I never planned to end up in the highlands of Guatemala.

Starting in 2000, I began making trips there to serve alongside local communities. I wasn't trying to build an organization. I just kept going back.

In early 2009, that work became something with a name: Mission Guatemala. The following year, my friend Dave Burns and I found a site in San Andrés Semetabaj, a small town near Lake Atitlán, and began turning a rundown building into a clinic and mission center.

I thought I'd stay a year, maybe two. God had other plans.

We started with almost nothing—a leased building, a handful of volunteers, and the belief that something good could grow there. Over the next decade, Mission Guatemala grew to include a medical clinic, a nutrition program, scholarships, vocational training, and hundreds of mission teams from across the United States who came to work alongside us.

In 2020, after ten years of leasing, we were able to purchase the property. That felt like a kind of homecoming.

The guiding idea has always been simple, borrowed from John Wesley: do all the good you can.

I spent ten years living and serving there before returning to Indiana. Dave Burns now leads the organization as Executive Director, and I've fully stepped back from its day-to-day work. But San Andrés and its people are still very much a part of me. I return every year—not to run anything, but to keep the friendships alive.

To learn more about Mission Guatemala or get involved, visit missionguatemala.com.