God has blessed our Church with the opportunity to teach and minister to Central America, the Blacksburg area, and local Universities.
In 1986, a Virginia Tech Student from Honduras, Noe Perez, introduced the Blacksburg Church to the mission work in Central America and to the Baxter Institute. Baxter Institute is a four-year Bible College that serves Latin America. Its clinics provide free medical, dental, and prosthetic care, serving the needs of many people. Students from eleven Latin countries study there and, after graduation, return to their home countries to teach.
VCOM medical school has partnered with the clinic at Baxter Institute. While at the clinics, patients are invited to student led Bible studies. For families that are suffering from malnutrition, food is provided for one year, and in that year, the mother takes classes for sewing, barber/beautician, or restaurant food preparation and service so she will be able to provide for her family.
The Medical Clinic at Baxter, provides medicine and health care to more than 12,000 patients annually. As of December 2023, the Hope To Walk clinic has built and fitted over 1000 legs.
The Blacksburg church has been able to send our youth groups to Central America where they have built clinics and helped with many other needs for the people.
Loy Burch
Mary Burch, ( UL) Loy Burch, and Noe Perez
Foreign Missions
“He said to them,
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.””
This is a fabulous report on our international program.
This is a fabulous report on our international program.
Dean Sutphin - Elder Blacksburg Church of Christ
Noted the Bible classes and training are not academic study. Rather purposeful, intentional preparation for growth, evangelism and teaching others.
Reports highlight new contacts which show the congregations are fulfilling their purpose and implementing what they are being taught. It is what they have on their minds as their most valuable outcome.
The ministers and members are dedicating their time and study across Latin America in this ways to grow their congregation and start others. This is what Lupe, our visiting minister shared in the evangelism workshop Saturday night and reinforced Sunday as the reason for the growth in Churches of Christ across Latin America.
Most ministers are vocational self supporting serving the congregation. And many of the members live on dirt floors, some without electricity and running water; some living on less than a dollar a day. Just shows what can be done with passion and discipline and effective ministry; even with limited resources in very poor communities.
I don’t know of any church in the US comparable size that is doing more than Blacksburg congregation.
Very proud of the network of church plants in Honduras, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and other locations the Blacksburg church is helping support in collaboration with Baxter Preacher Training School, contacts in country and key leaders in local communities.
Commendations to Loy and Mary Burch for leadership of our international outreach. And many others who have contributed funds and travel to support these international locations with construction, teaching and community service.
It has been a blessing to go to many of these churches to provide medical care through VCOM and related support. Meeting physical needs in conjunction with spiritual. I’m thankful for the opportunities, blessed many times over.
I hope that others will have similar opportunities to experience the blessings that come with our international outreach contributions and connections. From experience, you are blessed when you give of yourself in these communities.
Sorry for the long email, just on my heart to share praise for the wonderful work.
Teaching Christ to the World
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Baxter Institute
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Honduras Mission History
Interview with Loy burch
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Honduras/Dominican Republic & VCOM
Interview with Dean Sutphin on the BCOC relationship with VCOM, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic. mission work
VCOM - Baxter - BCOC
Baxter Clinic
Through Baxter's newly renovated clinic, 13,000 patients per year are able to see the doctor, pediatrician, or dentist and receive their medications for just $2.00 Our doctors also help visiting groups set up medical brigades throughout the surrounding area. Baxter also joins with VCOM medical schools in the States for large medical brigades. VCOM medical students come to campus for one-month rotations to work in Baxter's clinic and in two Honduran national hospitals. The clinic also manages a nutrition program for malnourished children in the community. The program gives food staples every 10 days, health care in the clinic, and training in sewing or cosmetology for the mothers. Our hope is to offer the mothers a trade that they can use to support their children after their year in the nutrition program. Supporting a child in the nutrition program costs just $45 a month.
The clinic provides medical, dental, and pharmaceutical services to over 13,000 patients each year. The full-time staff are assisted by both visiting medical missions groups from churches and universities in the United States and also by medical students from Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM).
VCOM
Blacksburg Campus
Baxter Clinic
