In Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, neglected and disadvantaged children are finding a home in a ministry borne out of a team effort by North Carolina Baptists.

Roger and Vicki Grossmann, who first came to Guatemala as International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries more than three decades ago, founded the Good Shepherd Children’s Home in 2014.

Volunteer teams with Baptists on Mission (BOM) helped construct two additional cottages that house older children. But even before the home opened, BOM sent teams in 2010 to help construct a training center, where conferences are held for youth, women, pastors and other leaders. BOM volunteers have also conducted mobile medical clinics and led training sessions there.

“BOM was the earliest partner and with us from the beginning,” Vicki said. Throughout heightened difficulties over the past two years, BOM remained a strong partner.

“I think we have all been inspired over the years by the vision that Roger and Vicki have for reaching the K’iche’ people for Christ,” said Mark Abernathy, BOM’s consultant for partnership missions.

“Many who go develop a love for the K’iche’ people and return year after year.”

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In 2012, the Baptist Children’s Homes of North Carolina (BCH) linked arms with Good Shepherd by providing technical assistance and helping raise financial support when Roger and Vicki acquired a children’s home from a local Guatemalan charity. The Good Shepherd Home is now an affiliate of BCH.

“They [BCH] have given the children’s homes ministry needed help, direction and counseling,” said Vicki. 

Early in the Grossmanns’ ministry, the couple recognized a need to unite six small K’iche’ (Quiché) churches, the oldest of which was planted 50 years prior to their work. The K’iche’ people group is one of the largest Mayan linguistic groups in the country, located in seven of Guatemala’s 22 departments (geographic entities). 

In the 1990s, the Grossmanns taught community health leaders in Cobán, Guatemala, where they saw a small training center that housed pastors and leaders who traveled from rural areas for training. That inspired their vision for a center to help bring together the K’iche’ churches. It would become what is now the Good Shepherd Center, which consists of the training center, children’s homes and a medical clinic.

Roger directs church planting, leadership development and theological education. Vicki, whose background and expertise in healthcare, supervises the children’s homes, as well as medical school students who come to the center every six months from a national university. She also directs the children’s medical and dental care. Together they advocate for policies and change that benefit children in Guatemala.

A providential partnership

Baptist Children’s Homes recently commissioned a couple to work full-time with the Grossmanns in Guatemala – the latest development in a partnership that has only grown closer through the years, said Keith Henry, BCH Chief Operating Officer.

The affiliation’s start was an “amazing event of God’s timing,” Henry said. 

More than 10 years ago, before BCH began any work outside of the United States, BCH supporters asked about ways to help children in other countries. Henry, along with BCH President Michael Blackwell and Brenda Gray, executive vice president of development and communications, committed to pray about an international effort.

“Many who go develop a love for the K’iche’ people and return year after year.”

Mark Abernathy

Within days, Henry received a call from Roger Nix, then director of missions for the Raleigh Baptist Association. Nix told him he had some friends from Guatemala who wanted to meet him.

“I said ‘sure,’” Henry recalled. “I had no idea what they wanted.”

When they met, Vicki and Roger shared that they had been asked, for years, by a local organization, to take their facility and serve children through it. The couple had repeatedly declined because they sensed they weren’t equipped or prepared for the responsibility – until Bob Stewart, a member of Good Shepherd’s board of directors, encouraged them to consider the ministry. 

“‘Just last week we said we need to pray about what the possibility might be. You show up on my doorstep a few days later,’” Henry told them. “‘I’m not sure what else God can do to let us know that this is it.’”

They weren’t sure what the next steps would look like at the time, but all agreed that “we were going to be obedient in that.”

It took almost two years to open the home’s doors. In light of cases and issues surrounding sex trafficking, BCH and Good Shepherd wanted to ensure that they were fully transparent with their purpose and underwent an “extremely grueling” process of getting licensed by the Guatemalan government. 

Guatemalans continue to face challenges from COVID-19 and civil unrest, Henry said, asking North Carolina Baptists to pray for the ministry there, including the possibility of facilitating adoptions.

North Carolina Baptists across different organizations “have been the wind under our sails,” said Vicki Grossmann.

“We cherish the friendships we have made among them more than they can know. The prayers, encouragement and friendship are highly valued by us.”