A Wilderness Transformation—the Kekchí Indian Story
On a desert highway in Guatemala, in 1962, God spoke clearly to Lindwall letting him know that he was to go as a missionary to Cobán—a remote place beyond two mountain ranges reached by a six hour drive from a paved highway on a narrow dirt road. Lindwall knew nothing about the place but told his wife about this call. A woman of great courage, she quietly answered “OK.” In 1963, they moved their young family there and started learning the Kekchi Indian language, the dominant language used throughout that area. They had completed their study of Spanish just two years earlier! While studying Kekchi, the couple started disciple-making efforts at three different locations, including two coffee plantations. On one of those plantations, they found an Indian who spoke both Spanish and Kekchi and had been saved in prison years before. He and another man there were the only born-again Christians likely to have been found in an area of more than 100 square miles. The dominant faith of the area was spiritism and the religious rulers of the area were witch doctors. (Read more) For the first three or four months, there were no signs of spiritual results or decisions among the workers on the plantation. Then, one night, a man and his wife, accompanied by two little children, came out of the darkness and said, “We will obey the Lord Jesus!” In the following weeks, other families followed their example. Other Southern Baptist missionaries were assigned to the area and before the couple left for the USA on furlough, 18 Kekchi Indian families had been baptized and were training to be missionaries.
How did God begin this work? The missionary took a light plant, projector and a film series on the Life of Christ every Tuesday night. It was an instant hit and worker families from all over the plantation came for the only diversion available anywhere. When he brought the light plant, it was the only time any of them saw lights at night when darkness brought immediate boredom. As they saw the film series, for the first time they learned about Christ. Every week’s message was simply a commentary on the film they had just seen. Boredom became the Christian workers’ best friend and the three Indian believers made good use of it. Talking to a fellow worker, they asked, “Would you like for us to come to your house to sing tonight?” Of course! So they came, bringing two candle-power of lights, and sang gospel songs in Kekchi. To this, they added a Bible reading, testimonies about their lives in Christ, and prayed for the family. “Did you like that?” they asked. Of course! Would you like us to come back next week on the same night and we’ll do it again. Soon they had a six night schedule of home visitation-meetings. Soon, neighbors went with them and the houses, with dirt floors, walls made of bare upright branches and roofs of palm leaf, were filled with happily standing neighbors—with as much candle-power as there were families present.
Manú, a typical householder, would eventually tell them, “I am ready to obey the Lord Jesus.” “What about María, your wife? Is she also ready? “ “No, not yet.” “Well then, don’t announce it yet. Wait till she is ready.” As a result of this unorthodox method, whole families were saved and none of the families were later lost by religious differences. They did this without consulting books on the subject. (None existed in Kekchi anyway!) They did not consult the missionary on the subject. But the Holy Spirit was with them and His instructions were surely the wisest they could get. The salvation experience was a moral commitment to Christ and not just a questionable affirmation of Bible truth.
Christ’s Great Commission was lived out to the letter, in the order it was given: Go out in to the world, make disciples there of the lost, baptize them upon their declaration of obedience to Christ, and train them to do everything he told them to do, including these four steps. Not only were souls saved—saved to become instant missionaries. They immediately joined in the nightly missionary procession and took their parts in the program. Baptists have long said, “Every Baptist a Missionary.” The Kekchi not only say it but they mean it!
The new converts began to leave the plantation and establish farms in the jungle lands at lower elevations. As soon as they had their first harvest in and their families’ lives were secure, several of them agreed to dedicate three weeks a month to their farms and one week to seeking villages in the jungle and to teach the people about God and the new life given in Jesus. One would walk into a remote village and ask, “Can I sing you some songs tonight?” Of course! And the church-planting process was started in that place. As a result, Baptist churches began to spring up in ever-widening circles in a vast wilderness area. The Lindwalls did not return to work in the Kekchi areas, but other IMB missionary families gave their entire missionary career to the movement. By latest count, there are more than 50,000 Kekchi Baptists. This movement began with two Kekchi men and a woman and a young IMB missionary couple. This spiritual movement was the fruit of the Cooperative Program of Southern Baptists in which God used the International Mission Board as His chief agent. With Cooperative Program funds and those of the Lottie Moon Christmas offerings, the International Mission Board sent this first couple to be followed by a growing crew of IMB missionaries for most of five decades. This gave birth to the Kekchi Baptist Association that is a part of the Convention of Baptist Churches of Guatemala. This demonstrates how Spirit-led denominational efforts can yield great fruit.
Lindwall became convinced that similar things could happen elsewhere and dedicated the following years of his life, even to the present day, to finding how many thousands can be brought to Christ by simple programs of Biblical disciple-making. This is the purpose of the Church on the March, and, through it, God is answering many prayers!
