They had no contacts, and they didn’t know where they were going to spend the night. Luis Baltazar and Hugo Gonzalez recently traveled to a South Asian city to discover whether there were any believers among an unreached people group. The hotels they walked into were too expensive. The weather was also bad, which made everything more stressful.
They decided to stop for ice cream and regroup. This pitstop turned out to be the turning point in their search.
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Gonzalez and Baltazar moved to South Asia from Venezuela to serve as Global Missionary Partners. GMPs are financially supported by their sending church or organization and serve with IMB teams. The IMB team ministers to 17 people groups.
The men met at a training at Baltazar’s church in Venezuela, and they went through the same sending organization that trains and sends missionaries from Latin American countries.
Ice cream and bumper stickers
The wall of the apartment they share has pieces of paper pinned to the wall. One column has the label “English,” and another for the local language.
Eight months ago, Gonzalez could not speak English or the language of the South Asian country. For six months, both he and Baltazar studied the local language for four hours a day, and Gonzalez also spent four hours a day studying English.
Now, both Gonzalez and Baltazar actively and successfully seek out, find and train believers using the predominant language in the most unreached areas where their IMB team serves. Gonzalez is also now comfortable using English.
IMB missionary James Andretti said the GMPs are pioneers and live in strategic places with the least amount of access to the gospel.
“These guys love and invest deeply in their national partners, helping our team with our goal of ‘going farther’ into unreached areas, and ‘going deeper’ in discipleship,” Andretti said.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Tessa Sanchez and originally published by the International Mission Board. Some names changed for security reasons.
