The Kekchi People

The Kekchi are the second largest indigenous group in Guatemala numbering at over 1.1 million. Over 700,000 of them live in Petén. There are countless Kekchi villages that still have no Gospel. Most of these villages are closed to outsiders, even Guatemalans, but God has been opening doors. 78% only speak Kekchi. We are partnering with nationals to reach their own people.

Present Works: A great work was started with the Kekchi people in Alta Verapaz (the department south of Petén) over 35 years ago. God blessed and the ministry grew. Just a few years ago several of the pastors from that work moved north to reach the many unreached Kekchi villages in Petén. These pastors formed their own group called “The Kekchi Baptist Churches of Petén.” Currently there are 62 Kekchi nationals that are members of this association. The purpose of this group is encouragement, accountability, training, and furthering the Gospel throughout Petén. Most of these pastors still live in the SW part of Petén.

Equipping Nationals: A few of these pastors have a good Biblical foundation, but the vast majority have very little Bible training. Due to the fact that they are spread all over the jungle, they need help getting to a central location to study. We bring these pastors together on a regular basis to give them more tools that they can take back to their homes and their people. While we are helping to train these pastors with existing works, they are helping us to build a full-time institute (KBI) to train men called from these churches to establish new churches in the hundreds of unreached villages throughout the rest of Petén.

On the Field: In order to better train them in this culture we need to experience it ourselves. We work closely with a national Kekchi pastor in Poptún in a new church plant. (The only Kekchi speaking church in that city). We also work very closely with 2 Kekchi national missionaries scouting out "white fields", Kekchi villages without any christians or church of any kind. We host medical clinics and evangelistic outreaches in these unreached communities in order to build relationships to open doors for a church to be planted in the future.

Radio Work: The main arm of Kekchi evangelism is the radio station "Berea." This station is 100% supported financially by the national Kekchi churches here and is the only radio station of any kind to be broadcast only in Kekchi. We have partnered with Lifeword, a US based ministry specializing in indigenous language broadcasts around the world, to provide culturally specific, dynamic programming for use on the radio, as well as follow up techniques and reporting. It is with this group that we are working to provide repeater stations to broadcast Radio Berea to the rest of Petén and thus open up more villages to the gospel.