Camp Church in Mt. Vernon. They were hosted by Otto Echeverria, a former Guatemalan Baptist Convention President, who serves as a pastor and leadership coordinator within the local Southeast Baptist Association of Churches.
Binkley has a long history of missions work with Echeverria and churches in Guatemala. This was his seventeenth trip.
“When I was at First Baptist Woodlawn, there was a group of men who really wanted to be involved in international missions. We ended up in Guatemala through a mutual friend,” Binkley explained. That led to a connection with Echevarria. “We went to work with his church, and we’ve done pastor conferences and evangelistic work all over the country down there.”
The Decatur pastor, who currently serves as Vice President of the Illinois Baptist State Association, and Ford connected around the idea of planning a trip for a small group of Illinois pastors.
A conversation about the importance of churches having a well-rounded missions strategy led to the two planning the trip. Ford said, “The idea is that a trip like this can help them have a fresh mission trip experience, and also inspire them to lead a trip for their church.”
![Jalapa cemetery](https://illinoisbaptist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Jalapa.png)
The colorful cemetery is a main feature of Jalapa, Guatemala, a city of 160,00 at the base of three mountains.
Local pastors, global impact
Ford spent over 20 years with the International Mission Board (IMB) serving among the European People Group in places including Ukraine and the Czech Republic. His work with mission field leadership training and church planting networks gives him a wealth of experience and international connections to draw upon.
Once the destination of Jalapa was set, he immediately reached out to IMB personnel in Guatemala to ask questions about the region and the state of the churches.
Even with more than 3,000 field personnel, IMB missionaries can’t be everywhere. But they often have strategic working relationships with other missionary organizations in the region or have knowledge of other work in the country.
That on-the-ground information is invaluable to churches seeking to establish an overseas missions presence. Working with Ford or through IMB field personnel can help a church avoid a mission trip or partnership experience that ends poorly due to unforeseen concerns like a lack of clear missions strategy or ethical issues with local leadership.
Once on the ground in Jalapa, about three hours east of the capital of Guatemala City, the Illinois Baptist team spent their days training pastors and their evenings preaching in local churches. Rather than using a published curriculum, the team taught through the New Testament book of Titus for the pastor training.
“It was Noah Lee’s idea to work through the book of Titus,” Binkley said. “We decided that there was no better material. Paul writes to Titus and says, ‘Here are these things. Set up elders in these churches. You do these things personally.’ We get to actually teach pastors what a pastor is supposed to be, which was the original first century purpose of the book.”
The Illinois team shared daily teaching duties, with each member leading an assigned section of Titus through a translator. About seven local pastors from this underserved part of the country took part in the daily training. One man shared that in his 30 years as a pastor in that area, this was the first time anyone had come to help them. “He was ecstatic,” Binkley said.
Trip bands brothers
As is often the case on mission trips, some of the most significant spiritual work happened in the missionaries along the way, rather than in the plans.
“You feel like you may pour out into these people, but really what you find is they welcome and pour into you, and you leave full, you leave refreshed, you leave edified, and strengthened onward for the service,” the youngest pastor on the trip, Jesse Webster, said.
He had not been on a foreign mission trip in his 13 years of ministry. Experiencing the simple joy and hospitality of the Central American believers made an impact on him.
“There is a culture of love that comes in the bond of Christ,” he said. But the larger impact was in the brotherhood he experienced with his Illinois team and the Guatemalan pastors.
Like most pastors, Webster’s ministry can feel lonely at times. “I’m the only teacher. I’m filling the pulpit, I’m doing the Sunday school, I’m doing the Sunday nights, men’s Bible studies.”
“Thrust into the pastoral ministry” at just age 26 after five years of youth ministry, Webster said he has spent much of the last eight years “trying to figure out what it means to be a pastor and how to do it.” The busy schedule of a bi-vocational pastor made it difficult for him to make these connections in his local rhythms of the day-job, a growing family, and church responsibilities.
Seeking greater pastoral brotherhood, he jumped at the opportunity for this trip.
“And wouldn’t you know it, I’m here hungering for an older guy to pour into me like Paul to Titus, and God sits me next to Rob (Mathis) on every plane flight. We roomed together. It was an answer to prayer,” Webster said.
“He was just very open with where he was, with his family, and ministry,” Mathis said, as he talked about the connection the two made during travel, mealtimes, and doing home visits with local churches. “We just got to spend a lot of time together.”
That connection and encouragement was also felt between the Illinois and Guatemalan pastors. Mathis, the elder statesman of the team who has been at his church for 25 years and led pastor trainings in numerous countries over the years, said the loneliness and feelings of inadequacy, as well as the hunger for pastoral brotherhood, are always present. “The need is the same. It’s transnational. It’s a spiritual thing.”
“I was able to relate so much with these pastors because they were in very similar situations that I am,” Webster said.
“One pastor, he’s got his own business, he’s been working full-time. He’s thrust into pastoral ministry in the last year. He loves his people, but he’s discouraged. They don’t have the resources or money they need… So I’m able to share with him that I’m right where he’s at. It’s exactly like our church. It’s a miracle that we stay open. Thousands of miles away. Here I am, able to share with him what God’s done for me, and it encourages him.”